Is America Being America?

John Kerry's presidential campaign has adopted and dropped several slogans, including a "better set of choices," "safer, stronger, more secure," the "courage to do what's right for America," "the real deal," "bring it on," "change starts here," "build a stronger America," and a "lifetime of service and strength," reports the New York Times. The campaign's current (and perhaps longer-lasting) catch phrase comes from Hughes - Langston, not Karen - "Let America be America again," the title of a 1938 poem. Political messaging expert Kathleen Jamieson commented: "It works because you think that America isn't being America, and that something's getting in the way of that, and that John Kerry could be the vehicle of getting the America that you want."