Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
“I did create the phrase ‘government takeover’ of health care. And I believe it,” Luntz maintained, noting too that “it gave the Republicans the weapon they needed to defeat Obama in 2010.” But most experts found the pitch patently misleading because the Obama administration was proposing that Americans buy private health insurance from for-profit
... See moreJane Mayer • Dark Money
Consensus academics articulated the need for tough men of will in politics, using prose laden with metaphors of sexual prowess.
Elaine Tyler May • Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era
In the end, the ongoing battle over political language is more about comprehension than articulation. There are at least two sides to almost every issue, and people on each side believe in the deepest recesses of their souls that they are right.
Frank Luntz • Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear
Bill Walsh (who I’ve described exclusively as my personal hero since first picking up a copy of his essential text The Elephants of Style: A Trunkload of Tips on the Big Issues and Gray Areas of Contemporary American English
Emmy J. Favilla • A World Without "Whom"
Long was a master at generating headlines. “He delighted in starting a fight,” his biographer T. Harry Williams wrote. “Things are awfully quiet around here,” Long would say to his secretary, Earle Christenberry. “What have you got in your files that we can liven them up with?” A Democratic colleague said: “Frankly, we are afraid of him. He is
... See moreJon Meacham • The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels
One measure of the movement’s impact was that starting in 1973, and for successive decades afterward, the public’s trust in government continually sank. If there was a single unified message pushed by those financing the conservative movement, it was that government rather than business was America’s problem. By the early 1980s, the reversal in
... See moreJane Mayer • Dark Money
Taller presidents also have a higher chance of being reelected.