Category: Politics and Grassroots

Winning the Salmon

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Immediately after the State of the Union address, NPR asked listeners to describe the President’s speech in three words, then made word clouds out of the responses.

The dominant word from the speech?  Salmon.

Even self-identified Democrats told NPR the fish was the biggest hook of the night – here’s their word cloud:

At first blush, it seems like President Obama lost his message. The President’s recommendations on economic, education, and energy policy took a backseat to a joke that, as my brother said, sounded like it was ripped off from a Kenny Bania routine.

In reality… That was gold, Jerry.  Gold!

The President’s job approval rating is creeping up, but Republicans are rebounding in the polls as well.  In other words, his return to good standing with the public probably has more to do with the fact that, since the election, there haven’t been television ads running non-stop blasting his economic and health policies.

That will, of course, change in the coming months, once the real legislative battles start, and once the Republican primary season starts in earnest negative messages about President Obama will blanket the news coverage.

For all the talk about Obama’s centrist political re-orientation, he has to be personally likable if he wants to win in 2012.  His charisma was a key factor in his ability to best John McCain in 2008, and the lack of charisma among the early Republican front runners will make this an advantage for him again next year.

Obama may not be able to get a majority of Americans to agree with him, but he can get them to like him.  A State of the Union speech most memorable for the yuks can only help that.  Viewers (and voters) can disagree about income tax policy or health care overhauls; a good sense of humor can cut across partisan lines.

Cross posted at Pundit League. Read it again!

Reacting to the Bachmann Reaction

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday at PunditLeague, I argued that Michelle Bachmann’s “Tea Party Response” to the President’s State of Union address would not detract from Paul Ryan’s official Republican response.  In practice, Bachmann’s response was actually better than Ryan’s – not because of content (Ryan did as well as he could have done), but because of style.

Despite Bachmann’s shortcomings as a speaker, her speech varied from typical State of the Union responses by including charts and images as visual aids.  Ryan’s turn as a talking head was traditional, but less dynamic.  As Brit Hume observed on Fox News last night, replying to the grandeur of the President’s address is difficult; it means sitting in a room with no audience, no applause, and no chance to speak in booming tones in front of an austere chamber.  Bachmann did better in the empty room by simply filling it with something besides her.  Granted, the charts could have looked better and could have included better visual representations of the consequences of the Administration’s fiscal policies, but the still looked better than Ryan’s charts (which, again, didn’t exist).

Future responses to the State of the Union might consider a more carefully crafted presentation that the Max Headroom-style talking heads that have become typical.  The opposition’s annual reply is a rare chance to rebut the President before a national audience.  Bachmann may have rankled Republican leaders with her rogue response – but she might be on to something.

UPDATE: Something I missed entirely in Bachmann’s presentation was the fact that she was apparently staring into space.  I figured the video I saw (linked above, from PBS) simply had the camera positioned off to the side, and that Bachmann had another, main camera she was looking into.  Unless this was filmed in the Congresswoman’s basement, I assumed SOMEONE would have told her to look into the camera; I guess that’s what happens when I assume.

When is boycotting CPAC the smart move?

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 3 Comments

On Friday, Jim DeMint announced he will boycott CPAC.  He joins a host of conservative organizations – including the Heritage Foundation and the Media Research Center – who have decided not to attend this year’s event and Congressman Jim Jordan, head of the conservative Republican Study Committee in the House.

For an inside the beltway conservative organization, CPAC is a place to be seen by activists – mostly students – coming in from across the country.  It’s a rare chance to be face to face with members, participants or supporters of your organization – people you may only communicate with via email or phone.  And because it’s such a rare chance, it costs money – lots of it.  Beyond the thousands in sponsorship and/or booth rental fees, an organization has to put lots of thought and resources into making their booth stand out.  Giveaway items, multimedia displays, and other amenities cost money – to say nothing of staff time.

It’s not a prohibitive or unwise investment, but it is an investment.

On the other hand, for a group with a limited budget, boycotting CPAC can separate you a bit from the crowd.  Articles and blog posts about your boycott will likely get into the hands of activists who care about your issue.  If you are one of hundreds of booths in CPAC’s main hall, you may not be able to cut through the noise in quite the same way.

For the politicians who don’t go, it’s also a win-win.  For DeMint, who has crafted a brand as a gadfly against Republican leadership, bowing out aligns him against an inside-the-beltway professional conservative movement.  For tea party activists who paint the entire Washington crowd with the same brush, DeMint and Jordan become horses of a different color.

And the reality is that the Washington, DC version of CPAC isn’t nearly as important as it was 20 years ago, before communication between outside the beltway activists became as easy as it is today.  In its first decades of existence, CPAC could have helped set the conservative message for an entire year or election cycle.  For conservative activists, CPAC might be a rare time to hear from Presidential hopefuls early on, before their campaign started in earnest. But this is a different time.  The era of 24/7 news means campaign themes and messages for 2012 might not be set until weeks or months before – after all, who would have predicted in February of 2007 that a late financial crisis would tip the scales for Barack Obama in 2008?  (In fact, who would have predicted at that time Obama would be the nominee?)  The shorter news cycles have extended Presidential campaigns – meaning that 2012 contenders will be crisscrossing early target states like New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina within six months.  There will be no shortage of chances to hear from Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Sarah Palin.

CPAC is still important; but in the modern media environment, it simply cannot be as important as it once was.  CPAC may still be the conservative movement’s biggest stage, but it’s hardly the only stage anymore.

Don’t be afraid to talk trash

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

In my regular Tuesday post over at Pundit League yesterday, I likened the New England Patriots’ inability to tune out trash talk from Rex Ryan and the Jawin’ Jets to a candidate or political figure who gets distracted by menial attacks.

There’s a flip side to that coin, though, and the Washington Times’s Tony Blankley hit on it today: Republicans can aggressively pursue their agenda, even if their foothold in Washington is limited to the House majority.  While some on the right fear a repeat of the 1995 government shutdown which turned public favor toward President Clinton, Blankley doesn’t expect history to repeat if the latest GOP majority refuses to fund the Obama agenda:

We lost that battle for three reasons: 1) because the shutdown was falsely but effectively framed in the public mind as motivated by the personal pique of the speaker and the desire of the GOP to “cut Medicare in order to give tax cuts to the rich,” 2) the issue of deficit spending and public debt was of much less concern to the public than it is now and 3) we were not able to deliver our interpretation of the issues directly to even our own supporters.

Back in 1995, there was no Fox News; there was no broadly used Internet; and conservative talk radio was not nearly as powerful as it is today. I had to try to get our message to the public through the filter of the mainstream media (New York Times, Washington Post, CBS, NBC, ABC, etc.) at a time when it was in fact mainstream. They were in no mood to fairly represent the facts, and we got shellacked.

Blankley advises the GOP to lose their fear of PR wars because the battlefield has changed so much in 15 years.  But he’s really advocating the same strategy the Jets used in the week leading up to the Patriots: be aggressive in messaging, and let the chips fall where they may.

 

Obama’s compromising word choice

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 2 Comments

Those who, in the wake of the 2010 elections, foresaw a Clintonesque Obama administration that tried to “triangulate” policy positions, the President’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal serves notice that… well, they may have been right.

First off, it’s in the Wall Street Journal, where the opinion page is widely recognized for leaning rightward.   Second, it describes an effort to strip federal bureaucracies of some layers of red tape:

Sometimes, those rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business—burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs… This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth. And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. It’s a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.

It’s one thing to be pro-business, but the allusion to crony capitalism could be right out of a conversation with a hard core tea partier or Ron Paul.  It gives the impression of an understanding of open markets that many Republicans don’t quite get.  Much like Bill Clinton’s pronouncement that the “era of big government is over,” it absorbs conservative messaging – in fact, it echoes an executive order President Reagan made to trim regulatory costs 30 years ago.

The real policy that comes from this proclamation won’t necessarily be as business friendly or economically stimulating as the President is boasting.  But this is a message to the crucial middle ground of the American electorate – who don’t equate their center-right political views with a party identification and are pre-disposed to like Obama.  Appealing to these voters (especially when the other side still lacks a viable contrast) is the stuff reelections are made of.

Be vewy quiet; the FCC is hunting wabbit ears

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Over the weekend, Outside the Beltway had an excellent critique of a New York Times op-ed from Helen Rubenstein, who was suddenly upset that she couldn’t siphon internet from her neighbors.  Rubenstein is a Brooklyn college professor (thankfully of writing and not ethics), and apparently feels that she should get a service for free that other suckers pay hundreds each year for; OTB rightly calls her out for her self-centered attitude.

Buried in her complaint letter to no one in particular, though, is a hint that his is more than simply an op-ed from a spoiled academic who demands everything for free:

In an ideal world, the Internet would be universally available to anyone able to receive it. Promisingly, the Federal Communications Commission in September announced that it would open up unused analog airwaves for high-speed public wireless use, which could lead to gratis hotspots spreading across cities and through many rural areas.

In 2011, there may be similar announcements to the one Rubenstein references.  The Obama FCC makes no secret that they like the idea of pushing broadcasters off the airwaves to make sure there’s more room for the internet.  Their vision of the future would keep traditional TV stations on cable, but would limit their ability to broadcast over the air.  (If you don’t use rabbit ears, you might not notice; if you do use rabbit ears, it would be time to call Comcast.)  Wireless internet providers and cable companies would win; traditional over-the-air broadcasters would lose.

The sales pitch to the consumers will likely be similar in tone to Rubenstein’s op-ed: Wouldn’t you love for the internet to be everywhere, like TV is now?

Notably, the FCC’s goal of replacing over-the-air TV signals with internet signals isn’t due to a lack of available bandwidth, but because the segments used by television is the prime segment of the broadcast spectrum (or, as a former FCC official once described it to me, the broadcasting equivalent of “beachfront property”).

This is a Washington, D.C. policy battle where a five-member panel will determine winners and losers.  Voters can expect both sides trying to drag them in – and whether or not she was recruited by the proponents of re-allocation to pen her op-ed last week, Professor Rubenstein has kicked off the fun.

(Disclosure: I previously worked at a public affairs firm that represented the National Association of Broadcasters – who, as you might expect, were and are very concerned about this issue.  I don’t work for that firm anymore and NAB is not a current client. Sure, I sympathize with them… but they haven’t paid me to do so.)

Sarah Palin ought to shut up for a while

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

There’s no good defense to the charge leveled by many on the left (and, unfortunately, the media) over the past few days that the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords was the result of Sarah Palin’s PAC website.  Similar to “Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?”, it’s a Kobayashi Maru question – there’s simply no way to answer without appearing defensive.

Sometimes, ridiculous charges speak for themselves.  The sick, twisted people who look at what happened in Arizona and see something that could only come from politics speak for themselves too.  Why sink to their level?

Unfortunately, some on the right have done just that, answering the shrill accusations of Keith Olbermann by pointing out that the alleged shooter Jared Loughner loved the Communist Manifesto.  No matter who starts a mudslinging fight, both parties get their hands dirty.

Pundit League blogger Brian Lehman has had the best response so far: indignation.  The charges that excited participation in the political process created an environment of violence only serves as a distraction – and thus cheapens the gravity of the atrocity.  Trying to mount a defense elevates the nonsense.

Bawling Boehner could learn from the Boss

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The new Speaker of the House has an image problem.  After weeping in an election night victory speech and again in a 60 Minutes interview, John Boehner again shed tears when taking the gavel from Nancy Pelosi.  Now an established pattern, Boehner’s tears have David Letterman wondering if he’s on drugs.  Others simply wonder if this is the new status quo of American politics.  Either way, being “the guy who cries a lot” is a pretty open invitation to the brand of ridicule that would diminish a message.

Boehner might find some inspiration from a fellow Ohioan, the late George Steinbrenner.

In 1990, Steinbrenner appeared on Saturday Night Live during his commissioner-ordered sabbatical from baseball.  In one memorable sketch, The Boss played a convenience store owner who refused to fire employees, no matter how much they underperformed:

Where is it written if you don’t get results right away, you fire people?… How would you like it everytime something went wrong, I just blamed you, the supervisor, huh? Let’s just fire the supervisor! Then I’ll hire some other guy, and something would go wrong and I’d fire him, and I’d probably rehire you!Then fire you again, bring in someone else, then fire him and rehire you again! Then fire and hire, back and forth until the whole thing’s just a big joke! Is that the kind of owner you want? Some yammering nincompoop in a fancy suit? No way you take that road, ’cause before you know it, you’ll probably be banned from running the entire company!

Three years later, Steinbrenner was back in baseball, but his self-deprecating sense of humor remained sharp.  He played himself in the 1994 movie The Scout, and filmed an unaired cameo for Seinfeld.  His public criticism of Billy Martin and Derek Jeter both became tongue-in-cheek commercials, nearly three decades apart.  The results of this were last year’s kind eulogies, which forgave many of his faults.

So what does that mean for the Weeper of the House?  Boehner would be wise to aggressively embrace self-deprecating right away – diminishing both his tendency to cry and his critics’ tendency to make a big deal of it.