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GOP's 'anger' strategy has Dems defensive
modbee ^ | 2-8-06

Posted on 02/08/2006 12:15:49 PM PST by LouAvul

NEW YORK - The Republican national chairman created a furor this week when he suggested Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is too "angry" to win the White House in 2008. And to hear Republicans tell it, Clinton is just one of many Democrats with an anger management problem.

snip

In recent months, GOP operatives and officeholders have cast the Democrats as the anger party, long on emotion and short on ideas. Analysts say the strategy has been effective, trivializing Democrats' differences with the GOP as temperamental rather than substantive.

"Angry people are not nice people. They are people to stay away from. They explode now and then," said George Lakoff, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. His book "Don't Think of an Elephant" has become something of a Bible for Democrats trying to improve their communication with voters.

Political history is dotted with failed presidential candidates perceived by the voters as too angry - think of Howard Dean's famous scream in 2004, or Bob Dole admonishing George H.W. Bush in 1988 to "stop lying about my record." Both parties' most revered figures in recent years, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, projected optimism and hope.

The latest example of the anger strategy came Sunday, when Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman said on ABC that Clinton "seems to have a lot of anger." He cited comments she made in Harlem on Martin Luther King Day in which she likened the Republican-led House to a "plantation" and called the Bush administration "one of the worst" in history.

snip

Some Democrats, in fact, complained that Clinton doesn't get angry enough. Some also denounced Mehlman as mean-spirited, and smelled more than a whiff of sexism in his remarks.

"It's the stereotype of the crone - angry, nasty, but powerful," Lakoff said.

(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: angrydems; hillary2008; mehlman; rnc
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To: Dems_R_Losers
Lakoff is a joke, but I'm glad the Dems are listening to him. He is just telling them what they want to hear...

Lakoff is the classic consultant. Which is to say, he has an attache case, he comes from over 50 miles away...and he can look at your watch and tell you what time it is.

81 posted on 02/08/2006 10:16:08 PM PST by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: Dems_R_Losers
Lakoff is a joke, but I'm glad the Dems are listening to him. He is just telling them what they want to hear...

Lakoff is the classic consultant. Which is to say, he has an attache case, he comes from over 50 miles away...and he can look at your watch and tell you what time it is.

82 posted on 02/08/2006 10:16:10 PM PST by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: CFC__VRWC
People don't mind seeing anger, when that anger is reasonable and controlled and used to appropiately advance a cause or a plan.

There is "passion". And then there are "snits". And "tantrums".

83 posted on 02/08/2006 10:24:32 PM PST by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: Sonny M
What I can't understand, is her utter failure to hire good handlers or staffers to coach her or prepare her or even do anything to help her.

She has the best and the slickest coach in the business available to her - - that guy who used to be President.

84 posted on 02/08/2006 10:47:50 PM PST by Lancey Howard
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To: Lancey Howard
She has the best and the slickest coach in the business available to her - - that guy who used to be President.

He was a product, his coaches are the ones she needs, and they ain't working for her.

That said, he isn't a operative or a campaign manager, I can't see him useful.

85 posted on 02/09/2006 9:22:27 AM PST by Sonny M ("oderint dum metuant")
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To: ncountylee

Hillary, at her best, reminds every divorced man of his ex-wife!


86 posted on 02/09/2006 9:46:01 AM PST by albee (Clinton"Those that bite the hand that feeds them will lick the boot that kicks them!" - Eric Hoffer)
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To: LouAvul

Why so angry Hil?


87 posted on 02/09/2006 9:54:07 AM PST by showme_the_Glory (No more rhyming, and I mean it! ..Anybody got a peanut.....)
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To: LouAvul
"It's the stereotype of the crone - angry, nasty, but powerful," Lakoff said.

who needs a crone 'stereotype' when you have the Real McCoy? I looked up "crone" in the dictionary and I found Hillary's picture there.

88 posted on 02/09/2006 12:31:52 PM PST by WOSG
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To: OldPossum

YOu may have something there.

When Hillary said
"I'm sick and tired of ..." (forget what she was sick and tired of, maybe Bush fighting the war on terror) ...

SHE COMES ACROSS AS SOMEONE'S MOTHER-IN-LAW. A Nag.

When Gore says:
"He played upon our fears" ... in his best hyperventilated rage ...
HE COMES ACROSS AS A MANACING PREACHER.


89 posted on 02/09/2006 12:38:56 PM PST by WOSG
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To: Registered

Maybe a collage of dummocrap angry faces like Kennedy, Schummer, Clinton(both of 'em), Dean, with a comment about "Leadership" with "anger management issues" is in order . . .


90 posted on 02/09/2006 1:08:28 PM PST by Petruchio ( ... .--. .- -.-- / .- -. -.. / -. . ..- - . .-. / .. .-.. .-.. . --. .- .-.. / .- .-.. .. . -. ...)
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To: Steely Tom
"Not to mention her odd facial expressions which, to my way of thinking, betray something very troubling deep within her"...


BINGO!! You've hit the nail on the head. But I've never been able to pin point my discomfort watching her until now. You are absolutely right. She is a very troubled woman, isn't she?

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid!!
91 posted on 02/09/2006 2:46:25 PM PST by GeorgeW23225 ("Grow your own dope. Plant a liberal")
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To: Steely Tom

Another case in point comes to mind from the SOTU address.

When the President jokingly referred to himself and Bill Clinton both turning 60 years old in 2007, the look on Hillary's face was amazing. She absolutely, positively did not know what to do at that moment. Most human beings would have smiled and laughed along with the President but not Hillary. You could see that she was trying to calculate what her response should be, and she couldn't decide what to do. Instead of just showing us her "human" side, she, once again, went into her "I'm a bitch mode". How sad. And how very troubled she must be.


92 posted on 02/09/2006 2:57:07 PM PST by GeorgeW23225 ("Grow your own dope. Plant a liberal")
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To: Chesterbelloc

Right you are.

DemocRAT anger. The gift that keeps on giving, and giving, and giving.........


93 posted on 02/09/2006 3:06:11 PM PST by GeorgeW23225 ("Grow your own dope. Plant a liberal")
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To: OldPossum

I know what you mean, but no one, repeat, NO ONE, was better with forceful oratory than Margaret Thatcher.

And she NEVER had to raise her voice to make her point.


94 posted on 02/09/2006 3:14:59 PM PST by GeorgeW23225 ("Grow your own dope. Plant a liberal")
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To: LouAvul
Analysts say the strategy has been effective . . .

It's not a "strategy", it's a truth!

95 posted on 02/09/2006 3:17:34 PM PST by mombonn (¡Viva Bush/Cheney!)
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To: Sonny M
Her failure to get good "handlers" or "staffers" is due to the fact that even democRATS now know that she is not going to be the democRAT nominee for President.

Hillary's Presidential ambitions are toast!!
96 posted on 02/09/2006 3:19:46 PM PST by GeorgeW23225 ("Grow your own dope. Plant a liberal")
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To: Bender2

Mwa ha haaa.


97 posted on 02/09/2006 4:55:50 PM PST by Gordongekko909 (I know. Let's cut his WHOLE BODY off.)
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To: GeorgeW23225

You know, I was going to add in my post one of the exceptions to the rule, PM Margaret Thacker, who is one of the very few women in politics who can make a forceful presentation, but I got so caught up in trying to present the info that I had that I forgot to. Thanks for adding that; good observation.


98 posted on 02/09/2006 5:30:00 PM PST by OldPossum
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To: OldPossum

My pleasure to help.


99 posted on 02/09/2006 5:44:20 PM PST by GeorgeW23225 ("Grow your own dope. Plant a liberal")
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