The comments to yesterday's post on the election were great!!! The views ran the gamut, were passionate and very well written.
And thought provoking.
Carol, my Kansas Republican college buddy, stated the Democrats did an excellent job of communication, she heard their message loud and clear:
It is not that you didn't get your message out. We heard it all day long. It is that your message didn't speak to us.
Well, my initial reaction to Carol was that we obviously didn't do a good job getting our message out, because if we had, she would have felt differently.
But then, I thought about it some more. Carol did get the message that was being sent. It was a message of anger. And guess what? Anger just doesn't convert the centrist masses. Oh - it will sell to the already converted but not to the folks you're trying to get. Anger can be such a satisfying emotion - all that righteous energy building up inside. But for a political campaign, it's ultimately self indulgent and totally self destructive.
This is not to say that anger on a personal front is not justified and appropriate. Maggie's comment:
I just hope that I can still vote next election. I'm everything evangelicals hate.
rings absolutely true. She has every reason in the world to be deeply angry.
But that anger cannot translate up into a successful political campaign. Well, at least the kind of campaign most of us are interested in. Anger directed at defenseless minorities and outsiders can translate quite successfully and destructively into political campaigns and movements - Kristallnacht, Nazism, and Facism come to mind. But for what most of us are after, anger at the campaign level is not going to get us there.
Instead, what needs to happen is that we need to develop a positive, intelligent platform and candidate. And then - this part is just as critical - develop good grassroots project management and marketing plans. The Kerry campaign had neither. And to be honest, the Bush campaign was lacking also. The Bushies just weren't lacking as much as the Kerry campaign.
You know. The centrist American populace (like my Mom and Carol) is ready for this approach. Now, hopefully the Democrats will figure it out. As the Republican Party continues its move towards extremism, their critical centrist support will become extremely vunerable to a positive proactive message.
9:18:47 PM 
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