While Democrats give arcane professorial arguments that go over the heads of most voters, the Republicans make punchy gut-level arguments that scare people. And fear is a powerful emotion. It wins elections.
These are difficult days for Democrats, especially Kansas Democrats. Last night I watched three politicians, former or current Presidents, Obama, Bush and Clinton, standing on the same stage, talking about Haiti. Obama and Bush made bland pleas for people to "send cash" to Haiti. Meanwhile, former President Clinton did what Democrats rarely do - he explained the need in a short, punchy, emotional way:
"I stayed at that hotel in Haiti that collapsed. I had dinner with people who are dead. Hillary and I worshiped in that Cathedral that is now in rubbles." How refreshing! A Democrat speaking in simple, emotional terms, using powerful images. Bill Clinton seems to be the only Democrat out there who knows how to do this.
Rep. Ann MahAnd then this morning, I was reading the Wichita Eagle, and I saw it. It was like seeing an oasis in the midst of a desert. Rep. Ann Mah said it. She is the Democrat member of the Kansas House of Representatives for District 53.
I had to read it twice to make sure it was a Democrat who said it: "Now is not the time to dumb down the schools, throw Granny in the street, and open the prisons."
That's what I'm talking about!
There is hope for Democrats in Kansas if they will ask Ann Mah how to do this.
It's simple, really. Just talk so a fifth grader understands you.
It's not that people are stupid, it's that they don't have time to digest professorial arguments in this constant information age. As George Wallace used to say: "Put the hay down where the goats can get it."
In reading Ann Mah's quote, I got a visual picture of students wearing Dunce caps that say "Kansas Student" on them, of a grey-haired frail senior-citizen laying on the street crying, and of an angry tatoo-laden prisoner with a sharp machete ready to break into my house.
I have earlier wrote how the Democrats let the health care debate slip away months ago by failing to explain things simply. Bill Clinton learned after he lost the governorship after two short years in Arkansas the truth: if the most simple minded hillbilly in the Ozark mountains doesn't understand you, you might as well be speaking Japanese.
Republicans hire linguists - the best out there - for their think tanks, to come up with phrases like "death panels," "government-run health care," "throwing seniors under the bus," etc. Meanwhile, Democrats forget that people are bombarded with information and make arcane arguments that are unintelligible.
Democrats need to fire a bunch of political consultants and hire some linguists - or maybe hire some fifth graders to teach them how to explain things.
Marty, seems that your premise is partly accurate; however, I prefer to have a meaningful conversation with some apparent intellect blended in. When I was writing for a well established Republican newspaper, the publisher and editor always had to remind me to "write as if a fourth-grader were reading it." Seems to me, that is precisely the problem, not the solution. If our citizens were better educated maybe they too would see through the smokescreens and fear based dialect that politicians count on to herd voters to polls, like cattle to a trough. There are times when simple dialect is called for; for me personally, I would not respect nor be inspired by someone who talks down to people. Playing to ignorance of facts may get votes for some. I like to think that the people whom I share my passion for politics with, also have the ability to see through the sideshow antics and understand the difference between pandering and pondering. Both Bill Clinton and Ann Mah have captivated me with their clearly noticeable intelligence. Rick Perry, Sam Brownback, and many others - including a few Democrats, lost me with one sentence. I think we owe it to our readers/constituents to rely on our education system, and not merely a regurgitation of learned behavior if we want to prevent more uprisings by people such as the Tea Party sector.
I agree with Marty that the Democratic Party needs to learn how to frame its debates and needs to learn how to make simple sentences that people can instantly understand. The people that read this site are unique, in that we tend to want in-depth explanations of things. However, mainstream America doesn't have that kind of attention span. Mainstream America is impatient and has been schooled on one-liners, of the kind promulgated by CNN and FOX.
If we are going to sell our philosophies to the independents (the largest voting block in America), then, we've got to learn what the Republicans have already learned - 'keep it simple, stupid.'
As someone said to me the other day, the reason the Republicans have such a big following is because while Democrats have been spending all their energies 'talking truth to power', the Republicans have honed their skills in 'talking dumb to stupid.' And, guess what, it works.