The OurTenWords website is an effort to define the Democratic Party’s message in ten words or less and, just incidentally, to promote Tom Vilsack.
On the one hand, this is a clever idea and a well produced website. On the other hand, our democracy has reached a fairly sad state of affairs when it can be reduced to a bumper sticker. Jefferson used 35 in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, after all, and old Lincoln chewed through 278 in the Gettysburg Address. I don’t know, maybe ten words is progress …
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…if we live in a reality based world, we have to except that fact.
I don’t like this downward trend. The site has a “Me good, them bad.” feel to it. How can we be the party that supports education if we don’t act as if we have, you know, an education?
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If John Kerry suffers from longwindedness, this site suffers from just the opposite problem. I don’t really see any great slogans coming out of this, and most seem to liken a brainstorming on a whiteboard. Also, when it’s just ten words, it’s way to general.
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A sampling from the “popular” tab: “Common Sense for the Common Good.” Well who, exactly, is against Common Sense? And what, exactly is that?
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“Effective, honest government, serving the needs of all its citizens.” Again, who’s openly for dishonest government, serving only the elites? We just disagree, in our rhetoric at least, about how to get there.
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“Credibility, Competence, Clarity, Honesty, Transparency, Restraint, Respect, Responsiveness, Patience, Creativity.”
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Again, right on. But so what?
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I suppose it’s appropriate to be reminded of a TV show at this point. The West Wing’s debate from Bartlet’s 2nd campaign had Ritchie, the Republican, give his his 10-word answer on tax cuts. He asks Ritchie to give him “the next 10 words” about how they’re going to build the economy, “Give me the next ten words and I’ll drop out right now.”
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Maybe it’s just my fantasy, but we need to encourage a political process wherein participants don’t just read the cliffnotes. You want honesty? Don’t reduce your opponents or your allies to caricatures. You want competence? Don’t demand 10 word answers to a complex world. You want creativity? Give yourself a bigger canvass. You do that and I think you’ll both demand and receive respect.