More on the GOP's tactics

From Turkana at The Left Coaster.

The political impact of . . . [Obama's] speech is not yet clear. Polls indicate that the Jeremiah Wright controversy has seriously damaged Obama's candidacy, but it is too soon to tell if the speech turned that around. We won't know for several days. It's also not clear how the controversy and the speech will play out, over the political long haul. The Republicans smell blood, and anyone who understands Republican tactics knows that nothing is too vicious and relentless in Republican pursuit of electoral victory. Those Obama supporters who decry the occasionally tough campaign tactics of Hillary Clinton have no idea how relatively soft and civil those tactics have been.

Republicans don't seek merely to win campaigns, they seek to destroy people. Michael Dukakis was as decent a human being as has ever claimed a major party nomination, but by the time the Republicans were through with him, he was an unpatriotic patsy who was going to allow dangerous black criminals to murder and rape white mothers, sisters, and daughters. Al Gore had a reputation as a boy scout, and the Republicans turned him into a pathological liar. John Kerry risked his life in battle to save the lives of his fellow servicemen, and the Republicans turned him into a devious schemer who had failed in battle, lied to burnish his own credentials, then turned on the true patriots who had truly shown courage under fire. There is literally nothing beneath Republican tacticians, and once their 527s get ahold of the Wright videos, you will see him raving on television all day, every day. The question then will be whether the critical swing voters of Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri will base their votes on a glorious 35 minute speech or on omnipresent 30 and 60 second attack ads. . . .