MoveOn.org Takes on John McCain

While many of us are watching the Democratic Primary with some excitement, John McCain is now the Annointed Heir of the Bush Family, and he is starting the smear attacks and lies against the Democrats. MoveOn.org has decided that their top priority is to counter the Republican smear tactics as early as possible.

This comes from MoveOn.org:

Dear MoveOn member,

It's official: John McCain is the Republican nominee. That means that as of today, his No. 1 priority will be attacking our candidates.

He's already accusing both Clinton and Obama of wanting to "surrender" to terrorists because they want to end the disastrous occupation in Iraq.1 And now his attacks will get much louder: He's got access to enormous party resources, including the whole Republican noise machine.

While our candidates battle it out for the nomination, someone has to keep an eye on John McCain and the Republicans. That's why we're launching an emergency fund to make sure that every time McCain accuses Democrats of "surrender"—or something similar—he's held accountable for it. Can you chip in to help fight the Republican attack machine?

Our plan is big: We'll have fact-checkers in place to push back on the media, we'll work with movement partners to make sure progressives are ready to fight back with facts, and we'll invest in rapid-response advertising to make sure their charges don't go unanswered.

Here's why it's crucial. Starting today, McCain won't be attacking the Democrats on his own.

He's heading over to the White House as we speak to get George Bush's blessing as the Republican nominee. This means that McCain, Bush and the entire Republican Party will shift from concentrating on the primary race to working on November's general election. Attacking our candidates will become their central focus. And they've got hundreds of millions of dollars between them to do it.

They've already started accusing both candidates of "surrender," and framing their universal health care plans as socialist. And then there's the really dirty stuff—including despicable whisper campaigns about religion, race, gender and patriotism.2,3

Our job is to make sure that our candidate, whoever it is, can hit the ground running once we have a nominee. That means that we have to fight this stuff every day—especially because our candidates are focused on each other.

Please chip in today to help us fight back with facts. Click to contribute.

Thanks for all you do,

–Nita, Adam G., Justin, Eli and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

For those who can't donate, MoveOn.org has a great letter writing campaign to get people speaking out in their local papers about the Iraq war and the recession. Please go here to write a letter to the editor.