Presidential Candidates Need a Way with (Very Few) Words

Politics requires simplicity.

Simple slogans. Simple math. Simple sound bites. Simple truths. Or simple half-truths.

Complex issues need to be reduced to an essence easily comprehended by overwhelmed voters.

Summing up a political platform, an unwieldy idea, or a moment of truth, is tough going for campaign consultants and their clients.

This year a “throw-the-bums-out” sentiment is raging from New York to France (the Democrats lost in NY; the Conservatives in France); across Germany and Finland (angry outsiders winning); and around the globe (with riots and wars).

To tap into this pervasive anger requires a phrasing that makes sense. Insiders must look like outsiders. They must pretend, at least, to challenge the status quo. Hard to accomplish for an incumbent.

How to accomplish this without using tired, old phrases? Needs imagination and talent.

For example, those most over-used, recycled lines, “re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” or “caught like a deer in the headlights,” only irritate the listener. They dismiss the speaker as unoriginal at best and lazy at worst.

Both of these lines (and dozens more) demonstrate the weary thinking of “out-of-touch” politicians in the midst of a veritable tsunami of financial and political upheaval.

Surely, someone can do better.

Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law Professor, may have hit on a winner. She is attempting to dislodge Sen. Scott Brown from the former Kennedy seat in Massachusetts.

Her problem: She is an insider with the Obama Administration; the architect of the Consumer Protection Act; the overseer of TARP; a liberal; and wealthy. In short, a member of the elite.

How to overcome all these potential negatives? A good slogan. A catchy bumper sticker to clarify the complex.

Her slogan: “Washington Is Rigged.” Watch for that theme to rocket in 2012. Hope and Change are out. “Washington Is Rigged” is in.

All the systems feel “rigged” to Americans trying to hang on to a job; keep a home; or qualify for a loan. The banks got hundreds of billions in taxpayers’ money. Why can’t the taxpayer catch a break? “Washington is rigged.”

The Iraqis, Pakistanis and Afghanis have profited off the wars. Our troops have died, suffered and we have spent trillions nation-building abroad while neglecting it at home. Why?

“Washington is rigged.”

See how easily the slogan fits all problems and all complaints.

The added dimension to such a slogan is that it taps into the free-floating hostility threatening to upend the “establishment” in banking, politics, law, religion, journalism and education, etc.

Whatever doesn’t work is because “Washington is rigged.”

The polls register this rage. The recent Gallup poll found “a record high 81 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country is being governed.”

How to answer the difficult question of “Why?”

Simple. “Washington is rigged.” It is a clear, multiuse answer for all that ails the country. Doesn’t matter the topic. Doesn’t matter the lack of a solution. Washington, in all its dimensions and all its programs, is at fault.

Sometimes it is clever and smart politics to recycle popular themes. Or to mock them. The Republicans chanted, “Yes, we can!” after beating the Democrats in New York. Much fun.

Sarah Palin used the “hopey, changey thing” to ridicule the president’s 2008 slogan. Great humor.

And someone will probably recycle the 1980’s “Just Say NO,” bumper stickers (originally designed to promote abstinence before marriage) and later to support the anti-drug campaigns) to a 2012 Republican anti-tax theme.

That leaves us with the Democratic bumper sticker (and presidential re-election campaign theme): “A Do-Nothing Congress” (recycled from Harry Truman’s 1948 campaign).

How will the Republicans respond? Probably by labeling the Democratic president as the “Know-Nothing” Administration (recycled from the 1850s Nativist American movement).

Ironically, the 1850s Know-Nothing victories occurred in the Northeast, in response to the collapse of the then two-party system.

Anyone trying to cash in on imaginative slogan need only be clever, think clearly and buy the domain name before anyone else.

If the domain name “Washington is rigged,” has yet to be purchased,  buy it.

Those hoping for Hillary to be drafted are too late. The “Draft Hillary 2012” domain names have already been taken.

Still, lots of chances to think of a winning slogan for 2012.