THE LEFT NEEDS A SUPERSTAR

My 2 cents today is that we need a superstar on the left to counteract the Ahnolds on the Right as well as the office of the Presidency. OK, the NYT and Washington Post sometimes do a good job of countering the Right's lies, but ho hum, who reads that stuff?

Yeah, yeah, Molly Ivans and Jim Hightower are clever AND smart. Arianna adds perky to the mix. But their reach is limited. Corporate ownership of the media, Repubs in charge of Washington claim the spotlight. Fear mongering and saber rattling drown out the voices of reason.

Alternet (http://www.alternet.org/) on Feb. 14, offered it's own suggestions for talking to conservatives complete with facts from the pages of the venerated pages of the aforementioned news outlets and think tank wonks. (And Man, I gotta stop using words like aforementioned!) But facts are almost irrelevant, if they don't come with sex appeal. Sorry but it's true. Framing, ala George Lakoff, is one part of the equation. The messenger who carries the massage, the medium through which it is delivered, all that is just as necessary in today's world. And the Center for American Progress (yawn) isn't going to cut it, much as thee and me eat it with a spoon, we can't just keep talking to ourselves.

We need a Star. Maybe even a Nova. Someone with charisma who can talk in sound bites and not sound defensive.

Can Howard Dean do it? He needs to keep in the limelight and keep jazzed up. Don't become the "Mouse that Roared" Dr. Dean. Don't silence that scream.

if we want to turn the red states blue while re-energizing the base, we need Star power to do it.

Rock on!

Green Dog Democrats bite the Right!

Dotty the Green Dog Democrat