Among all the rationales and reasons we espouse in support of our presidential candidates here on Dailykos, I think language of candidates, the ability to communicate, is somewhat understated.
In light of Edwards framing the troop surge, "the Mccain doctrine" and to somewhat counter all the candidate favoritism that goes on here, I thought I'd offer a link to an objective source. http://www.kqed.org/...
For those of you unfamiliar with the book, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg talks about how important communication is and the ability to construct a narrative. Admittedly, he says something positive about my preferred candidate (Edwards), but I think Nunberg is correct and his point is well taken that whomever we elect in the future, and our party, needs to have clear ideas that people can easily wrap their heads around.
One quote that I heard Edwards say the other day I thought was particularly brilliant. I am paraphrasing here "If you can sign a piece of paper to join the Republican Party, you should be able to sign a piece of paper to join a union"
So give a listen if you are interested, he talks not only about politicians but the Democratic party as a whole.