There it is. Three words. Short. Sweet. To the point. Everything that I think the Dem candidates need in a theme for the 2006 congressional elections. "Vote for Progress not DeLay. Vote for [insert Dem name here]."
I wrote a diary a month or so ago that offered up an idea for tying together the national campaign to retake the House. My idea involved every Dem candidate for the House being strongly encouraged by the DCCC and/or the DNC to run a campaign for "Progress" not "Congress." So that their campaign stickers/sign/buttons, etc. said "___ for Progress" instead of "___ for Congress."
The few people who read that diary seemed to think the idea of progressive candidates campaigning as "John Doe for Progress" or "Jane Doe for Progress" was not half bad. (At least the ones who commented. The vast majority may have thought it to be as bad an idea as Crystal Pepsi for all I know and were just too nice to say so.) The "for Progress" as opposed to "for Congress" approach was supposed to allow for a focused theme that played on the words "Pro" and "Con." But, upon reflection, it suffered in terms of practical enactment because most people when they hear the word "con" don't immediately think of the prefix form meaning the same thing as "anti-". What they do think of when they hear "Con" though is criminal. And, boy have we got a guy on the other side who just exudes an aura of criminality.
Thus, I think the melding of these two ideas together may just be like the decision to mix peanut butter and chocolate or a dessert topping and a floor wax.
Pick a candidate. Any candidate. Anywhere in the country and see if you cannot visualize the campaign commercials (except maybe Chris Shays who might just get a pass), the campaign signs, even the buttons. "Progress not DeLay." It is the choice that each voter faces when deciding to pick the "D" or the "R" candidate in their home district. A vote for the "R" is a vote for DeLay. A vote for the "D" is a vote against DeLay and a vote for progress.
Now imagine the TV ads involving the liberal (pun intended) use of DeLay's visage (usually, of course, the result of the morphing of the face of Republican candidate X and the word "Con" on the screen at the same time (preferably the last three letters left on the screen as the word Congress fades from view).
The only thing that I have not entirely thought through (or at least the only thing I am aware of having not thought through) is just how much of a difference it makes if the Republicans successfully remove DeLay as speaker before the '06 campaign gets rolling.
At some pretty significant level though, I think the theme and the message still work even if DeLay is not the majority leader at the time of the elections. Certainly, it would still work against each and every Republican that stayed on DeLay's side to the bitter end.
In 2006, America's choice is clear. Are you going to vote for Progess? Or are you going to vote for DeLay?