" Republicans are better at it than Democrats because they have to be. If everybody just said: Okay, who’s looking out for me? -- in Bill O’Reilly’s words -- and voted accordingly, well, Republicans would only have 1 percent of the votes, because that’s who they’re looking out for. So they have to be much more sophisticated at it, and they have to work a lot harder at controlling the language. They have to work a lot harder at telling those stories, right? This is something that you see in election after election -- the Republicans tend to talk about values, and Democrats tend to talk about programs. Democrats often get lost in the details. Now the details are all things that will reflect well on them. But it’s much harder to get people to understand a whole long list of programs than it is to get them to understand a story.
Republicans are very good at telling these stories. And they’ve constructed a very pleasing and easy-to-understand story about George W. Bush -- that he was sort of the wayward son. Then he found God. He became a serious person. He ran for President. He’s a man of upstanding moral values. And then Sept. 11th happened, and he rose to the challenge, and he‘s the savior of us all. And that’s why, to put it bluntly, I’m sure Karl Rove gets down on his knees and thanks God for Sept. 11th every day because any time they’re in trouble, what do they do? They announce a new threat, and they say this is all about terrorism. And if you ask George W. Bush what time he is, he’ll say: In the wake of Sept. 11th, it’s 3:15. So it’s a powerful story and it activates people’s fear and anger, and all those emotions that we all felt on Sept. 11th. And they’re going to keep activating them as long as they can because they know that it works."
Paul Waldman
http://www.buzzflash.com/buzzscripts/buzz.dll/content
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