A big part of politics is coming up with catchy slogans and phrases so that voters draw conclusions that help your party. They run the gamut from Barack Obama’s “Yes we can!” to Sarah Palin’s “death panels.”
The flipside of that is that you have to avoid saddling yourself with unflattering slogans and catch phrases. A bad gaffe will stick to a politician like flypaper — sometimes for years. These buzzwords and catchphrases bubble up into the political discourse all the time. Most of them dissipate harmlessly, but a few attach themselves to their subjects like stink on, well, chickencrap.
Here’s our list of the top five political catch phrases of 2010 — the good, the bad, and the ugly.
1. “Man Up!”
What do Christine O’Donnell (R-DE), Jane Norton (R-CO), Robin Carnahan (D-MO), and Sharron Angle (R-NV) all have in common? They all, in one way or another, attacked the masculinity of their election rivals. And they all ultimately lost. Along the way, they turned “man up” into one of the most recognizable phrases of the 2010 campaign season. O’Donnell told her Delaware Senate primary opponent, Rep. Mike Castle (R) to put his “man pants” on. She won the primary, but then lost the general election race (see item 2). In another losing effort, Sharron Angle told Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to “man up” and gut Social Security. Robin Carnahan told her Missouri Senate rival Roy Blunt to reject his health care benefits…and man up.
It backfired.
2. “I Am Not A Witch.”
Christine O’Donnell was probably doomed from the moment she won the GOP primary in Delaware, “man up” or no “man up.” But it didn’t help that she once claimed to have “dabbled into witchcraft.” And it certainly didn’t help that she reacted to the media circus that followed the revelation by treating it like a serious issue. It led to one of the strangest, most defensive political ads in history. And it made her the only statewide political candidate in 2010 to assure her voters, “I’m not a witch…I’m you!” Watch:
3. “Hell No You Can’t!”
House Minority Leader John Boehner is known more for his tears and his wry dismissiveness of the Democratic agenda than for giving fiery speeches. But he gave one that came to define both himself, the health care debate and the GOP’s legislative strategy in the 111th Congress. And it made for great viral video. It started in March, on the day the House passed historic health care legislation.
Within days, this video splicing President Obama declaring “Yes We Can” to Boehner screaming “No You Can’t” went viral.
But Boehner embraced it, and turned it into a theme on the campaign trail. “Ladies and gentlemen, your government has not been listening. Your government has been disrespecting you, your job, your children. Your government is out of control. Do you have to accept it? Do you have to take it? Hell no you don’t!”
A month after that video was filmed, Boehner’s party won scores of seats in the midterm election and retook control of the House.
4. “Refudiate.”
For some long period of time, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin apparently skipped through the political world thinking the word “repudiate” was pronounced “refudiate.” She said it once on Fox News, and, one can only assume, every time she meant to say “repudiate.” For a long time nobody noticed.
But then she Tweeted it.
And her critics laughed. So she took that tweet down. But she replaced it with a different tweet, in which she turned “refudiate” into “refute” …
…the wrong word, but at least a real one.
Then she compared herself to Shakespeare…
…and has continued to use the word self-referentially ever since — and she’s hardly the only one.
5. “Held Hostage.”
This was actually a well conceived political attack. To recap, President Obama and Democratic leaders wanted to extend Bush-era tax rates, but only up to people’s first $250,000 in income. Above that, they wanted tax rates to revert to slightly higher Clinton-era levels. Republicans were having none of it, and threatened to block all compromises that would have resulted in a tiny tax increase for the wealthiest percent of Americans. The problem, of course, is that if Dems and Republicans didn’t reach some settlement, all the Bush tax cuts would have expired, and everybody’s taxes would’ve gone up. Dems explained this to voters as hostage-taking: Republicans were holding tax cuts for all Americans hostage, to be released when wealthy Americans were given a bonus tax cut.
They got their ransom. And in a press conference after he unveiled the GOP-friendly compromise, Obama doubled down on the metaphor at length.
