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Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack in Salon, 05/18/05:

And I think Republicans do a better job with language. They've spent a lot of money and a lot of time thinking about these things. Democrats have spent all of their time and energy on policies and programs that impact and affect people's lives. Republicans have spent all of their time on ideas -- how to couch those ideas, frame those ideas, and communicate those ideas.

Exactly.

I think that's the frustration most liberals, like myself, have. For now, the neocons/wingnuts of the Republican party do a great job of sugarcoating dog turds and selling them as tootsie rolls. This drives Democrats crazy because they (we) feel that if the neocons presented their policy goals straight out, they would be much less popular. There would still be a core group that supports them, but the percentages of people who say they identify with those ideas would probably drop noticeably.

I guess we liberals have got to get over the notion that a good idea will succeed on the strength of being a good idea alone. We've got to get to work on the presentation. And, we have one advantage: We won't have to name things the opposite of what they truly are, as with the "PATRIOT Act", "No Child Left Behind", "Right to Work", and so on.