JULY 28 — The days of hard-sell politics are over. Talk is cheap, and rhetoric, even cheaper. Empty slogans and clever but meaningless sound bites don’t matter much these days. In other words, pure spin is no longer accepted nor tolerated.
This is not to say that leaders shouldn’t communicate or explain their ideas to get buy-in and support. That is still critical. But more and more, substance must trump over style.
Malaysians have had an overdose of politics recently. We see, hear and read about countless political games taking place, about the occasional scandal and the many conspiracies that plague the country. Who is doing what, and even, who is meeting whom! Such matters are dissected and discussed ad nauseam.
