‘It has a hollow ring to it’

July 31, 2006

[tag]Lee Bandy[/tag], South Carolina’s legendary political reporter, had an interesting item today about how [tag]Republicans[/tag] have used the “[tag]tax-and-spend[/tag] [tag]liberal[/tag]” label so often, it’s reached the point that it no longer has any real meaning — or salience.

“They’ve used it so often that they’ve milked all the meaning out of the phrase,” says Francis Marion University political scientist Neal Thigpen, a GOP activist. “I don’t think the liberal thing has got any merit.” […]

“It has a hollow ring to it,” says University of South Carolina professor Blease Graham, a Democrat.

Bandy notes that in South Carolina, Republicans just reflexively use the phrase whenever they talk about any [tag]Democrat[/tag], no matter how fiscally responsible they are. He noted that state Treasurer Grady Patterson (D) is “one of the most fiscally conservative elected officials in the state,” but Republicans are trying to brand him a tax-and-spend liberal. The same goes for state Sen. Tommy Moore, the Dems’ gubernatorial nominee, whom the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce described as “a good, pro-business senator,” but whom the GOP insists is, of course, a tax-and-spend liberal.

Why bother peddling this nonsense? Because Republicans don’t have anything else.

“Republicans have absolutely nothing to run on,” says Lachlan McIntosh, a Democratic consultant. “They’re getting desperate, and it shows.”

Two questions: 1) is it me, or do we hear the “tax-and-spend liberal” line a little less frequently than we used to”? And 2) why didn’t “[tag]borrow-and-spend[/tag] Republican” ever catch on?

“why didn’t “borrow-and-spend Republican” ever catch on?”

I think there are two reasons. First, Democrats tend to be politically naive. They just don’t know how to get in the face of Republicans, whereas the Republicans are very good at getting in Democrats’ faces. Secondly, the Republicans are vastly more sophisticated at manipulating the media

  • state Treasurer Grady Patterson (D) is “one of the most fiscally conservative elected officials in the state,” but Republicans are trying to brand him a tax-and-spend liberal. The same goes for state Sen. Tommy Moore, the Dems’ gubernatorial nominee, whom the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce described as “a good, pro-business senator,” but whom the GOP insists is, of course, a tax-and-spend liberal

    “There are some in politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill informed and easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a clever ad or a smart line” – Karl Rove

  • Democrats are not politically naive and Republicans are not vastly more sophisticated.
    Democrats just don not have the desire to label, or at least stick to it. Republicans love slogans, especially one that make others seems weak. There is a reason Bush has demeaning nicknames for everyone. It makes him feel superior, a cop like mentality and I think the same is true of most of the party.
    We are just too damn self respecting to sink to that level, well at least to sink to it for an extended amount of time.
    But I still like “It’s YOUR government, take it back”

  • “why didn’t “borrow-and-spend Republican” ever catch on?”

    First of all, the line was “borrow-and-squander Republican”.

    The fact that a leading Democratic blogger can’t get line into its most effective and vicious form illustrates shargash’s first point, that Democrats are just not good enough at this tactic, too naive, too reluctant to get down and dirty, and too easily bored to carry on with the necessary repetition.

    Second, Republicans own the Media, with very few exceptions; that gives them many more opportunities to manipulate

  • “Borrow” implies an intent to pay the money back. The Vice President’s statement that deficits don’t matter seems to be eschewing that notion. “Steal and spend” would be more accurate, but it would also be called incendiary. Sometimes that’s exactly what the truth is.

  • “Tax and Spend Liberal” has little or nothing to do with actual fiscal matters, and its perdurance — and salience — doesn’t go away when Democrats have ostensible fiscal performance to point to.

    It’s not the taxing. It’s not even the spending — it’s J Random voter thinks gets the tax money that keeps the slogan alive.

    It is shorthand for “We won’t take your money and give it to people who are a different color than you. Of course, we will give it to people who don’t need it, but so long as they look you, that’s cool, right?”

    There are a bunch of studies by OECD and the IMF that show that the more diverse a country is, the greater the resistance to social provision, and in particular to anything requring transfer payments.

    People whose lives would be dramatically improved by greater social provision will instead voulunteer to live in a cardboard box under a bridge, and eat sparrows toasted on an old curtain rod, so long as they know the Other in the next box over doesn’t even have a sparrow to eat.

  • “Steal and spend” would be more accurate, but it would also be called incendiary.

    True, perhaps, but I think the key to Republican’t successes over the past decade is that they never get to the second half of that statement, where you give a rat’s ass what things will be called. And why should they?

    I can hear KKKarl in a meeting with a new intern now:

    Intern: Sir, we tested a new slogan, and it polls wonderfully. Only, we thought maybe it could be called “incendiary.”

    Karl: SO THE HELL WHAT? You’re fired.

  • 1. “Friend of Osama” works better than “tax and spend liberal”.
    2. “We’re cutting your taxes” inoculated them from the “borrowing and spending” charge. Most people won’t realize the harm this has done until they are so deep in shit that the conservatives can really rev them up to open up a can of whoopass on the world and libruls.

  • Forgive me for sounding naive, but what’s so bad about tax and spend? Isn’t that the way our government is set up to work? The government collects revenue from our taxes and then spends that revenue for public services.

  • How about “Borrow from the communist Chinese and spend away our children’s future”.

    Or, “Borrow from the communist Chinese to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and oil companies”

    Or, even better, “Borrow from the communist Chinese to pay for wars so Halliburton, etc. can make billions while America is becoming a feudal society where the poor work for less so the rich can get richer”.

  • “Borrow and spend” doesn’t work. For a slogan, I would rather go with “max-out and waste”, “bankrupt and squander” or any variation.

    “Borrow” is just too nice. It’s perfectly ok to borrow money to buy a house or grow your business. And “spend”, well, nothing’s wrong with spending. It’s spending on stupid crap which is wrong, like buying a brand new car when the old one is doing fine and the roof is leaking. So, make it “squander”, “waste” or “plunder”.

    “Borrow and spend” is even self-defeating for Democrats. This country desperately needs spending, on health care, on infrastructure, on education. Spending is good. And, for the gov, it probably means borrowing.

    The Republicans borrow money without a thought on how to reimburse it and then proceeds to waste it on useless, corrupt pork.

  • So they’d like to replace it with ‘cut and run’ Democrat….

    So we need two one-syllable words to convey what’s wrong with Republicans….

    hmmmmn

    How about “cheat and lie”? We could easily line up the ways they’ve cheated and start going on the attack about the cheaters they are. And “lie” is a no-brainer.

    I think that could strike a chord with the American public — confirm what they already are thinking.

    “Do you want another “cheat and lie” Republican in office? One who cheats to get his friends big government contracts? Who lies about the war? Do you?”

  • And 2) why didn’t “borrow-and-spend Republican” ever catch on?

    Democrats in general are somewhat averse to treating voters like children. They tend not to really excel a) distilling complex issues down to simplistic, bumper sticker phrases and b) repeating those phrases over and over (and over and over) until they are fixed in people’s minds and simply accepted without analysis.

    I heard Joe Scarborough tell a story once about attending a class for freshman Republican rep’s. There he was told that when you have repeated something enough times that you and your staff start to become physically naseous every time you hear it, you’re just barely beginning to get through to the American people. I expect there’s some truth to that. But for better or worse, Democrats don’t seem to have much stomach for that sort of imprinting. I do think it’s possible though, that this approach may tend to work marginally better on Republicans than on Democrats and Independents. A lot of Republicans really seem to be born follower personalities. Democrats — with the exception of a relatively tiny fringe element — are probably somewhat more free thinking as a group. (Anyway, that’s what I like to think.)

  • How about “steal and deal”? Has a nice ring to it. Take the money from the rubes, then use it to prop up your business associates and political cronies.

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