What was the sentence that Begala gave Colbert to read

from the bible?

as an example of a sound bite?

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

and put the content?

that a lot of information can be given in a tiny amount of time. He said that Clinton likes long speeches but Begala had advised him to give his information in a shorter time - in "sound bites." As an example, he used John 3:16 to show Clinton that a sentence summary can inform many people whereas they might not listen to hours of speech.

That was my take on it,
emdee

As much as many of us love to listen to Gore and to Kerry, too many of the voters cannot follow their ideas. Clinton was a genius in being able to use simple words to convey his message. Yes, like the "I feel your pain" one, too.

If we are going to take back Congress and the White House we have to be able to talk to the voters in the red states - the ones who get their message from Sunday sermons - in simple language. They talk about "baby killers" and about "perverts" and we need to talk about health care, and schools, and jobs, and retirement. We know that these subjects are important to them, more so than the war in Iraq.

Even what Begala said: we had sex (scandal) they got greed

is that we DO have a message but it's long-winded. Catch phrases and sound bites win, it's sad to say. What the Dem party needs to do is put it into dollars and cents, too. People understand money - the Rep diversions lead away from the facts and onto things that can't be proven, usually some variation of name-calling.

Dems should be constantly pointing out the deficit.
Bush and Reps have already started their "they'll raise taxes" rhetoric and that will have to be addressed - inflation was so much lower during the Clinton years, that even if taxes were up we had more money in our pockets and more spending power.

I hope they'll put together some easily understood information and hopefully many of us will be writing Letters to the Editor and helping to spread the word. Begala's point could be taken by me too - my letters tend to be long.

emdee

The old writing school adage is "KISS" Keep it simple, stupid.

Democrats have too many messages right now and can't figure out which one speaks the loudest...so everything is dumped out there...and is pounced upon by the critics as being undisciplined and with "no real answers".

Hopefully someone within the Democratic party machinery is crafting a cohesive campaign for the fall cause unless there's a single message for voters to grab onto...be it honesty, economy, war or whatever, the message will not get out in light of the corporate media and massive right wing propaganda machine.

was talking about "we can do better."

This does not mean anything and this ties us to the Republicans.

Take for example Gingrich's Contract with American. I am sure that the details did mention the Democrats but the phrase itself stood on its own. Similar was Reagan "the city on the hill"

Just as many of us followed the "anyone but Bush." Sure for many it worked but we need to have a positive message, an action message. Yes, we need to address the concerns of the voters but we can do this in a positive way. There are many experts in advertising who should be able to come with something that catch the attention and where the message is clear.

Deficit, War, Health Care, and Corruption without allowing themselves to be sidetracked.

The Right says over and over (therefore it is true) that "they have no alternate plan." The alternate plan is there - it is just being screamed over.

The basic question of the past: Are *you* better off today than you were six years ago? should work with most working Americans. They see the rich getting richer and the dollar buying less. This is why the Right must stick to the personal issues: abortion and gay marriage, insinuating (or outright stating) that a Christian must vote Republican. I plan to write a Letter to the Editor sometime closer to the '06 elections as to why Christians can and should vote otherwise.

Another helper for the Right is the investment they have in the voting machines and software. That's just plain wrong.

emdee

...Son, etc

its complicated message in one quick sentence - how could any Dem policy be so hard to sum up - that a short message wouldn't do it justice too.