Just Call Them Republicans

If you're like me, you're waking up every morning praying to whatever higher power you believe in that the Democrats will suddenly grow a large pair of cajones and rip the GOP a new one.

The 2008 battle for the White House, one that will literally determine the fate of the world, is being fought as all battles are today -- in words and images. As a novelist, I understand the power of the written word, as a screenwriter the incomprehensible power of pictures.

Sorry to tell you folks, but Sarah Palin and John McCain come complete with riveting visuals -- McCain with his prisoner of war footage, and gorgeous-by-anyone's standards Palin standing with her foot on the head of a moose. If I were their campaign manager I'd be pinching myself to see if I were dreaming. Obama, handsome and dignified as he is, still has brown skin and big ears. And Joe Biden, bless his heart, is about as visually interesting to look at as a bowl of cheerios. Right now the Dems are sadly outmatched when it comes to images.

It kills me to think that such earthshaking decisions as this election are determined by such lowest-common-denominator factors as these. But all you have to do is remember Nixon's five o'clock shadow, or JFK's big, handsome, toothy smile to realize I've got a point. So what are we left with here?

Words. That's all.

But let there be no mistake. Words can win this. They simply have to be chosen wisely. The other day a friend of mine, Don Paul, uttered a simple phrase that struck me like an ice-pick to the brain.

"Just call them Republicans."

In recent weeks I'd come up with my own ideas for campaign advertisements -- an endless loop of John McCain claiming he didn't know much about the economy; another of Phil Gramm calling Americans hurt by the mortgage meltdown "whiners." But Don Paul's concept had mine beat by a mile.

Every time you utter the words "Palin" or "McCain," he said, associations are instantly made. Those dramatic images come to mind -- brave, handsome soldier returning home to a hero's welcome; beauty queen with high powered rifle shooting wolves from a chopper.

We can change those images in a heartbeat. All the Democratic attack ads (and make no mistake, that is exactly what is needed now) should stop calling these jokers by their names and just start calling them Republicans. The visuals to go along with the word are legion - the horrors of the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, streets lined with foreclosed houses, $4.00 a gallon gas, neglected war veterans, McCain kissing W's neck. Just use your imagination.

What's in a name? When that name is "Republican" and it's leveraged by the architects of the Democratic campaign, nothing less than an Obama/Biden landslide in November.

Use it...or lose it.

Comments

[jhNY]

First of all, you cannot know the great responsibility that comes from having a big pair of Spanish euphemisms. It's no picnic, I can assure you, although it allows you to work up a king-hell version of Ol' Man River.

Second, it's over. I will vote to elect Obama and I believe he will win, but when Obama gets the keys to the Casa Blanco, once he steps past the glittering foyer he will notice right away that everything is on fire. And I mean everything. And not just at home. This latest financial firestorm has swept the future up into its voracious maw, and reduced the porported greatness of our nation to ashes. Remember Grandma's stories about getting a new pair of shoes when school started, and she had no other pair? Your grandchildren will be telling that story. Ever tasted ketchup soup? There's a good chance you will find yourself grateful for the opportunity in the coming years.

We have watched the geniuses of finance and industry, our social betters, as they played with matches and laughed at danger. But now everything is BBR. I wish President Obama all the luck in the world. He's really going to need it. The Republicans are finished, but then, so are we.

[revenant]

Just a quick FYI- "Cajones" = "boxes" (which I must say, is ironically, albeit unintentionally, hilarious. I think you meant "COjones"...

Good post overall!

[milo h minderbinder]

Interesting idea, but in an ad just making generalizations about "republicans" would get called out since they don't agree on everything. And it would be awkward for an ad to say "the republican candidate for president..."

There are lots of bad things about McCain. So they should point those things out so that people think of the bad things when they think of his name.

[PPatt]

Excellent. Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg in his book Talking Right details how successful REPUBLICANS have been at changing the commonly accepted meanings of words. However, use of REPUBLICAN in the way you describe isn't really changing or obscuring the meaning but rather emphasizing the meaning that they themselves, the REPUBLICANS, have given it.

A campaign of ideas is still needed but we are wired for simplicity and seem unable to think without labels. Everyone should make certain that REPUBLICAN gets the label is has earned rather than some glorious fantasy divorced from the misery the wrought.