The U.S. presidential campaign has seen the deployment of a powerful new weapon in the war of words: repetition. The formula involves taking a point of criticism about one’s opponent, turning it into a catchy sound-byte and repeating it over and over again in the media.

Let’s consider the example of the labeling of John Kerry as a “flip-flopper.” This was a successful campaign of repetition whereby every time a Republican politician or pundit was asked by a reporter about Kerry, the term “flip-flopper” was used.

While this tactic is extremely effective, but has been largely neglected by the Democrats. In fact, they’ve had a hard time in general getting their message across in sound-byte form. Is this intentional or not? I’m not quite sure myself.