'War machine': Senator urges Democrats to regroup with anti-GOP attack strategy

Democrats need to build a "war machine" capable of sustained and rapid attacks on the GOP agenda, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) wrote in a new memo to state party leaders obtained by Politico.

Republicans, wrote Whitehouse in the memo, “rapidly and effectively deploy false narratives, while we struggle to bring true ones to bear.” The problem, he continued, is there's no central machine to coordinate Democratic strategy and messaging — no equivalent to the GOP's right-wing cable networks like Fox News.

“We in Congress customarily say we’re ‘fighting’ for things when we really mean working or toiling,” said Whitehouse. “A fight means a defined adversary, a battle strategy, and actual punches thrown. Done well, it involves exposing and degrading your adversary’s machinery of warfare.”

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The GOP's practice of building alternate networks of information to spread their talking points to the rank and file — from talk radio to news channels to more recently podcasts — has long been bemoaned by Democrats who have struggled to create an effective response.

Whitehouse, a longtime senator who has pushed campaign finance reform as one of his pet issues, issued his memo "among a myriad of pitches from Democratic leaders on how to reform the party as it looks to elect a new DNC chair. Delegates will cast their votes for the party’s chair on Feb. 1," noted the report.

The race has already attracted a number of current and former bigshots in the party following the announcement of current chair Jaime Harrison's intention to step down, with candidates ranging from former Maryland governor and 2016 presidential candidate Martin O'Malley to Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler.