Ignorant electorate and pithy sayings

A Democratic Strategist does research

So, to put it in provocative terms, how ignorant is the electorate? Bennett found that nearly one-third of adults were unaware that the Republican Party is more conservative than the Democratic Party. And lest the reader think that this is an expression of cynicism rather than a lack of knowledge, Bennett found that whether or not respondents knew there were major differences between the two parties was associated with the amount of knowledge they had of major politicians and the parties but not with their levels of governmental trust.
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inally, in an intriguing finding, Bennett shows that consistency in positions taken across issue areas increases as political knowledge increases. Those who have little knowledge tend to have unconventional combinations of issue positions. If it is also the case that those with little political knowledge are less consistent in their positions on individual issues over time than other people are, then the result might be a sizeable constituency for demagoguery and misdirection.

So we end up with a huge percentage believing that Sadaam had connections to 9/11.

That result is intriguing, but not terribly surprising. What is really interesting is that this bloc is about 1/3 of the electorate. It is these people you have to hit with the short quick talking points - "where is Osama?" "Republicans (and Bush) are incompetent" Things like that.

Ever since I saw Colbert interviewed Geoffery Nunberg, the author of Talking Right: How conservatives turned liberals into ... blah blah blah. In the interview Geoffery can not make a single good comeback to the talking points that Colbert threw at him. At one point Colbert stops and even sort of giggles to himself - I don't even think he could believe it. This made me realize (duh!) that the democrats just need some good pity short sentences like all that republican crap to make a good comeback in many situations (unfortunately, not often do interviews go like this where apolitician is called on such a blatant use of talking points).

So a pithy comback would 1) help in debates and characterize the republicans in an unfavorable light and 2) appeal to that manipulatable 1/3 of the electorate. So I have been thinking (in the shower). Whenever a talking point like cut and run or tax and spend is thrown at you, respond in the following way:

1) Co-opt the term: "You bet I am - tax those that benefit from our wonderful society and spend it on your kids education, tax the rich, spend it on homeland security...." repeating ad nauseam.

2) Pithy phrase comback: "... which is a hell of a lot better than those 'Cut and steal' conservatives - they cut taxes for the rich and steal your health care, cut taxes on coorporations and steal your clean environment... [or something like that].

Here's another one: If they say "cut and run" on Iraq you respond, you would rather "Stay and pay" stay the course and pay the consequences, pay with national debt, pay with peoples lives... etc... hmm... well, i'm trying.

Dunno how good those are, but you get the point. What do you think?