First question, who is our target audience?
Answer, the broad, often disengaged American public.
What then do we want them to know?
Republicanism is bad and has betrayed their interests.
First rule of rhetoric: it's easier to go wide in your rhetorical indictment, then whittle it down with examples, rather than start with the particular and try to build it up. That's why starting the conversation about "Delay," or about "K Street," or whatever else is short of the whole Republican/conservative movement, represents a lost opportunity. The generally disengaged American public needs to hear the bottom line first. Hence:
"The Republican Party is a criminal enterprise that has betrayed the American people and the well intentioned people who voted for it. It's time to restore sanity and fairness to Washington, to clean up the disastrous mess Republicans have made at home and abroad."
More on the flip.
Those two sentences include the bottom line interpretation of political reality and offer a call to action for anyone who hears it. They also include a mental life boat for people who have been voting Republican : they are not
crooks; they are not
stupid; they have been
betrayed.
Now, just by asserting this frame, we still need to solidify the mental image of a criminal organization. The best, current model for this is the Sopranos. So, the next line in this little script is:
These guys are the Sopranos with better suits. They don't use guns; they use lawyers.
I like this line, virtually verbatim. One, it's a little funny. Not belly laugh funny, but it gets a smile. And it plugs into the mental image of the Sopranos, creating the right rhetorical and cultural frame of reference. It also immediately answers the objection about gun use by adding in a reference point - the use of lawyers by powerful, white collar fat cats, who screw over regular people. That brings us to the next link in the rhetorical chain:
The victims for these guys are always the same: regular American people. They line their own pockets and the pockets of their cronies at the expense of the taxpayer. And the wreck the government doing it.
The only weakness with the Sopranos frame is class based: part of the Sopranos appeal is they way middle class people identify with the characters. We started repositioning by class right away, with the reference to "suits." But this last talking point nails it more.
The public has already developed an awareness of crony government, post Michael Brown, so that's a good image to build on. Traditional Republican voters are also conditioned to respond to the interests of "taxpayers." Finally, this segment begins to move the conversation to the wreck of government perpetrated by this criminal organization. And so:
Republicans have been so busy stealing they've gutted the government. It's going bankrupt and it fails to protect Americans at home or abroad.
This is your entry point to anything you want to discuss: Katrina, Iraq, the deficit, port security, whatever.
The question arises, what about Delay?
We can certainly engage on the facts with Delay and many of the other players, but the broad swath of Americans' eyes will glaze over with those details. So, regarding Delay:
Delay was a big player, but even with Delay out, there's a whole machine to dismantle. From Jack Abramoff to Scooter Libby to many others, there are many more parts in the machine. The Republican party is a crime family, like the Sopranos with better suits. They're going to jail, but now it's time to clean up the mess in Washington by throwing the Republicans out.
I mention Libby and Abramoff because they have better name recognition than the other players right now. But right away, I get back to the main theme.
That's the proposal. I'll be interested in what people think. In my opinion, we have a great opportunity to go wide and use some coordinated language to make a meme really stick. The "Sopranos" line is the one that can carry it to the mainstream if we repeat it enough.