"'DEMOCRAT PARTY' INSULT WAS TESTED BY REPUBLICAN PR FIRM"

Jeffrey Feldman:

The Washington Post might be surprised to learn that that the phrase "Democrat Party" appears on the White House web site dozens of times as used by President Bush. But they might be even more surprised to learn that the phrase "Democrat Party" is a focus-group tested strategy deployed by the Republican Party's top PR consultant--Frank Luntz--who has also admitted to intentionally using it in his recent book--a book that is currently on the Amazon.com best seller list.

Honestly, though, how can we possibly expect the Washington Post to conduct all of this difficult research into the Republican use of "Democrat Party," which took me all of ten arduous minutes.

At the very least, though, they could go over to the New Yorker online and read a recent article by Hendrik Hertzberg on the topic, which lays out the whole story.

"The history of "Democrat Party" [slur] is hard to pin down with any precision," wrote Hendrik Hertzberg in a great piece called "The "Ic" Factor"that appeared last summer in New Yorker (8 Aug 2007). It may be hard to pin down, but Hertzberg does a fantastic job.

Josh links to Matt on "what the big deal is when Republicans call the Democratic party the 'Democrat party'."