Like everyone I know, I'm worried. I'm reading everything streaming into my email from Sarah Palin's bogus banned booklist to John McCain's flip flops to Sarah Palin and the Jews. (Are there Jews in Alaska?) My eyes are blurry from blogs. Ten Tips for the Obama Campaign. 3 Things You can Do Personally to Affect the Outcome. My new pal Arianna Huffington on Sarah the Trojan Moose, " who's succeeded in distracting the entire country from the horrific Bush record--and McCain's complicity in it."
Everything I read is intelligent and thoughtful. These people are experts, their credentials are impeccable, their arguments are persuasive, their logic is on target. I'm inhaling blogs like a 3-pack a day smoker (did I say I did NOT have an addictive personality last week??).
These eloquent, intelligent pieces just reinforce the image of Democrats as the liberal elite(and how did Republicans ever come to be considered "just folks"?) The waitress in Ohio working two jobs just to survive is usually not reading the Huffington Post or the New York Times or watching Meet the Press.
One of the first pieces of advice I got when I started working in television was to remember the audience--and to aim my writing at an 8th grade level. And I wasn't working in small-town America but in a big city. The key was, keep it simple.
So that's why I am suggesting a simple strategy for the Democrats, a secret to overthrow Republican rule in this country. And I don't say that lightly. Because I do think Republicans rule, rather than govern.
My secret strategic weapon is something simple, that is found in every home in America, from California to New York to the battleground states of Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania. The secret is duct tape.
It's often been said that there are a thousand ways to use duct tape--and maybe this could be the ultimate example: Democrats use duct tape to win the campaign and take back the White House.
Republicans are really handy with duct tape, and know how to use it. Do they ever. They taped Willie Horton to Dukakis. They stuck the Swift Boat thing to Kerry. And this time they're sticking it to Obama--claiming he's so elitist he wouldn't even know HOW to use duct tape.
So Obama needs to get himself out to the hardware store and buy a roll or two. Then he needs to tape George W. Bush right onto John McCain--where he belongs. And tight enough, so he can't fall off. And then Obama needs to stick the same message (Bush=McCain) onto his daily agenda or notepad and keep it there.
It's pretty simple. And easy enough for everyone in America to understand.
As for the truism that is so inviolable in politics, that anti-war or anti-Bush sentiment doesn't matter because people vote with their pocketbooks....duct tape also works really well to hold together a wallet. And the message can be put into numbers instead of words. The Democrats can just take a Sharpie and make a sign--and you don't need anything above 3rd grade arithmetic to understand it. The sign reads: "$350 million dollars a day: Do you want that money here or in Iraq?"
For traditionalists, at the bottom you can add the words "Kick Me." And then when he's not looking, stick the sign right on John McCain's back--with duct tape, of course.
...So now I'm getting as nasty as Sarah Palin. That's the problem with politics. I think I better get back to real life tomorrow.
Another brilliant piece Darryle. Simple and direct. Duct tape will be the cure for everything the Democrats must accomplish in the next several days. Reminds me of the father in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" who used Windex as a panacea for everything. So simple and direct even an eighth grader can grasp it and run with it.
Posted by: Ron | September 10, 2008 at 04:25 PM
"McSame". Says it all. Great post!
Posted by: Leslie | September 12, 2008 at 12:03 PM