Accountability.
Add that word to your lexicon, rinse, and repeat. Let's vow to overuse the word for the remainder of the year. Why?
While I'm not always a fan of George Lakoff's "framing", he and the Rockridge Institute are spot-on when they describe connecting to voters using the "V-I-P", or "Values-Issues-Policies" method.
It's my #1 buzzword for the following reasons:
1. "Culture of Corruption" no longer works. Let's face it folks. Not only because it's being used most regularly by Nancy "
Free Trip" Pelosi, but the William Jefferson freezer-cash caper pretty much makes it a "pox on both houses" issue. Sure, we can use the corruption issue in a few select cases (see: Ney, TX-22, Pombo, Burns, etc.), but as far as carrying weight in all races nationally I think this is a stretch--especially in the close races with Democratic incumbents.
2. It's the best catch-all to highlight Bush's failures in Iraq, Katrina, and our ballooning national debt. As noted in
Kos's post today regarding the party-line vote on Byron Dorgan's anti-war profiteering amendment, the Republicans have proven time and time again that they're unwilling to hold the administration accountable for their mistakes. People are pissed-off at Bush, and the Republicans act as though there's nothing wrong, rubber-stamping (there's another good phrase to overuse) everything he wants.
You wanna put Republican candidates in a tough position? Ask them how they plan to hold the President accountable after he headlines their biggest fundraiser of the year. They'll probably say something to the effect that the President has admitted mistakes and that they believe he's taking the necessary steps to correct them. That's just the quote you need to run with--"Joe Schmoe thinks that Congress should allow George Bush to continue wasting billions of taxpayer dollars in Halliburton contracts without giving them so much as a second look."
3. "Accountability" hits closer to home than other values with the average middle-class voter which is our prime target demographic in the swing districts. Everyone in a middle-class home has to balance the checkbook and pay the bills at the end of the month. George Bush and his GOP lackeys haven't done that since he took office.
As active liberals, we all love "fairness" and "opportunity", but those values don't rank near the top for most middle-class voters.
4. Furthermore, "fairness" and "opportunity" just don't carry as much weight when Bush & Co. trot out the "War on Terror" trump card. Sure, they're nice to have in your arsenal when the topic becomes domestic issues like healthcare, education and immigration. But folks, the reason Bush has such high negatives is because he's incompetent and has no real plan to get us out of the messes we're in. Bush's numbers on healthcare and the economy weren't good in '04, but he still won.
Look at the numbers in the recent Pew poll--while Zarqawi's death gave a rise to opinions regarding preventing Iraq becoming a terrorist base, they did nothing to affect Americans' pessimisism regarding sectarian civil war. It's this bungling without a direction that needs to be highlighted. 52% of registered Independents are in support of a timetable for withdrawl from Iraq. Nearly 100% of congressional Republicans are opposed to any timetable. That's called an "accountablility gap."
So what do you think? What value should Democrats place forward as their predominant theme in '06?