Bill Grigsby: A BushCo Playbook For Kerry

Here is what John Kerry’s campaign would look like, if he were to borrow the strategies that Karl Rove has perfected (no doubt taking to heart lessons learned from Orwell and Goebels), that have turned this into a close election. Just run your text through the propaganda grinder, and improve your poll numbers overnight!

First rule: simplify the message

Standard stump version: George Bush has made a mess in Iraq, ignored intelligence, lied to the public, mired the U.S. Army in an unwinnable quagmire, and sold it as steadfast leadership, moral certitude and divine guidance.

BushCo translation: George Bush is convinced God told him to prepare for the Apocalypse.

Standard stump version: George Bush’s professional resume is littered with failed businesses, missing documents, gross exaggerations, and obscenely wealthy family friends who bailed him out of one mess after another, any one of which would have brought down a man of lesser privilege.

BushCo translation: George Bush is a pathological liar and ne’er do well who used to be drinking buddies with friends of the bin Ladens.

Standard stump version: George Bush went to Yale and Harvard, was born in Connecticut, got his first DUI in Kennebunkport, Maine. His Texas media cowboy image is a complete fabrication, right down to mispronouncing ‘nucular,’ carefully crafted by Karen Hughes and Karl Rove to increase his ‘living room appeal.’

BushCo translation: George Bush is mentally unstable, and suffers from multiple personality disorder.

Standard stump version: George Bush has shown, in his few unscripted moments, an abject inability to express any sophisticated understanding of public or foreign policy, or even his own administration’s policy agendas. He doesn’t even read newspapers, hasn’t learned from any mistakes, likes to intimidate aides who disagree with him, and has spent 40% of his tenure at the Crawford Ranch, Kennebunkport, or Camp David.

BushCo translation: George Bush is a serial slacker, who intends to imprison intellectuals and junk scientists in a second term.

Second rule: Leak and repeat as necessary, in as many media outlets as you can intimidate and/or co-opt.

Third rule: Complain about the conservative bias in the media
( http://www.pipa.org/).

Bill Grigsby
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Eastern Oregon University

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