An amazing find ! And I am so inspired :) While this is addressed to John Edwards, can we all focus now on 2006 and THE MESSAGE ? Enjoy :hi:
From: North Carolina Political Junkies
http://ncpols.eponym.com/blog/_archives/2006/3/20/1830818.htmlMemo to John Edwards and 2008
by NCPols on Mon 20 Mar 2006 11:45 AM EST | Permanent Link | Cosmos
March 20, 2006
Memo: To John Edwards
We hear you’re traveling the country, talking about poverty, people, and the possibility of another run at the presidency.
Here are a few suggestions for 2008:
1) Find no fewer than three, no more than five key issues around which to build a campaign. Give up the tendency to style yourself an expert on everything, no matter how much your handlers and media experts push for it. Nobody is an expert on everything and those of us who vote are tired of people who claim to be. What’s more, we can track about three things comfortably, five tops. After that, we start forgetting what you said, what the issues really are, and we end up confusing you with all the other cats hoping to be the prez.
2) Make the war with Iraq priority number one. Notice, I didn’t say the war on terror, I said the War with Iraq. The two are hardly related – especially in the minds of voters. We don’t want a magical date for withdrawal, we want a sound, reasonable approach to dealing with the damn thing and a president willing to look us in the eye and explain it. Can you imagine where we’d be now had we not gone to war, gotten bogged down in this mess, and had the men, money, and political capital to spend on more important problems.
3) Be a man of conviction. Tell us what your principles are, be blunt and honest, and then stick by them. Changing your stance in mid-stream requires a detailed explanation.
4) Don’t hitch your wagon to guys like John Kerry and the people who ran his campaign. He wandered around the country in a flight jacket – remember, he was a boat captain – talking about a war we fought and lost three decades ago. Meanwhile, the rest of us moved into the 21st Century.
5) Be a leader. These days, about 45 percent of the voters are Democrats; about 45 percent of the voters are Republicans. The rest of us are who you need to win. We’re those folks whom you can’t pigeonhole – you know, we want conservative folks holding the purse strings, a strong economy, and the freedoms assured us in the Bill of Rights. What’s more, no matter what our political affiliations, we’re Americans. We want a guy in the White House who can lead, who’s confident without being arrogant, who’s courageous without being foolish, and who’s willing to admit making a mistake.
6) Leave gay marriage, abortion rights, education programs and the like to the states. They are state matters and the truth is, national political debates about such things have absolutely nothing to do with the world in which we live these days. We need a president willing to lead, willing to engage on and stay focused on the big things.
7) If you have a strong faith, a belief in God or a God, tell us. If not, don’t try to pretend. People can tell and pretending is an insult to those of us who wrestle each day with our faith, our sin, and our inability to grow the former while staunching the latter.
8) We get the bio, the climb up from working class life to that of millionaire lawyer, U.S. Senator, and presidential contender. We get that. Tell people what you’ll do to help others make similar climbs.
9) Get honest with us about the national debt and the spending habits of Congress. We can see that whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, the government spends and spends and spends. They’ve mortgaged the future, put Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security at risk, and done nothing to be responsible about today and tomorrow.
Edit: clean up ads :)
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