“This is the 24/7 Always-On Campaign!” – Ruffini on C-SPAN, 6/15/08 (partial transcript)

Congratulations to Patrick, who gave a stellar performance on C-SPAN's Washington Journal this morning at 7:30 EST, which is 4:30 PST, which is really, really early.  Also, happy Father's Day to Patrick and Jon and all you great dads out there.

I know that some of you either didn't hear about the show in time to get up at that ungodly hour and watch or TiVo it, so I will present, for your viewing pleasure, some highlights.

What kinds of dogs are they?

First of all, in the dog-eat-dog world of politics, being associated with a particular canine breed will make or break a political career.  Take, for example, Gene Simmons' explanation of why he voted for Bush-as-Rottweiler vs. Kerry-as-Poodle in his 2006 Interview with Neil Cavuto.  I rest my case. 

Stoller:  In a word, Sulky.  Reminiscent of an Australian Cattle Dog.  This dog needs loads and loads of exercise and activities. It's a working breed, it's best suited in that environment. Strong willed, it can be aggressivly protective and territorial so it will require a good amount of discipline and training if you want it to fit into an urban environment. Can be hostile toward other dogs.

Ruffini:  In a word, Affable.   Reminiscent of a loyal, flat-coated Retriever.  These are great family dogs because they are intelligent, even-tempered, active, playful and friendly.  This dog loves everyone.  Highly trainable, but gets bored easily.  Needs a lot of attention and affection from its family and vigorous daily exercise.  Gets on well with other dogs. 

Best Sound Bite:

Patrick wins hands down with “This is the 24/7 Always-On Campaign!” . IMHO, Goldfarb should flash that all over the McCain site as McCain's new motto. 

Transcript Highlights:

Host:  [a nice, nondescript man as opposed to "swingin' love babe" Greta Wodell] "We saw, Matt Stoller, the unveiling of  Fight the Smears.com, this is a site put forward by the Obama campaign (shows site), and they very directly put on the table some of the stories, for example, that Michelle Obama used the word Whitey, that Barack Obama is Muslim, and that Barack Obama isn’t American – they even post his birth certificate indicating that he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii."

Stoller:  "Right, I mean…the whole point of putting these rumors out there which has been consistently done by the Republicans, and by the Right Wing for years is to get people like us to repeat them on television so people believe what…believe that these things are true, it’s a standard way to get rumors out there.  Um…and I think one of the things that Obama’s done effectively is to both rebut those smearts, take them on directly, and also to reframe the narrative and show that the people who are putting these smears out there have real policy ideas that they are masking with these smears.  They want to keep, for instance, the War in Iraq going, they want to keep civil rights from being extended to all, they want to obscure the fact that we have record income inequality in this country.  And it’s easy to say, well, “Barack Obama is a Muslim,” as if being a Muslim is a bad thing, than to actually discuss the real substantive issues and it’s actually quite exploitative of the public debate and it’s something that I think he’s taken on pretty effectively so far and it’s something that we’re going to have to keep taking on to keep a healthy public discourse going."

Illinois caller:  “What are we going to do to get the candidates to have some honest conversation with America about illegal immigration, out of control borders, unregulated visa system where people just come into the country and stay, and nobody makes them leave, what are we going to do?”  (He said he was for legal, regulated immigration of skilled immigrants, but) “we don’t need illiterate, uneducated people just flooding into the country and straining our social safety net and holding down, driving down wages.”

Stoller:  "Well - if you look at what happened with NAFTA, I mean you can’t talk about immigration without talking about trade.  NAFTA threw twenty million Mexicans into poverty.  And if you are in desperate poverty in Mexico and you have the choice of staying in your circumstances and potentially dying of some disease because of bad sanitation or going to America trying to find some form of work, you’re going to come to America.  Just anybody would make that choice.  So…and that’s due to our trade policies.  So one of the reasons you have so many…um…people coming over to this country is because of trade and actually the same people that are exploiting undocumented workers are some of the same business leaders that are pushing some of these corporate trade agreements.  So what we really need to do is re-examine immigration, our immigration policies, in the context of our trade policies which are very, very heavily slanted towards…uh…toward wealthy corporate interests." 

Lady from New Hampshire:  “Good morning gentlemen, I’m actually a real blog fan, I look at three every day.”
Host:  “Which three do you look at?”
Lady from New Hampshire:  “Powerline, Hugh Hewitt, and Real Clear Politics”.
Host:  “How much time do you spend on the computer?”
Lady from New Hampshire:  “Oh – a lot!  I’m a teacher, I look at it a lot, um, and in terms of the time I have to do political blogs, I don’t know, maybe 10 minutes a day, um, because I’m doing a lot of other things, but…”
Host:  “Why do you do it?”
Lady from New Hampshire:  “Well, I find I can get information before, and it’s sort of bubbling up the surface, it’s sort of under the radar screen of the mainstream media, um, and I can sort of digest it a little bit and it’s always fun to watch, um, the mainstream media’s take on it after the fact, I always get a kick out of that [Stoller blanching visibly].  But one of the points I’m calling about is Obama’s new anti-smear website, and your Progressive blogger there was talking about the Republicans are bad and you have to respond to them [Stoller smirking visibly here, LOL, Patrick looking cucumber-cool].  Republican blogs are not the source of a lot of these, um, smears against Obama, it was the Hillary Clinton campaign.  From what I’ve seen on the blogosphere, it’s uh, that stuff was coming directly from people on your side of the fence [Stoller looking dyspeptic now].  So before you cast aspersions on all Republican bloggers, um, you should get your facts straight.”

Ruffini:  “I agree with that, if you look at the people who were fired during the Primary campaign, if you look at the people who were actively involved in spreading a lot of these scurrilous emails, it came from the other campaign in the Democratic Primary.  I’m not aware of any Republican official who was trafficking in the Obama-is-a-Muslim rumors, I mean I think that…John McCain has been extremely vociferous, to a fault many would say, in disassociating himself with anybody who goes even near that.”

Host:  (to Stoller) “Did you want to respond?”

Stoller:  “Well I mean (laughs)…look…(laughs again)…except for you know…Pastor Hagee, and you know…uh…a large number of…uh…conservative…uh…media partisans who consistently say things like, you know, Ann Coulter – John Edwards is a fag, uh…um…or Rush Limbaugh, who, who talks – you know - he’s consistently racist – and…eh…you know….these kinds of…of…tropes are…pretty standard on the Right Wing, and have been for years.  I mean you talk…talk about the origins of the Internet, in the 90’s the Right was quite dominant with Drudge, NewsMax, these sites that talked about Clinton being a cocaine dealer and…um…uh…having…uh…Rush Limbaugh talking about a trail of bodies to the White House that…the…Clinton murders.  I mean this isn’t…this is something that conservatives have traded in for…for…probably decades.  And it’s not something that’s new, and yeah the Hillary Clinton campaign trafficked in it but it’s coming from the Right, it’s consistently come from the Right, the themes of being a traitor, being uh…uh…effeminate, any of …these…sort of notions, these are conservative rumors put out to mask the fact that conservatives are basically criminals that steal from this country." 

Patrick, to his credit as the consummate professional that he is, refrains from leaping across the coffee table, grabbing Stoller by the throat and shaking him like a rag doll, although he is holding both hands in his lap as if to quench the urge.  Heh.

So those are some of the highlights, and you can enjoy the whole show, which is chock full o' fun, here on C-SPAN's Washington Journal Archive.