At the Republican National Convention and elsewhere during this election season, the Republicans’ principal attack against President Obama is that he hasn’t fixed the economy or significantly lowered the unemployment rate. The Democrats have failed effectively to call the Republicans out for not lifting a finger to work with them and with President Obama to solve these economic issues.
The story is a simple and compelling one for the Democrats, if they would only tell it:
Vice President Joe Biden, at a speech in New York City today, came up with the political bumper sticker of the year. He even told us that it could be used as a bumper sticker. Said the Veep:
“If you are looking for a bumper sticker to sum up how President Obama has handled what we inherited, it’s pretty simple: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.”
In fact, The Daily Kos liked Biden’s idea so much that they immediately created the very bumper sticker that Biden had suggested.
Biden’s bumper sticker becomes doubly effective when one recalls that Willard M. Romney both said “[i]t’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch” bin Laden AND suggested that Americans “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”. That’s why Biden twisted the knife by adding: “You have to ask yourself … if Governor Romney were president, would he have used the same slogan in reverse?” Ouch!
Biden’s speech today serves as a reminder that good policy decisions or merely reciting facts and reasonable arguments likely will not be enough to win the Obama-Biden team reelection against a Republican candidate backed by a corporate army that will wage an air war of false tv ads. Messaging matters, and that Democratic messaging must include catchy, hard-hitting phrases that fit on bumper stickers. Vice President Biden proved today that, so far, his team is up to the task.
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