Kaus: Make a video against Schumer-Rubio

06/19/2013

Mickey Kaus continues to be a font of better ideas than I can come up with on how to throw a wrench in the gears of what Establishment wants to do on immigration:

2. Make a video campaign ad! This helped in 2007. Then, as now, the idea–from an alert reader, J.R.–was not to convince voters. The idea is to demonstrate to the undecided politicians the sort of devastating ads that might be used against them if they cave on immigration. It’s true that YouTube was newer and scarier back in 2007 than it is now. But the power of social networking is, arguably, more intimidating now than then.

If you are good at this sort of thing–I’m not, but plenty of you are–you can put together a 15, 30, or 60 second ad–post it on YouTube and “share” it on Facebook and Twitter. It’s the “sharing” that will sting. (Also share the link with me–. I’ll post links to the best ads in this blog.)

It’s not as if there’s not a lot of ammunition for an effective negative spot: There is Schumer-Rubio’s phony enforcement provisions. The way it would legalize drunk drivers, spouse-beaters and child abusers. The way none of its provisions–to “learn English,” or pay “back taxes” –mean what they say they mean. The way it would drive down unskilled wages, discourage young people (especially minorities) from even entering the labor market, increase welfare payments, and threaten the jobs of even middle class skilled Americans with a huge wave of cheaper immigrant “guestworkers.” (Of course, those American aren’t “star performers,’”so screw ‘em!) The way it would prevent the glory of the Clinton years–a tight labor market that raised everyone’s incomes–from ever happening again.

A note on targets: It’s probably useful to distinguish two sorts of targets–senators who’ve more or less committed to the Gang of 8 bill and senators who are still on the fence. The first group (Sen. Kelly Ayotte would be a prime example) needs to be hammered, in large part to show those in the second group the fate that awaits them if they listen to the rich lobbyists pushing for amnesty. But you don’t want to hammer the second group yet–it might piss them off! After they’ve tried so hard to be ambiguous! They need to be pointedly persuaded. (“Senator Pryor, which will it be: American workers or California billionares?” Or something better than that. You get the idea.)

Here is a rough list of senators in the two camps:

Hammer-ready (Have indicated they’ll vote for Schumer-Rubio)

Ayotte (who was spectacularly ignorant of the bill’s provisions)

Begich (already getting testy!)

Graham

Here’s an interesting NYT article on how creative Chinese blackmailers Photoshop government officials' faces onto compromising photos. Sorry, that doesn’t have anything to do with the topic at hand, so let me get back to Mickey’s post:

Landrieu (do it for North Dakota!)
Landrieu (do it for North Dakota!)

Murkowski (voted against border fence)

Persuadable (Still wavering)

Alexander

Chambliss

Coburn

Collins

Corker

Hagan

Heller

Hoeven

Isakson

Pryor

P.S.: Remember–they may have all the big money on their side. But we have voters. And passion. And, now, technology. …

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