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2.11.2005

Jim Wallis Teaches Democrats The "V Word"


Democrats Getting Lessons in Speaking Their Values

Ever since the November election, Democrats have known that the hottest V-word is not "veto" or "Viagra," it is "values." Now, as hundreds of the party's elite descend here to select a new chairman and chart a course for the future, Democrats are enlisting a bevy of consultants - church leaders, a marketing guru from Silicon Valley and even a linguist - to redefine themselves and discover a message that will sell at the polls.

On Friday, a left-leaning evangelical Christian author, Jim Wallis, will visit Democrats for the second time in recent weeks, this time to instruct Senate press secretaries about how to "discuss the budget in terms of moral values," according to an invitation to the closed-door event. Meanwhile, Richard Yanowitch, a former Internet company executive, is borrowing the business concept of branding to help Democrats come up with what he calls a "new vision for governing."

"The Republicans are trying to corner the values debate, and we Democrats want to expand the values debate," said Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, the chairman of the Democratic Governors' Association. "We're talking about values including better schools, access to health care, personal behavior, and I add a Western value, and that is protecting God's creation, which is land and water."

"We don't need just a few Bible verses or some cheap God talk," said Mr. Wallis, who is the founder and editor of the Christian magazine Sojourners and the author of a new book, "God's Politics." He added: "This is more than a language issue. It's a content issue. So I said to the Democrats: 'This isn't going to be a sprint. It's going to be a marathon.' "
|| doug, 14:34

1 Comments:

That is freakin' rad.
Blogger timsamoff, at 11/2/05 15:39  

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