With Mitt Romney out of the race, the Democrats have a plan to take on John McCain. Somehow, I was placed on a party mailing list, so here is the latest word from the party bosses.

The Democratic Party

Dear Juan,

We need your help to beat John McCainMike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are done. John McCain will be the Republican nominee — he’s the only one with a reasonable path to the nomination.

So how do we beat him? We stand up — right now — start fighting, and show the American people that he’s not who they think he is.

We can’t wait for Hillary or Barack to win the nomination. Now that the Republicans have a candidate, the dollars are starting to pour in from special interests who will do anything to beat the Democratic nominee. They’re just waiting for us to decide so they can start smearing.

Here’s what U.S. News and World Report recently reported about how the RNC is getting ready…
[RNC Chairman Mike] Duncan and his aides want to be ready to go on the offensive against the Democratic nominee presumptive in an effort to define the opposition candidate on GOP terms. Opposition research is already well along, and the plan is for surrogates to talk to the media around the country while a TV ad campaign in key states and media markets as soon as the Democratic nominee is determined.

We must be ready to fight back, and fight back hard, today.

Now that we know our opponent, it’s time to build a national effort on the programs you and I have worked so hard to create over the last four years – from our cutting-edge technology to our voter protection programs, it’s time to shift gears.

I need you to contribute $25, $50, or $100 to help us fight John McCain right now:

http://www.democrats.org/FightMcCain

John McCain is a media darling, but don’t trust his carefully-crafted image – he’s worked for years to brand himself. From Iraq to health care, Social Security to special interest tax cuts to ethics, he’s promising nothing more than a third Bush term.

After championing campaign finance reform and ethics legislation to score political points, he now has a staggering amount of lobbyists involved in every aspect of his campaign. In fact, two of the top three sources for John McCain’s campaign cash are D.C. lobbying firms, and he looked the other way as Jack Abramoff bought and paid for the Republican Party and the Culture of Corruption.

On immigration reform, he’s run as far to the right as he can, aligning himself with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party.

On the war, McCain scoffed at Bush’s call to leave troops in Iraq for 50 years, saying “Make it a hundred!”

On a woman’s right to choose, McCain has vowed to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

On the economy, one of the issues that the American people care most about, McCain has said: “I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.”

We can’t afford four more years with a President who drives the economy into the ground. We can’t afford four more years with a President who fights an endless war in Iraq. We can’t afford four more years with a President who gives tax cuts to companies who ship jobs overseas; with a President who can’t get every American the health care they deserve; with a President we just can’t trust.

I don’t just want to beat John McCain – I want it to be a landslide. If you’re as committed as I am, I need you to make a contribution today:

http://www.democrats.org/FightMcCain

Only the Democratic Party is legally allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money to back our nominee and tell the real story about John McCain. We proved that our strategy worked in 2006, and it will work again this fall.

Help us today:

http://www.democrats.org/FightMcCain

Let’s get going,

Howard Dean

Then later, Tom McMahon followed up with another missive.

Juan —
I wanted to quickly follow-up on Governor Dean’s email from yesterday morning. As you could probably expect, things have been moving very quickly around headquarters the past 24 hours. The support we’ve gotten so far is deeply encouraging to everyone here.If you haven’t yet, we need you to contribute right now to help us beat John McCain. He’s the Republican nominee — the only one with a reasonable path to the nomination.

Yesterday, a McCain adviser said: “It’s virtually impossible for Romney or Huckabee to be the nominee just based on the arithmetic. … I see it as virtually impossible. I’m superstitious like my boss, I don’t want to say anything’s impossible, but it’s virtually impossible on the arithmetic.”

It’s time to go. I need you to help us beat John McCain:

http://www.democrats.org/FightMcCain

If you’ve already contributed and this email crossed in the process, sorry about that… like I said, things are moving quickly. Thank you for your support.

Let’s get fighting,

Tom

The fight is on – is McCain up to it?

Update – Factcheck.org takes a look at the claims made in Dr. Dean’s letter.

The Democratic National Committee proposes to spend unlimited amounts of money to “tell the real story” about John McCain before Republicans can “start smearing” the eventual Democratic nominee. But the line of attack the Democrats outline to their potential donors in an e-mail contains some claims that are false or misleading.