It’s true, many good progressives don’t know how to frame an idea simply in plain language (some of the sign-makers of OWS could teach them a thing or two), and tend to bury their point in the third paragraph, long after Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public have stopped listening. Whatever the reason for this, the truth-telling progressive is usually at a 
disadvantage to the lying GOP crapblasters who stick to their one-sentence Luntz-generated talking points. This is gradually changing, as the public attitude towards the One-Percent Republican Party changes, but the change could be accelerated by some well-chosen words. As Mark Twain once said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” We need more lightning and less lightning bug on the 99 Percent side.
“I know how to beat Republicans. Progressives do not know how to beat Republicans. You have to stick with a simple theme and keep pushing it.
“The Occupy Wall Street movement was studiously ignored until the police in New York City started using violence and now it’s gone viral, so you need to seize the moment, not have too many mixed messages, because that is just not going to play with Joe Average. If you’re underwater with your mortgage, you understand the Wall Street thing. That was the whole point of the GOP: ‘Our propaganda has to be simple and repetitive.’
“People who are not authoritarian by nature are not going to march to the beat of the same drummer, but it’s tricky. It can’t be identical in style to the GOP — which is now directly appealing to irrational impulses — so there is a natural tension between keeping the message simple and not insulting the intelligence of an educated person, as so much of the GOP’s recent messaging does.”
— Mike Lofgren, a former GOP staffer in Washington, “’These People May be As Crazy as Their Statements Indicate’: Why a Former GOP Staffer Quit the Party,” Leslie Thatcher, TruthOut.org, Dec. 8, 2011.