‘Read my lips … I will fight for you’
Convinced they have the policies Americans love and want, Democrats are of a mind that all they need is the right message – something snappy to hang their campaign hats on this November, when control of the House and Senate will be up for grabs.
In politics, messaging is everything, and Republicans do seem awfully good at it. You may remember, “Read my lips,” “Contract for America,” “Death panels,” “Legitimate political discourse.”
Democrats were pretty good in the long-ago. These are oldies but goodies: “He kept us out of war,” “All the way with LBJ,” “It’s the economy, stupid.”
But be careful. Not even the best messaging is always sufficient to get a candidate across the finish line. (On the theory that voters love to hate, negative messaging goes a long way, too, i.e., “In your heart, you know he’s nuts,” “Weekend Prison Passes, Dukakis on Crime,” “Lock her up.”)
Brooklyn congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ran for president in 1972 as the “unbought and unbossed” candidate.
That sounds like a winner. Alas, Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for the presidential nomination of one of the major parties, failed to connect with voters. That year’s Democratic nominee for president, George McGovern, ran on the slogan, “Come home, America.”
“Unbought and unbossed” sounds better, stronger.
Four years earlier, Richard Nixon captured the White House thanks, in part, to this tagline, “This year, vote as if your whole world depends on it.”
Maybe the all-time best campaign slogan is “I like Ike.” Fueling the presidential campaign of Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower in 1952, it had the virtue of being short – it was bumper sticker size – and true. The grinning ex-commanding general was “liked” by most Americans.
“I Like Ike” is a perennial. It resurfaces every now and again, slightly tweaked. Here’s looking at you, former Uniontown mayor Fike.
Some politicians create taglines years before they ascend to the top rung of American politics. In the case of Calvin Coolidge, he was governor of Massachusetts when police in Boston, hoping for better pay and working conditions (many precinct stations were rat-invested), walked off their beats.
“There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, anytime,” Coolidge wired labor leader Samuel Gompers.
Coolidge voiced the public’s frustration with an intolerable situation in a new and original way. “Succinct” Cal, catching lightning in a bottle, rode his way to the vice presidency, then piggy-backed to the presidency.
As for succinct, in 1930 a campaign ad in the Uniontown Morning Herald bragged that famed conservationist Gifford Pinchot, running for governor of Pennsylvania, was a straight shooter and “scandal-free,” “unbossed,” a champion of the home against the saloon, a champion road-builder, a friend of the farmer, a foe of the Philadelphia political machines and of the railroads, and was scrupulous about the use of taxpayer dollars.
That’s about as good a job of political branding as you’ll likely find.
What about the Democrats in 2022?
The youngster (not yet 40, he barely looks 30) Conor Lamb, running for his party’s nomination to replace Pat Toomey in the Senate, appears to be hewing to a line of messaging confirmed by Amy Waters of the non-partisan Cook Political Report.
After a close examination of voter sentiment, Waters, with an eye on the general election, said it’s not savvy to say, as Republican Senate candidate David McCormick is saying on TV, that his candidacy is “about saving the country from the un-American left.”
She might have the same to say about the messaging from another Republican candidate for Senate, Carla Sands, who, as a self-identified MAGA warrior, is vowing to “save our great country from the radical left.”
Voters “are looking for fixes, not fights,” Waters advises.
If so, Lamb, a two-term congressman from suburban Pittsburgh, may be on to something. He’s been saying, “This is a serious moment for the country, and we need a serious leader….”
That’s good, but maybe he could add, “For the sake of your future and for the sake of the country’s future, let’s end the nonsense and the strife. Let’s get to work and get things done.”
As an afterword, he might note, for the benefit of Republicans, “Thank you, Dick Nixon.”
For his fellow Democrats, “I remember Shirley Chisholm.”
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.