Republicans are trying to buy the 2012 presidential election, so they’re accusing Democrats of trying to buy the 2012 presidential election. The Republican presidential candidate is trying to keep his policy agenda vague and unspecific until after the election, so he’s accusing the Democratic candidate of trying to keep his policy agenda vague and unspecific until after the election.
Republicans launched a policy agenda that was characterized as a “war on women,” so they accused Democrats of launching a “war on women.” The Republican candidate appears to be an out-of-touch elitist, so he accused the Democratic candidate of being an out-of-touch elitist.
Rachel calls this the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” tactic, and Ari Berman reported this week, it’s getting worse.
Republicans have passed more than a dozen new voting restrictions since 2010, including voter ID laws in ten GOP-controlled states, under the guise of stopping the virtually nonexistent problem of “ voter fraud.” Yet the real purpose of the new voting restrictions, as [Pennsylvania GOP House leader Mike Turzai] admitted, is to shape the electorate in the GOP’s favor, since such laws disproportionately impact Democratic-leaning young and minority voters. As Bill Clinton said last year: “Why is all of this going on? This is not rocket science. They are trying to make the 2012 electorate look more like the 2010 electorate than the 2008 electorate.”
In order to justify new voter suppression laws, GOP operatives are spinning increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories about alleged schemes of the Obama campaign and its allies to try to hijack the 2012 election. “Stop the corrupt Obama machine from stealing the 2012 elections,” reads the headline of a recent fundraising letter from the conservative legal organization Judicial Watch.
Remember Judicial Watch, the group that went to such extraordinary lengths to push the impeachment crusade against President Clinton? The group is now arguing that Obama is “continuing to funnel tax dollars to the corrupt and criminal ACORN” — a group that no longer exists — while pushing “stealth amnesty” for undocumented immigrants in order to “steal” the election.
In other words, as GOP policymakers nationwide embrace voter-suppression tactics, and put new barriers between voters and their democracy, some on the right would have Americans believe that Democrats are trying to rig the electoral game.
I understand the point of this sort of thing — if the right can muddle the picture, the truth gets obscured by both sides leveling similar claims — but it doesn’t make “I’m rubber, you’re glue” any less absurd.
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