GRITtv: Crafting A Clear Message On Poverty

Last night I was out having dinner and I got into an interesting conversation with a man, twenty years my senior, about the Democratic Party and messaging. This man is a songwriter who had a number of big hits in the seventies, and we started discussing how crafting an effective political message is a lot like writing a song.

We have all watched in horror at some sad attempts by some Democrats (I’m not sayin’ any names but I am look at you, John Kerry) to get their message out, we have also seen some successful messages emerge. So I ask you, what are messages that work?

It was John Edwards who called it right: fighting poverty and eliminating the "Two Americas" are the great moral issues of our time. Since Edwards left the presidential race, however, the remaining candidates have been scrambling to cover the base Edwards left behind — to sound the call to reduce poverty as Edwards saw it.

On GRITtv, Laura Flanders discusses "bottom-up" approaches to fighting poverty with two acclaimed grassroots activists for economic justice : Ethel Long Scott, Executive Director of the Women’s Economic Agenda Project, a partner organization of the national Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign based in Oakland, Calif., and recipient of Essence Magazine’s "Street Warrior" award; and from New York City, Ana Maria Archila, co-Executive Director of Make the Road New York. These organizations do not "manage" poverty, but rather challenge it, by mobilizing the least economically fortunate to take power within their communities – encouraging their members bring themselves out of the shadows of poverty.

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