The NYT has a very good column today that details how liberals are seeking hide behind their radical policies with "nice-sounding" language. Here's an excerpt:
"It is called the 'Message Handbook for Progressives From Left to Center,' and, along with a companion piece on health care, it was created by Drew Westen, a psychology professor at Emory University here who was virtually unknown in political circles before this election cycle. Several Democratic consultants say it is the first systematic, data-driven effort to mold the language of the left to fit the sensibilities of the center.
Dr. Westen's advice can be heard when Alisha Thomas Morgan, running for re-election to the Georgia House in a conservative suburb of Atlanta, uses the word 'leadership' in place of 'government' and speaks about the middle class instead of the poor.
Or when Andrew Gillum, a city commissioner in Tallahassee, Fla., who is fighting a ballot initiative against same-sex marriage, tells members of his predominantly black church of the human desire for dignity and respect instead of lecturing them on the evils of discrimination.
Democrats of higher office who have heard Dr. Westen have also shifted their rhetoric, as when Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, fending off a Republican challenger, not only says that 'health care is a right for every citizen' but pointedly adds, 'Particularly citizens who are working hard every day.'
This is funny...but it's also somewhat disturbing. The concept is hilarious, but the fact that they are encouraging people to insert their friends' names into the report is unsettling. It strikes me as somewhat Orwellian that MoveOn.org would actually try to send out the message that people who do not vote for Obama should be ostracized by society. Yes, I know it's a joke, but at some level, this is just a technologically advanced form of schoolyard bullying.
Last night, the Seinfeld rerun was the one where George Castanza complains that he never leaves meetings on a "high note":
George: I had 'em, Jerry. They loved me.
Jerry: And then?
George: I lost them. I can usually come up with one good comment during a meeting but by the end it's buried under a pile of gaffs and bad puns.
Jerry: Showmanship, George. When you hit that high note, you say goodnight and walk off.
George then decides to take Jerry's advice ...
New scene. Office meeting at Kruger Industrial Smoothing:
Kruger: ...And it gets worse. The team working on the statue in Lafayette Square kind of over-smoothed it. They ground the head down to about the size of a softball, and that spells trouble.
George: Alright, well why don't we smooth the head down to nothing, stick a pumpkin under its arm and change the nameplate to Ichabod Crane? (Everyone at the meeting breaks out in laughter.)
George (getting up and leaving): Alright! That's it for me. Goodnight everybody.
... I noted yesterday that John McCain started off very strong during Wednesday night's debate, but as did not finish as strong as he might have. Perhaps he could have tried "the Castanza method":
"I am not President Bush. If you want to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago. I'm going to give a new direction to this economy and this country. Alright! That's it for me. Goodnight everybody."
"When candidates stand behind lecterns, a physical barrier is created that makes it more acceptable for the debaters to clash ... By contrast, when the candidates sit at a table, the close proximity tends to discourage either participant from going on the attack."
Harry Truman once famously quipped: "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." With just thirty days until Election Day -- and with the political tension increasing -- that quote rings especially true. Needing a good friend in Washington, I trekked down to Roanoke, VA to pick up my new pug, "Uncle Rico," from a pug rescue, this weekend. Here's a picture:
(Stay tuned -- a "Pugs for Palin" picture is coming, soon!)
... Yesterday, Uncle Rico and I watched the Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles (or rather, I watched the game while he napped).
This is a great time of year for anyone who loves politics and sports! I mean, you've got the presidential debates, baseball playoffs, and football season is just hitting its stride. Of course, this means that if your candidate is struggling, your sports team takes on a special importance.
As you probably know, prior to today, McCain has been struggling in the polls for the last several weeks. As such, I took solace in the fact that at least my Redskins have been winning. You know, it sounds ridiculous, but I think sports affects us more than we may realize. It must be hard right now for Cubs fans. My friend Andy Roth, who works at the Club for Growth, must be miserable. In one week he had to endure the bailout -- as well as having his beloved Cubs tank. Not a good week ...
And while sports may, indeed, be trivial, it serves as a very good diversion for those of us who spend most days thinking about politics.
A side benefit to being a Redskins fan is that they sometimes help unite conservatives and liberals living in the DC area. For example, liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias and I are both big Skins fans...
Those of us who are Redskins fans can also take comfort in the fact that we have another top-notch coach. Joe Gibbs is a great man, so I am happy that his successor is also a good man -- Jim Zorn.
I suppose you could say I'm caught up in the "Zorngeist." Everything Zorn!
Today's Washington Post featured a fascinating column regarding how voters view candidates who change the subject on a questioner. As you'll recall, during the recent vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin was up-front about the fact that she might not answer the moderator's questions. According to the experts interviewed for this column, Palin would have been wiser to not telegraph her strategy.
The article points out that style still matters more than substance:
... The psychologists found that irrelevant answers delivered fluently and with poise scored higher with audiences than answers that were accurate, on-topic, but halting. And when they had actors deliver the same answers to audiences -- once fluently and once with "ums" and "ahs" -- audiences judged the hesitant responses as intellectually inferior to the fluent ones.
It also pointed out that most viewers don't notice when a politician doesn't answer a question:
Norton, at Harvard Business School, conducted an informal experiment during one debate: After the candidates gave their answers, Norton asked a group of friends to recall the question.
"They got a little bit better over the course of the evening, but by the time the politicians finished these two-minute all-over-the-place-answers, even people trying to focus forgot what question they were asked," he said.
Lastly, the column pointed out that voters reward candidates for slyly avoiding questions, as opposed to admitting to it:
Voters say they prefer candid politicians, but the experiments suggest politicians may pay a higher price for intellectual honesty than dishonesty.
"When [Palin] acknowledged the question and said, 'I don't want to talk about it,' it was intellectually honest, but it alerted people that she was not going to answer the question," said Rogers, a political psychologist and executive director of the Analyst Institute, a Washington-based group that studies voting behavior with an eye to helping liberals.
During the vice presidential debate last night, Sarah Palin said the following to moderator Gwen Ifill and debate opponent Joe Biden:
"And I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also."
While few candidates actually openly admit to following this strategy -- this is precisely what every smart candidate does when giving an interview or during a debate ...
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