The 1984 Reagan commercial, officially titled "Prouder, Stronger, Better," had, as its opening line: "It's morning again in america."
It featured a montage of images of Americans going to work and a calm, optimistic narration that suggested the improvements to the U.S. economy since his 1980 election were due to Reagan's policies and asked voters why they would want to return to the pre-Reagan policies of Democrats like his opponent Walter Mondale, who had served as the Vice President under Reagan's immediate predecessor Jimmy Carter.
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Wikipedia [bold added]
If you replace Reagan with Obama, and Democrats with the Republicans in the above, it would aptly describe the arguments at the DNC these past few days. They answered the question, "Are You Better Off Now?" with a loud YES, but also with a caveat of more work to come.
It was three days of a positive, unified vision of the path Obama and the Dems see America on, perfectly framing the race. Their argument, in short: We've done a lot so far, and it's working; we're coming back. But, we haven't done enough, and we need to finish the job. To my ears, it's Reagan's commercial all over again ~ our policies are working; why would you go backward to what wasn't working??
Contrast that with Charlotte. Tampa was 3 days of negativity. And not just in the "attack" sense ~ it was negative in the sense that they didn't highlight THEIR vision; they sought to just NOT be Obama's. As the president himself said: they didn't tell us what their plan for America was.
To me, too, one of the most interesting thing about the RNC was the romney campaign's return to trying to frame this as a referendum on Obama. If you remember, that was their plan at the outset of the summer. However, in a state of panic over Romney's Very Bad Few Weeks, we got the pick of Paul Ryan, and the attempt of Romney to make this a choice election.
And then, for three days in Tampa, it was: America Sucks, It's Obama's Fault, We're Not Him. My guess is they went back to this b/c the whole republican vision for Amercia, Inc just ain't the popular. [i also think, when the books about this election are written, the swapping that the campaign engaged in is going to be pointed to as one of the reason's Romney lost.]
But in steps the Obama campaign and the convention, reframing it brilliantly as a choice, basically saying:
"Not so fast. You wanted it to be a choice; here's who we are. And here's who YOU are"
And even better, the Romney campaign accepted it once again, responding immediately after BHO's speech with some boilerplate about the choice in the coming election.
and it's a clear, stark choice. the dnc effectively, boldly and forcefully laid out the case for the modern Democratic political philosophy, and correctly linked the republicans to their failures that brought us here.
And in the end, people will always choose an optimistic vision vs a negative one. I think there's gonna be a big upsurge in the dems numbers over the next few weeks as the election becomes national, but we also need to make sure we keep the excitement and momentum going to run up the score nationwide, and let Pelosi gavel in the House once again.
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