Getting heard. Being understood. Creating change.
Politics is not about what I believe. And it’s not about what you believe. It’s about what we believe, as community. And it’s about turning community beliefs and values into community action.
To function as a community a lot of talking and a lot of listening must take place. That’s how values get shared, priorities set and politics decided. To be effective at politics, you’ve got to get heard, be understood and create change.
Getting heard requires more than just talk. That’s because there is so much noise, so much static and so much interference that to get heard you’ve got to stand out. And not only must you stand out, but you must also do so in a way that gets you point across.
One way to do this is through humor. Al Franker, Jon Stewart and Michael Moore are good examples of the power of political (and pointed) humor. FOX News is just as good an example, as are the likes of Rush, Sean and Bill. Humor gets heard. Humor makes points. Humor is more and more becoming a central part of our political landscape.
And that is why I believe that Bill-for-First-Lady.com (disclosure: a project that I am paid to work on) can not only get heard, but can make a difference. We’ve put Bill in a dress, given him pink heels and a matching purse, and are sending him to take back the White House in 2008.
The strategy is simple: Fight fire with funny. If Hillary gets nominated for 2008, the Republican Attack Machine won’t be pulling any stops when it comes to making fun of the Clintons. And that’s why we’re going to beat them to the punch, and to the punch line. Bill-for-First-Lady.com is intended to showcase how good the Clintons were (and are) for America. And we’ll be laughing with them, and not at them (as the Republicans would want us to).
We also want to use up the jokes about Bill as First Lady long before they can be used against the Clintons in 2008. By making the jokes our own, and by embracing anything that could be used against Democratic candidates we tame the Republican Attack Machine.
It’s time for Democrats to get serious about Defense against the Dark Arts of the Republicans. We need to take the Republicans on all fronts, including the humor front. We’re defending the Clintons because they could very well be running in 2008. The time is now to be formulating plans of defense for all serious contenders. The stakes are simply too high to wait and to keep using the same failed tactics.
Cross posted at my blog: GrassrootsGrowth.org