For the past few months I have waited for the campaign to come up with a pithy, pointed, one or two word campaign slogan to energize the base, capture the imagination (like that "hopey/changey" thing did) and embody the difference between the Democratic and Republican agendas.
First we had "Winning the Future," (yawn). Now we have "Built to Last" (OK for a car, but not really inspiring).
Follow me below the fold to see is you agree with me. For 2012, the slogan that says it all is: OBAMA CARES!
Full disclosure: There was a diary here at DK a few months ago (if anyone else has the link -- I couldn't find it -- please provide it and I will update this diary to include it) that planted this idea in my head, where the diarist was talking about how for a long time he had lost faith in the President but now he felt like Obama really did care.
My mind kept coming back to that statement -- Obama hasn't done everything we wanted or everything he hoped to do, but he really does care. And each time the thought of millions of bumper stickers saying "OBAMA CARES" flashed in my mind.
Here's why it feels so right to me. The Republicans have made repealing "Obamacare" THE cornerstone policy item in their agenda. For a long time, the word Obamacare has been used as an epithet, something to throw at the President as a failed or unpopular program. How cool would it be if we could take the Republican's negative framing of the health care debate and turn it into the positive, inspiring, defining difference between President Obama and the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney.
ROMNEY DOESN"T CARE ABOUT anyone who isn't like him. He doesn't care about the poor, the middle class, or America's diverse population. He doesn't care about anything except continuing the policies that favor him and his class of wealthy investors and political powerbrokers. ROMNEY doesn't care. OBAMA CARES!
This slogan also feels very congruent with Obama's previous predilection for a jujitsu ability to take the opposition's worst blows and insults without exhibiting any anger and, just when it seems he's on the mat, turning all that negative energy into something positive. We've seen this many times. How cool was President Obama at the Whitehouse Correspondent's Dinner as he destroyed Donald Trump without saying anything nasty or mean or angry. And, after releasing his long form birth certificate, how cool was it that the Obama campaign USED THE LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE to raise campaign donations by putting the birth certificate on Obama mugs and T-Shirts that said "made in America" on one side and printed the birth certificate on the other. (I sent in my $25 just because it was such a brilliant and effective use of that jujitsu principle of redirecting your opponent's strength against him.)
OBAMA CARES has the same potential. It takes the insulting framing the Republicans have successfully branded the President's health care initiative with, and in one deft move reframes the wording into the President's greatest strength. He CARES. OBAMA CARES. You might not agree with him, you might wish he would be tougher on this or less whatever on that, but most people agree: OBAMA CARES. It also means that every time the Republicans scream "Repeal Obamacare," subliminally, the message will be there -- Republicans DON'T CARE. OBAMA CARES!
I've written my suggestion to the campaign, but imagine that it would take a grassroots embrace of this mantra to prove to the campaign that we -- the President's base -- embrace the reframing and are inspired by the message. OBAMA CARES. Let's get the message out by "poll testing" it here.
So what say you? Suggestions, comments, flames, etc., welcome below. And take the poll!