Hey Democrats, Dumb it Down

A message that is not getting out to the people because many of the smart/educated/elite democrats seem to think that the democratic way is just common sense, and people will just by default choose whats best for them. The fact that Sarah Palin can connect with so many people about this stuff is a testament to it. Part of it is different conspiracy theories about the President, but part of it is just the inept inability of democrats to get our message across. The only person I've seen doing a remotely good job at that (other than Obama on the election scene of 2008) has been Jon Stewart.

What the Democratic party needs right now is more people who can talk in everyday language about this stuff, and what it means. People seem to be underestimating the importance of presentations. You can have a theory that changes the world (ala universal health care), but if you can't convey that message, you're probably not going to convince anybody. I don't know who the PR person for the democratic party is, and progressives in particular, but they seriously need help. All I'm seeing is talking (even a smuggish laughter at certain sites) where people seem to think that because "we're not the Republican party" and "the Tea Party is sooooooo bad", we're going to win in November. Thats about the most foolish thing I've ever heard.

I mean if a student doesn't understand what I'm teaching him in class, then he'll easily put down an answer that'll leave me scratching my head wondering how he got that, (sqrt(2)/2 = sqrt(), for example). But instead of letting it get to that point, its my job as the teacher to ensure that the message gets across. The Democratic party (and MSNBC, which tries to promote so many of the progressive values) seriously needs a revamp in how they're getting these messages across. I'd have thought that a revamp would have come after what happened with health care, but its just not happening. And I'm just left to wonder "are democrats that dense?"



I mean, I've been pretty pissed lately with the Democrats inability to get a message across. Keith Olbermann's show last night was a perfect example. There was a brilliant segment on small businesses, but nobody's going to watch the whole segment. Unless we can summarize this into an elevator speech that gets the point across, its just useless crap. Instead of just complaining though, I decided to do what I could to help out.

Point of this segment: Small business is not well defined, and is being abused by republicans.

How can we get this point across? Here are a few taglines that I thought of to summarize the message:

- Republicans think PriceWaterHouseCoopers is a small business.

- How can you have 30,000 employees and be called a small business?

- What should we be focused on saving - the mom and pop shops, or the big businesses?

- This is the same cycle all over again. Dems care about main street; Republicans care about wall street.

- They say if they can't save the big businesses the old fashioned way, they'll just start calling the big businesses small and try to save them that way.

I'm sure there are several other(better) ways to say it, probably some with examples and stuff, but the point here is that we need to simplify the message we try to convey so that we can get it to reach more people.