Michael Tomasky writes:

This is something Democrats, with some exceptions, seem not to have understood well for two generations or more. If you don’t answer the other side’s attacks, they stick. The press assumes the attacks must be valid, so they smell blood.

But if you just answer and go on the offensive, you blunt the attacks right out of the box. Because all you have to do is say “bullshit” and then, in the media, it’s a he-said she-said, and the media won’t take sides, and swing voters will just figure it’s both sides doing their spin thing. And if the facts are actually on your side, as they are here in Walz’s case, then you can’t really lose. The worst you can do is draw.

Republicans have understood this for years. Seeing a Democratic presidential campaign finally get this is exhilarating to me personally but, more important, potentially game-changing. [Continue reading…]