The RNC's Online Valentine's Day Card Campaign

It seems odd to me that you would want to send a Valentine's Day card with a negative message: After all, it's a day that's about romance, affection, and tenderness.

Nevertheless, since Monday morning at least 400,000 people have each sent an average of two Republican National Committee Valentine's Day e-Cards, according to the RNC.

The messages say things like: "Three years in the U.S. Senate qualifies me to wish you Happy Valentine's Day," from Illinois Democrat Sen. Barack Obama and "On this Valentine's Day ... may higher taxes come your way," from rival Democrat New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Asked about the campaign, RNC spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson characterized it this way: "The Republican Party is always looking for new, inventive ways to disseminate our message to supporters through all types of media. Despite the Democrats' claims to be more advanced online than the Republican Party, it's flattering to see the DNC following the
RNC's lead on several of these successful initiatives."

(The Democratic National Committee today released this anti-John McCain YouTube video.)

The messages met with a mixed reaction from a couple of young Republicans I called about the campaign.

"I thought it was clever … I sent it to my girl friend who works for Hillary Clinton, and she thought it was funny," says
David All, a Republican political technology consultant in Washington,
D.C.

Mike Turk, a veteran of the 2004 online Bush/Cheney campaign and more recently of Fred Thompson's, was less charitable, as you'll see from
our story.

In an earlier post on his blog, he completely panned the effort, and called the messaging fundamentally flawed:

I just got a ridiculous e-mail from the RNC touting the new Valentine’s
Day cards you can send to friends. Make no mistake, they’re all lame, but there was one that really struck me as completely missing the point and at a fair distance from the prevailing view of the majority of
Republicans.

Turk was referring to the three years of experience line about Obama.

Moreover:

Maybe I missed the meeting where they took a vote and decided that a lifetime in the Senate was a net positive. It’s certainly a far cry from the party that included the Citizen Legislature Actin its
Contract with America. That bill would have limited the tenure of both
Senators and Representatives to twelve years.

So three years is not enough, but twelve is too much? Is that the takeaway?

For the folks over at 310 First Street, you should get out of the building more often and talk to real people who don’t live in DC.
You’ll find they’re pretty pissed off at the party for abandoning the tenets of fiscal discipline. I don’t know that they’ll take kindly to the sudden embrace of career legislators.

Turk's most interesting insight:

If the RNC’s grand plan to beat Obama is to dust off the greatest hits of the last 40 years of campaigning, they’re going to be in trouble. This guy is running a different kind of campaign, and the old models aren’t going to win it.

That said, if Hillary’s the candidate, I think that model works fine. You’ll have two people who are re-running the same campaign we saw in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004. It’ll be just like old times. For that reason, I hope I’m wrong and Hillary gets the nod. We know our tactics work on that battlefield.

Obama, however, is playing by a different set of rules. If he’s the guy, we need to step up our game.

For their part, activist Democrats aren't above personal attacks either. Party activist Cliff Schecter has a regular online streaming television talk show on Thursday afternoons with the provocative title "Republican Sexcapades."

The point of the show, which airs every Thursday at 4.30 pm east coast time, is to highlight the hypocrisy of the Republican party's family values platform, says Schecter. His case in point -- several of the House managers who ran the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton had had extramarital affairs themselves.

But then also of late there's also been congressional page predator Mark Foley, DC Madam patron David Vitterand alleged airport bathroom sex solicitor Idaho senator Larry Craig.

Today's Valentine's Day editionis going to focus on McCain's own marital history and tie that to his stance on family values issues in Arizona. And there'll be an update on Craig.

Image: Mike Turk, Kung Fu Quip.