I can only say that I voted for the 60 billion before I voted against it.

But seriously... I stand by my view that this ad is designed to appeal to the worst instincts of the electorate.  

Why else bother to mention tsunami aid?  If the angle of attack was that Sensenbrenner is heartless because he would not vote for Katrina aid, why not just say that?  Show pictures of kids, and of the devastation and say, Jim Sensenbrenner just doesn't care.

The most obvious, and most likely, answer is that somebody told him criticizing money spent on foreigners polls well.

The point is to make the argument that Sensenbrenner cares more about foreigners than Americans.  The Democratic party should not try to win elections by positioning itself as more nativist than the Republicans.  It's wrong and it's bad politics.

I hope we all agree that the tsunami aid money was the right thing to do, and money very well spent (heck - we ought to remember that we, correctly, criticized the Bush administration for being slow off the mark on this when it happened).  And I think that's a majority position.  Unfortunately, most people also have an entirely mistaken view of how much we spend on foreign aid and what it's for.  There's a lot of high-return-on-the-dollar good we can do preventing famine and disease and making friends.

Ads that try to reinforce wrongheaded and stingy views about foreign aid do liberals no good, and we shouldn't forget that.

Am I missing something?  

Isn't this an appeal to the most nativist (and ill-informed) impulses of the electorate - with a dash of fiscal irresponsibility thrown in?

Do we here on MyDD actually think that aid to Indonesian tsunami victims was a bad thing?  That writing a blank check to this administration on flood relief is a good thing?  

Fourteen months to go.  That's a lo-o-ong time.  

And as we know, W will start bringing the troops home to maximize GOP advantage in the midterms.

We have to find and support leaders who will put the best possible face on our ideas - effective government, broader opportunity, real sharing of risks caused by the global economy, national security that rattles the saber only when necessary.

The best news I think we could have would be for Bush to put Social Security "reform" in the SoTU next year, and push for a bill through the year.  Lead weight.

FWIW, you're talking about cannoli.  

As a partisan of good desserts, I have to point that out.

because it's way, way too easy for the Republicans to bat these attacks away and make us look intolerant.  Don't believe me?  Listen here:

"I think that the folks who attended my Bar Mitzvah would be surprised to know that we were a party of white Christians" -- RNC Chair Ken Mehlman, on Dean

Dean threw Mehlman a softball, and Mehlman hit it out.  It's the Republican here who looks calm, good-humored and open-minded, and Dean who looks narrow-minded and intolerant, seeing conspiracies ranged against him.  

We all know what's behind the curtain, but well, we're not really the target audience.  There have to be ways of presenting the contrast between the parties in ways that work more to our advantage.

This is really something Kerry needs to let his surrogates handle, for the reasons JE states.