A letter to my Congressman, a Democrat:

Dear Sanford and Congressman Clyburn,

The Kelly Loeffler attack ad on the top, which was presaged by the Raphael Warnock "puppies" ad on the bottom just a week earlier, when he warned about what was coming.

Here's the letter I wrote last week to my Congressman and to Congressman Clyburn of South Carolina:

As Georgia faces a landmark United States Senate runoff- two races in one State, the outcome to decide the fate of the Senate, the United States, and the planet earth- and that's not hyperbole- you and the other Democratic members of the House have an opportunity to derail the toxic lies being spread by the Republican senators against Reverend Raphael Warnock and Mr. Jon Ossoff and to swing this election to the Democrats. The Republicans can't campaign on their accomplishments in office- they have none- so instead they ae relying on toxic attack ads. They are falsely accusing any Democrat running, including Rev. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff, of wanting to defund police departments and of being "radical socialists."

 In Mr. Ossof's case, Mr. Perdue's ads even made absurd attempts to link Mr. Ossof to "Communist Chinese" and also to "Islamic terrorists." Anybody with a knowledge of current world events would know that those are two mutually exclusive and antagonistic political entities, but that does not deter the attacks. What you can do- what the House of Representatives can do- is to show the Republicans for the liars and hypocrites that they are. And the best way to do that will be to pass a few very specific, very targeted bills, as follows: 

 (1) Aid to municipal governments and state governments which will have earmarks to increase funding for local police departments, including provisions that require raising starting salaries, raising standards, and providing for strict outside review of use of force incidents, restricting choke holds, and restricting no knock warrants except in rare situations where they are actually necessary. Most importantly: the press conference announcing the bill should stress that without these funds, the municipal and state governments will have to lay off workers, including police and fire fighters and EMT's, because by their State constitutions they are required to have balanced budgets. You should have Democratic and Republican mayors at the press briefing to explain how dire their situations are and how much they need the funding. Explain how Republicans such as Mitch McConnell have publicly said that he's ok with letting them go bankrupt- in effect, defunding the police. Send it to the Senate tied in a bow. Then let Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue and Mitch McConnell explain why their party won't let it come to a vote. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't. If they do reverse their course and let it come to a vote, the Democrats can take all of the credit, since the Republicans had refused to even consider that bill for over half a year. Then run ads pounding the Republicans for their very real efforts to "block funding for the police" and to cause layoffs.

 (2) Pass a Medicare public option bill that will allow anyone under the age of 65 to opt into Medicare by paying the incremental actual average cost to Medicare of adding one more person- which should be a lower number than the average expense for all current recipients, who are by definition older and less healthy. This will be a revenue neutral bill. There is literally no downside to doing this immediately. As time passes, we can phase in subsidies for persons to help them buy this coverage. But in the meantime, pass this bill: then let the Republicans either agree to it or try to explain why they won't let people buy into an existing program. Nobody is saying that people have to terminate their private insurance. Nobody is saying they can't keep their doctor. Nobody is nationalizing private physicians or private hospitals. Again, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't. Make sure to run ads link the Republicans crying "socialism" who are blocking middle class persons ability to access affordable health insurance. Have real humans appear in those ads who are impacted by the actual legislation that helps people, and which Republicans won't ever consider. But if it does pass: take all of the credit. 

 (3) Pass a bill incrementally raising the minimum wage, starting immediately at $10.00 an hour and going up every year by $1.00 an hour until it hits $15.00 per hour. Point out that States like Florida and cities like Seattle have done this already, and that no one's economy was harmed. Again, run ads and point out that Republicans in Congress are universally opposed to raising the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour, where it's been for years, even while dishing out tax breaks worth hundreds of billions of dollars to their top donors. 

 (4) Pass a bill repealing the federal law against possession of small amounts of marijuana, and decriminalize the rest. Given that every single State has done this where it's been on a referendum, you can again box in the Republicans who want to fight this.

 (5) Pass a bill providing debt relief for crushing student debt. Again, no downside for Democrats. Republicans are in a box- again, run ads that tie them to the billionaires and the rich people sending their kids to private schools while neglecting the working poor and middle class. 

 (6) Pass a bill providing for free tuition for students at public colleges, universities, and vocational schools. Tie it with targeted funding for this program from the estate tax- and raise the estate tax rates on estates greater than $10 million. Put the Republicans in a box where they have to choose between higher education and vocational training for their constituents and rewarding the heirs of dead multimillionaires and billionaires.

 I have plenty more ideas (Sanford knows this). But that should be enough ammunition to win these run-off elections, assuming that you can blanket the State with ads showing how David Perdue had voted four times to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act, which is the only thing that prohibits insurance companies from denying coverage or jacking up rates for people with pre-existing conditions, and include in that ad real Georgians who would have died without the coverage. Have them explain that David Perdue's ad claiming that he always acted to protect coverage for people with pre-existing conditions was a lie, and they wouldn't trust him as far as they could throw him. Have different people in each ad, including parents of small children with expensive diseases who explain how a lifetime cap on insurance coverage would have cost their child his or her life and bankrupted them. And tie that albatross around Kelly Loeffler's neck, too, by pointing out that she has never denounced Trump for trying to repeal the entire law, either in Congress or the Supreme Court, while she has proclaimed herself a 100% Trump supporter. 

 Also- and I can't emphasize the importance of this- the Democratic Party needs to wake up and realize that it isn't candidates advocating "defunding the police" or "socialism" or "far left radical Democrats" who are losing us elections that we should win going away. It's that we allow Republicans to brand us- to label us- in their rhetoric and in their ads. They are doing what Frank Luntz long ago figured out- he's the guy who turned the "estate tax" into the "death tax" and had Republicans falsely claim that the tax would destroy small businesses and family farms, then linking that false idea to Democrats. 

 We let them get away with it every time. In 2020 there was not a single Democratic Senate candidate or losing House candidate running on a platform of ending police departments and taking away all of their funding. Nor was there a Democrat running on a campaign of socialism: nationalizing industries or taking over private physicians and hospitals and making them the property of or employees of the government. But we let them get away with those labels and those lies. 

 Because we don't know how to fight. 

  A cure for this is relatively simple: a vaccine. Which is a weakened form of a virus that allows the human body to develop antibodies. Raphael Warnock has already figured this out with his "puppies" ad. If you haven't seen it, Google it or ask his campaign for a copy. It's priceless. He anticipates and mocks the attack ads from Kelly Loeffler- who did indeed run an atrocious, wildly ralse, somewhat racist, toxic attack ad against him that I just saw this morning.

  Democrats need to vaccinate the public by taking snippets of the Republican attack ads- one piece at a time per ad. Then put that snippet of video from the Republican ad in their own campaign ads, then have private citizens or respected experts debunk and mock them. Have real people hurt by their actual policies show that the ads are just desperate lies. That's the vaccine. Mock their ads while using them to defang their effect. 

 This is an actual trial strategy I have used as a trial lawyer in criminal defense where the prosecutor always gets the last word to the jury: I anticipate their argument, then tear it apart in advance. So when the jury hears that argument a second time from the prosecutor, they've already developed antibodies. It works!. Thank you both for your time and your attention.

 If anybody knows anybody on the Warnock or Ossoff campaigns (or the DNC) who wants to get in touch with me, please send them my contact information. I don't have enough cachet to get through to them directly. Because being right- as I was regarding the House needing to use its financial appropriations clout to force Republicans to pass election security bills, which I suggested seven months ago- doesn't get a person cachet.