The Telling Anecdote

A big thing in political reporting is what's known as the "telling anecdote." This is basically a form of politics-as-fractals, the idea of a single moment or story that perfectly encapsulates a given candidate or issue. Mike Dukakis in the tank, George Allen's "macaca" slip, these are both decent examples. John Kerry's "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it" is even a better one. The best one I can think of is the Bush Administration's (man, I'm glad they're gone...) response to Katrina. Incompetence, arrogance, willful unpreparedness, and callous disregard for the damage caused to real people by bad policy, all wrapped up in a flooded American city? The perfect shorthand for 8 years of Dubya. (I'll cover McCain's in tomorrow's election remembrance.)

Anyway, there was a lovely one today from Orrin Hatch, longtime holder of the coveted "Most Hypocritical Member of the Senate" crown. He was giving an interview to a conservative news service, and in talking about healthcare, he voiced his fears that the passage of a reform bill could destroy the two-party system. Since the Dems are pushing for socialized medicine (I pause here for a wistful "oh, if only..."), then once we've got it, "...almost everybody's going to say all we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party." This, he implied, was the major rationale behind healthcare reform.
Now, a couple things. Firstly, even if the Dems were inclined to go for the "if you don't vote for us, your children will die of easily curable diseases" route, the moment they got healthcare reform passed, they'd promptly start tripping over their own feet, because such are the Democrats. Secondly (this deserves a line break)...

...I'm not sure it's ever occurred to Orrin Hatch that there might be non-electoral reasons to support healthcare reform. Are there political points to be scored by giving people cheap healthcare? Sure, of course. I'm not sure the Democratic Party is smart enough to capitalize upon such a thing, but it's foolish to suggest that there's no possible political motive involved. However, the US spends a sixth(!) of its GDP on healthcare, and we have 50 million people uninsured or underinsured. Americans who do have insurance regularly lose it for such horrifying offenses as changing jobs or going to a dermatologist five years prior to developing cancer. The status quo is horrifying, and one of the basic tasks of government is to solve problems such as this.
But I don't think Orrin knows that. I'm not sure he can wrap his head around the idea of doing something because it's a necessary and worthwhile policy decision, rather than an electoral winner. The only reason that Democrats and progressives could possibly want to provide cheaper health insurance is to bribe low-income voters, thus gaining their votes in a sinister plot to win legislative majorities that will pass mandatory gay-marriage laws.

So why is this a telling anecdote? Because it reveals a party in its basic philosophy. The Republican Party, when it looks at legislation or policymaking, doesn't see the forging of a social contract and the building of a commonwealth. It sees patronage and electioneering.

Have the Democrats Learned Branding?

While granting credit to the GOP in anything grates a bit, one area in which they've always handed the Dems their asses has been bumper-sticker sloganeering. It's not exactly an important skill in governance, but when it comes to campaigning, it's a hell of an advantage. It's better for advertising (bumper stickers and pins, of course, but also 30-second TV spots), it's better for getting media coverage (anything more than five words, and reporters' eyes start to glaze over), and it plays into one of their key lines of attack against the Democrats. The overly wordy, wonkish egghead liberal is one of the old standbys of Republican campaigns, and we don't exactly do a wonderful job of ducking it. And, America being what it is, in a contest between the nerd and the regular dude, the nerd's not going to win too many rounds.

So how do we deal? Well, we could go the Republican route, and base our entire platform on a small set of reactionary concepts which run no more than three syllables apiece ("guns good," "taxes bad," "gays icky," etc.) Or, we could just sell our actual ideas more simply. Not that this is easy. There's only so much to be done as far as explaining the intricacies of healthcare reform. But finding a way to sum up shouldn't be hard. I think this is one realm in which Obama's years as a professor come in handy. Summing up complex ideas and helping others understand them is pretty basic to the teaching profession, and the best teachers do this amazingly well.
It seems like the Dems may be getting the memo on this one. There's evidently talk in the House of rebranding the public option as "Medicare Part E" ("E for Everyone," puke, but cheesy can occasionally work out). This is exactly the sort of simplification that can work. It's not dumbing anything down, it's not assuming the electorate is too busy or too stupid to listen to a three-minute explanation, it's just a shorthand. Everyone has some idea of what Medicare is, they know it's government-run (well, most of them do, anyway), they know it's cheap, and they know it's reliable. Most of us know at least one person who's on Medicare, and can ask them what they think of it. And most importantly, it's exactly like the ideal public option, a government-provided, easily-accessed form of health insurance. Toss in the fact that Medicare is overwhelmingly popular, so much so in fact that defending it has been cited by Republicans as a rationale for opposing the reform effort, and you've got a hell of a way to sell a public option.

As for broader campaign slogans, the President brought one out over the weekend that I'm hoping shows up on a million bumpers and lapels all through 2010. Giving a speech at a Dem fundraiser, he praised the concept of a strong, loyal opposition, but pointed out that we don't really have that, we just have a heckling section. Or, as he put it: "...when, you know, I'm busy and Nancy [Pelosi]'s busy with our mop cleaning up somebody else's mess, we don't want somebody sitting back saying, 'You're not holding the mop the right way.' Why don't you grab a mop?" "Grab a mop" is a hell of a slogan. Three words (ah!) and it's quietly devastating. It doesn't say to anyone, "Hey, you're idiots for voting GOP," it doesn't start a long debate, and it only hints at the fact that the mess is their fault. It just thumps them for being useless.
The GOP's been branding itself as the "party of ideas" for a few decades now, but it's spent a good half-century or more as the party of hard work and good old American can-do pull-yourself-up spirit. Even more importantly, they've gotten a great deal of mileage out of portraying Democrats and their social welfare programs as just being designed to help people who are lazy, drugged-up, or otherwise undeserving. If the Dems can turn this around a bit, make themselves over as the party that's working hard to fix the country while the GOP just sits in Washington flinging mud, they can do score some serious points. Here's hoping we see a lot more mops at rallies and campaign stops over the coming year.