Just Finished Luntz’s Talking Paper for Republicans on Immigration

[Montagnard]

Two thoughts occurred during the reading of the paper, first, I have heard a republican spout at least one of those talking points verbatim. The other thought was, where are our gurus that do the research and then develops talking points for us?

[existentialist]

1. "He asked me if I belonged to any organized political party, and

"I said, 'No, I'm a Democrat!'" Will Rogers

(by way of introduction)

Where are our talking points? Well, there are people that work on them, and you can pick up some ideas for use in debate and discussion lots of places, including here on DU. I think, however, that we are not as organized--or regimented--as to what the party line is or should be, and that that is partly good, because more of us are in fact thinking about such things on a regular basis and not just spouting "talking points." Robert Redford was recently quoted as saying that "Republicans don't do substance, they do strategy." When you read the talking points you discuss above did you perceive them to really address any issues, or to be just "talking points"--shallow little sound bites of preprocessed thought long ago divorced from the reality they purport to address? I'm not even asking if they were honest. I believe I can safely assume they weren't even close--but did they even try to address real issues in a meaningful way?

[Montagnard]

2. Of course not...they simply parroted some survey results

and no, they only addressed superficially the issue. However, you must admit they win elections doing that sort of thing.

[existentialist]

3. Yes, I know,

They have won some elections. Far too many elections--enough elections that both our constitutional democracy and our planet's ecological health are in dire danger.

So how can I respond to your legitimate concern?

Well, I guess I can start with Abraham Lincoln's "You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."--and hope that it it true enough that we can still turn things around. Certainly Republican poll numbers have fallen, and not just Bush's poll numbers. So there is some ground for hope.

Second, as Stephan Colbert recently noted: "Your poll numbers, Mr. President, are based on reality, and reality has a well known liberal bia-se." I believe that those numbers, and more importantly the trend that the numbers reveal, is indeed based on reality. The Republicans have ignored reality with talking points for far too long, and the public perception of the Republican divorce from reality can, in my view, only increase.

Third, yes, we really do need some well thought out positions on political issues, and immigration is one of the most troubling issues for Democrats too. Indeed, lots of Democrats are barely preferable to Republicans on many issues including many of the most important issues. I have some half baked points that I'd like to polish and bring into the national debate myself--and what do I find myself doing? Well, whatever it is it does precious little to actually advance public consciousness of the perfidity of Republican government. But I keep slogging.

Fourth, I believe that discussions such as this, with concerned and intelligent people like yourself, it the sort of thing that we need to develop out debating skills far more than "talking points"; perhaps I deceive myself but I think I perceive the American public beginning to become more receptive to real discussion rather than precast spam.