The Best City in America To Raise Your Children In

I’ve recently become familiar with the work of Anat Shenker-Osorio, a California-based left-leaning political strategist who has worked on successful campaigns and initiatives both in the United States and abroad, such as a ballot initiative in Ireland to repeal an abortion ban. I’m generally wary of campaign gurus and their confidence in their expertise. Politics is very complicated and unpredictable. A campaign strategist who seems brilliant one election cycle can totally misread the next one. 

That said, Shenker-Osorio has a few ideas that have stuck me with and seem like they capture some important dynamics in politics. She argues that the most effective, persuasive political messages and ideas are ones that spread—ideas that people will share on social media, go on signs that people will put in their front lawns, that people will enthusiastically tell their friends about in-person. 

“A message nobody hears is, by definition, not persuasive,” she says. 

A phrase or message that people don’t repeat isn’t effective, because so much of the success of any message is that it is repeated by many different people across different contexts. Ideas and messages about politics in particular are usually spread by those most interested and active in politics to their less-engaged friends. So Shenker-Osorio argues that candidates, groups and others want to find ideas and messages that their core base will share enthusiastically that are also ideas that will connect with people who aren’t as engaged or part of the core base but might agree with the idea. 

The quintessential example of this kind of message is the “Love is Love” slogan that advocates used in their successful campaign for same-sex marriage in the 2010s. The idea that same-sex couples’ love was just as strong, real and worth celebrating as heterosexual couples was something that more progressive people deeply believed and were ready to share and one that more conservative people found appealing and convincing as well. Obama’s “Hope and Change” slogan also was something that liberals loved but appealed to moderates and even some conservatives. So was “Black Lives Matter,” –at least for a while. I’m sure you’ve seen the lawn signs that declare “In This House, We Believe” and then list off progressive mantras, like “Science Is Real.” 

I didn’t agree with what it signified, but “Make America Great Again” was a slogan that Republican voters embraced and felt comfortable pushing towards their more moderate friends and wearing hats with that message on it. 

What’s important about these cases is that the core party base embraced the message and shared it with people outside of the base who might be receptive to it. “Defund the police” was a viral message among more left-wing people—the problem is that people outside of the core base didn’t like it. The problem with “fund the police, fund the police” (President Biden’s recent framing) is that many of the most engaged Democrats aren’t dying to go on Facebook and push for police funding, even if they broadly support policing. 

This gets at one of the major applications of Shenker-Osario’s ideas. She argues that politicians should concentrate on the views among people who might actually vote for them, not all voters. So Democratic politicians need to think about the views of Democratic voters and undecided ones, but not hard-core Republicans. So “fund the police” polls well. The limitation for Biden is that many of the people who like that idea are hard-core Republicans—they aren’t going to vote for him or evangelize for his ideas no matter what he says about policing. Ideally, in terms of spreading his messages, Biden finds ideas that hard-core Democrats like and speak enthusiastically about to their friends who aren’t hard-core Democrats. 

We have a great local example of a strong message. “Hood to the Holler”, the slogan of Kentucky Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker, evokes the idea of a black-white, rural-urban coalition that unites people across Kentucky. Hard-core Democrats love the idea of this kind of coalition. This is a phrase and an idea that they are eager to promote. But it’s also an idea that appeals to less-engaged Democrats, independents, even Republicans. This framing and messaging is a big reason why Booker has become a statewide and national figure despite a fairly slim political resume. 

Craig Greenberg, the Democrats’ nominee for mayor, leaned into the issues of fighting crime and expanding prekindergarten in Louisville during his successful primary run. Considering his huge advantages in terms of fundraising and endorsements, Greenberg didn’t do that well in the mayoral primary, with the majority of voters choosing other candidates. And the primary had fairly-low turnout. Just living here, my experience is that Greenberg (and the other candidates) didn’t come up with many memorable ideas and messages that deeply resonated with voters. My neighbors and friends didn’t really know much about the candidates, even at the end of the race. Democratic voters in Louisville probably aren’t that jazzed about Greenberg’s police funding promises, and most people’s kids are not prekindergarten age. 

I wonder if Greenberg or Bill Dieruf, the Republican nominee for Louisville mayor, should lean into campaigning on the idea/slogan/mantra of making Louisville the best city in America to raise your children in. “The Best City in America To Raise Your Children In ” is a memorable idea and a not-totally-far-fetched vision for Louisville, in my view. I think hard-core Democrats and hard-core Republicans would embrace this concept and share with their friends. Everyone does not have school-aged children, but everyone was once a school-age child, cares about children and has friends with children. 

It would connect with Greenberg’s platform in particular. The best city in America to raise your children in would make sure your kids are educated before kindergarten. It would be a place where parents and children are not killed by other residents. It would also be a place where parents and children are not killed by the police without justification.

The best city to raise your children in would be one that has decently-affordable housing and is trying to build more. The best city to raise your children in would be one that has Asian, Black, Latino and White people, truly embraces that diversity, and tries hard to ensure there aren’t massive disparities between those groups. The best city to raise your children in would be one really trying to reduce poverty and homelessness, because a childhood without a home or much money will be a very hard one. 

The best city for raising your children would be one with great public schools, great private schools, great parochial schools, and such a wide range of options that any parent can find something that works for them. (The Louisville mayor has no formal power over public schools. But people care a lot about schools.  Instead of sidestepping or embracing the bashing of the public schools that happens so much here, the mayor in my view should become a cheerleader for the correct and pro-Louisville idea that we have some great schools—private, public, parochial.) The best city for raising your children would have strong colleges and other post-secondary education institutions that are connected to the community and where people are eager to send their kids after high school. It would also have good jobs so that children, as they age into adulthood, can live near their parents if they want. 

So maybe Louisville could also be the best city in America if you want to help raise your grandchildren. 

Perhaps Dieruf, Greenberg or some other past or present candidate has leaned into this idea and I have missed it. But the broader concept here is that ideas that are successful are those that go viral. Booker is fairly unlikely to be Kentucky’s next U.S. senator, but I think the concept of “Hood to the Holler” is here to stay. Hopefully, in the next few months, the candidates in Louisville for mayor and other offices also land on ideas that inspire and engage the city’s voters. 

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