RAISING THE STAKES. In the escalating war betwern MoveOn.org and Rudy Giuliani, MoveOn just saw Giuliani's latest attack -- a radio ad attacking the group that went up on the air in Iowa -- and raised it some national exposure, announcing that it would expand its buy for its tough-on-Giuliani "Betrayal of Trust" ad. MoveOn is increasing the play the ad will get by adding a $50,000 national buy, on CNN, to the $50,000 in local airtime they'd already committed to in Iowa.
It's impressive the way MoveOn has refused to back down in this conflict. I wasn't a huge fan of the original inflamatory ad, but instead of cowering in fear or issuing abject apologies for it, MoveOn kept escalating the fight and moving the story forward. This reminds me a bit of the whole Cindy Sheehan episode of summer 2005, when all of mainstream liberaldom recoiled in horror from her anti-war camp and naive foreign policy pronouncements, and the right attacked her viciously, and then she successfully did about as much as any lone mother could have to raise suspicions about the president, suspicions that hardened right after Hurricane Katrina. She helped turn the country against the president -- I have heard one of Bush's top strategists say so in a public forum -- and I wonder to what an extent this new "betrayal" campaign by MoveOn (and it has become a campaign now, rather than a one-shot thing) will ultimately have a similar effect of sowing doubts that will color how the public reacts to events we cannot yet forsee.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
