Obamacare. It has a ring to it. To a conservative it is mocking and placing blame all at once. Exactly what we want to do. To a liberal it is a badge of pride and the crowning glory of their hero-in-chief. For those two groups it fails to move the needle. Then there are the masses in between. And to those masses it plays like an ad campaign. To the uninformed it states exactly the opposite of what it is... "Obama Cares".
I cringe every time I hear the Affordable Care Act referred to as Obamacare. It is the type of advertising that money just cannot buy. The sound clip audience simply hears "Obama Cares" over and over, and just like that it becomes an accepted fact. So the other guy automatically becomes the opposite. If Obama cares, the other guy doesn't care. Opposition means that you don't care. This is critical. We are talking about soundbite voters who don't know a lick about current events or politics. They just absorb a few words and let their minds fill in the blanks. And every time they hear Obamacare it makes the man dearer to their hearts.
These are voters, like it or not. And if we want to win elections we need to speak the language that they listen to. That does not mean changing our values or sucking up to this interest group or that. It is as simple as using different language when we mock. That is why I prefer the term Unaffordable Care Act. It tells it exactly like it does; it makes health care unaffordable. There are enough ways to mock the President without giving him inadvertent positive branding in a soundbite sized culture of low information voters.
So, no Obamacare. I like Unaffordable Care Act. What other names for it do you like to use?
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