Thom Hartmann is "Cracking the Code"

Thom Hartmann has a new book out about American political discourse called Cracking the Code. In an interview about the book, the state of politics today, and the future of progressive talk radio, Hartmann had the following take on the Democratic candidates for president:

"The Republican Party runs like a well-oiled machine, it really runs like a corporation. Top down, hierarchical, power driving from the top down. And when Bush talked about he was going to be the first CEO president, it made a lot of sense to Republicans. The Democratic Party on the other hand is a coalition of coalitions. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are herding cats. That's the weakness of the Democratic Party, but it's also its strength. Because it means that the institution itself is democratic, that it is reflecting the values that it seeks to uphold.

So my goal with the book is not to encourage the Democratic Party to become more like the Republican Party and become a monolithic, top down driven institution, but rather to educate and empower the many different individuals within all those different factions to be more competent with messaging.

Ronald Reagan, FDR, and Jack Kennedy were three of the greatest communicators that we've had in the White House ...What made them great was, first of all, their ability to be multimodal in their communication. They talked about their vision for America, they talked about their story of America, and they gave America a sense of what they thought it could be.

John Edwards is a brilliant communicator. Barrack Obama is a brilliant communicator. I think Edwards has the potential to be the next FDR and I think Barrack has the chance to be the next John Kennedy."

Read the full interview here.