Unfounded Republican attacks tarnished John Kerry’s war record – and Democrats were complacent. This time, Democrats must not be complacent in response to frivolous attacks on healthcare.

Tyler Bilbo, Staff Writer
Ideology: Yellow Dog Democrat | Writing from: Tulsa, OK

In the 2004 Presidential election, Bob Shrum and Mary Beth Cahill, John Kerry’s campaign managers, made one of the biggest tactical errors in the history of Presidential campaigns. Instead of responding to the swift boat veterans for truth, a 527 outfit that set out to tarnish John Kerry’s military record, he instructed his candidate to “float above” the attacks. Their refusal to counter the swift boat veterans with an equally intense rebuttal proved ineffective and John Kerry lost to George W. Bush.

It’s impossible to measure whether or not the swift boat ads singlehandedly caused Kerry’s close defeat. It is, however, a classic example of the American left’s cavalier dismissal of an opposing message that is deemed too crazy to deserve a response.

The recent outbursts against healthcare reform in town hall meetings exemplify Shrum and Cahill’s strategy of “floating above” the opposition. As conservative opponents of Congress’s healthcare plan mobilize, those of us who support reform remain pitifully immobile. In accordance with the elitist label that cultural conservatives ascribe to us, we scoff at the childish tantrums that constantly interrupt a member of Congress’s explanation of the healthcare bill. Although we eagerly tune in to MSNBC every night for the latest sound bite from a right-wing protester, we do not dignify these protests with a response. After all, these ridiculous images of uncontrollable anger are so embarrassing that it is best to let the protesters tarnish themselves without outside assistance. Once the protesters’ embarrassing antics flow through the media, the public will also dismiss them and they will fade into their tiny chapter in political history.

That line of reasoning, however, is severely flawed and places too much faith in the American people’s ability to arrive at a similar conclusion. According to Gallup, 34% of the country feels “more sympathetic to the protesters’ viewpoints” in light of the town hall protests while only 21% feels less sympathetic. Meanwhile, only 35% of Americans say that they support an urgent passage healthcare reform. That’s down six percent from late July, which was when these town hall protests began.

These numbers aren’t catastrophic for healthcare reform but they highlight the influence of political protest. Large scale protests reflect a high level of intensity within a particular political faction. During the Vietnam War, the anti-war movement mirrored the same general level of intensity that we see in the town hall protesters. Subsequently, the scale of the anti-war movement’s protests cultivated an image that made Americans look significantly more opposed to the Vietnam War than the country really was. Henceforth, supporters of the war were dubbed the “silent majority.”

The left has lost its angry swagger that characterized its opposition to the Vietnam War and the more recent Bush administration. Unfortunately, according to the latest Gallup poll, we can no longer even call ourselves the “silent majority” for healthcare reform. As the August recess draws to close, we must recall the old adage that “the best defense is a good offense.”

The town hall protesters have put those of us who support healthcare on defense and we desperately need a turnover. Our ability to assert an effective offense, however, hinges on a willingness to once again become the political activists we are when the Republicans are in power. Thus far, we have effectively defended against the protester’s most outrageous claims. But still we can spend all day debunking Sarah Palin’s bizarre notion of an institutionalized system of euthanasia and still fail to counter the intensity of the opposition.

This same inability to play offense is exactly what destroyed John Kerry against the swift boat veterans. John Kerry’s problem was not that he did not adequately defend his military record. What sunk Kerry against the swift boat veterans was his inability to see the bigger picture. Here you had a decorated war veteran running against a privileged draft dodger that had no problem with an outside party attacking Kerry’s military service. Kerry should have gone on the offense with a message that highlighted the absurdity of the swift boat veterans’ shameful attacks on behalf of President who never even served in the military.

I would offer the same type of advice to my fellow supporters of healthcare reform. We need to turn off MSNBC and actually attend these town hall meetings. We need to organize the kinds of demonstrations that many of us participated in throughout the Bush administration. This age of an Obama Presidency has made us complacent with our political system. In conjunction with our cavalier attempt to “float above” the town hall protesters, that complacency constitutes the single biggest threat to meaningful healthcare reform.