Advocacy Consultant
Paul Ryan released another excellent video today, driving home some of the most important points from his original call for limiting the scope of government:
Wow, that’s powerful stuff. But it isn’t enough to hear one side, so surely the opponents of entitlement reform have a reasonable, thoughtful, well-cited answer:
Unfortunately, sophomoric doesn’t necessarily equal ineffective.
The three front runners for the Republican nomination each have baggage, and since last week we’ve seen their strategies for dealing with it. Tim Pawlenty is very sorry about signing a cap-and-trade bill while he governed Minnesota; Mitt Romney has some ‘splainin’ to do to get people to quit using the word “Romneycare”; and Newt Gingrich… well, Newt’s got kind of a Cee Lo Green thing going on with his previous support for aggressive environmental action:
“I’d do a commercial with Al Gore,” Gingrich said last May in an interview with the website Human Events. “My point is conservatives ought to be prepared to stand on the same stage and offer a conservative solution.”
Pawlenty’s strategy is probably the best for now (pending Romney’s speech). It is, appropriately enough, safe and genuine, but Gingrich is at least sort of right, too. This line of messaging does help to further the idea that he is the Thinking Republican’s Candidate to a degree. But the audience shouldn’t be conservatives (at least, not quite so obviously).
The past five years are absolutely full of examples of grassroots activists demonstrating that they don’t like to be lectured to. There was Marco Rubio besting Charlie Crist in Republican primary polls (and eventually the general election), Joe Miller over Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul over Trey Grayson in Kentucky’s Senate race. If you feel like going back farther and crossing the aisle, ask Joe Lieberman how rank and file Democrats felt about him in 2006.
You don’t like being lectured to. Do you hear me? You don’t like it. (You do, however, appreciate irony, I hope.)
The point is, that instead of scolding conservatives that they should be stewards of the environment, Gingrich should be more inclusive. Consider how his second sentence above would sound with a slightly different perspective:
“My point is that we can stand on the same stage and offer better, more creative solutions that will protect our environment without putting people out of work.”
Wouldn’t that make you feel a little bit better about being on the same side as Gingrich – as if you’re both part of the same winning team?
Like several environmental groups, the Heritage Foundation took some time to mark the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill. Their video, however, documents the impact of the Obama Administrations hesitance to re-open efforts to drill in the Gulf. Most of us have felt the result of this at the gas pump; the people Heritage spoke with (and, more important, who told their own stories to the camera) feel the pain all the time.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I have a current client seeking to establish a more complete national energy policy. I didn’t get paid for this post, though, I just think Heritage did a really good job with this video.)
Paul Ryan fired an opening salvo in the budget battle last week – but will anyone be there to back him up?
Against the backdrop of a federal budget dispute, the predictable refrain has started: Ryan’s proposal to slash federal spending is “cruel” and “unfair.” Groups like Americans for Prosperity and Crossroads GPS will provide some support by reinforcing the dire debt situation and the need to take action.
That line of response is necessary and true – but misses a major point. It buries the best line in Ryan’s excellent explanatory video – and the best line that any Republican has had in about 30 years:
Washington has not been telling you the truth.
For the last 80 years (give or take) politicians have been running for (and winning) office based on the idea that they’d take care of you. Washington, they explained, could feed the hungry, enrich the poor, employ the jobless, and most recently heal the sick.
What we’ve found out is that government sucks at all those things. It’s not a matter of intention but a matter of aptitude. Despite Washington’s promises – made, incidentally, by both parties and even Ryan himself – are still poor people, there are still elderly who don’t have enough money for retirement, there are still sick people who can’t pay for health care, there are still parents who can’t afford to feed their children.
It didn’t work, and it doesn’t work. “Washington has not been telling you the truth.”
So who is being cruel? Is it Ryan for cutting federal programs and reining in federal spending? Or, are the advocates for the status quo – those who would ignore the spending crisis because paying attention to it is “cruel” – selling the public a vision of government doomed to fail when they need it most?
The safety net is fraying. Business as usual will make it sag heavier until the ropes give way. The GOP plan will help. Regardless of its implications on the debate over the proper size of government, Ryan’s plan is the humane and just thing to do.
That important message isn’t the only thing that’s missing. So far, I have not seen the important, grassroots organizing that has to be done to turn a good idea into a movement. What about the internet? What about the people searching “Ryan Budget” on Google right now who should be seeing sites that tell them, “Look, we need to do a better, more responsible job of taking care of people”? What about the folks who could be organizing college campuses and calling for a better, more efficient government so that they can retire in 50 or 60 years? What about building a movement – or, more accurately, mobilizing the tea party movement that already exists to take effective action in support of this new vision for America.
Voters don’t want or need platitudes about spending or missives about the size of government. They want and need a simple vision to organize around, a vision for a better America that we can participate in – and a way to share a common victory.
There are questions being posed that have to be answered.Can our nation opt to depend on the power of the individual over the power of government? Can we be more imaginative in our solutions to social problems than relying on the lazy crutch of government programs? Can we do better for the people who need it most?
Someone needs to make sure that these questions are answered. And the answer cannot come from television or radio ads, by celebrity spokespersons or politicians. As with any movement, citizen activists are the only ones capable of responding to these questions, perhaps with a positive, uplifting, appropriate (albeit plagiarized) answer: “Yes We Can.”
Remember when politics was more than a sport?
Years back, I told Matt Lewis I thought candidates were starting to sound too much like strategists. John Thune fell into that trap with his reaction to the slew of recent Democratic retirements:
“It certainly suggests that the pathway to get to 51 is achievable,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said Thursday. “I think depending on what happens in the next couple of years and depending on what retirements we have, a lot of these Democrat seats that are opening up, I think there are some opportunities for us — and I hope if we can get the right candidates in the races and resource them, we’ll have a shot at changing the equation.”
Nowhere in Thune’s response is the idea that Republicans could win every seat up for grabs with the ideas that voters are looking for. He boils it down to an “equation” – a numbers game, as if he’s analyzing fantasy baseball for the MLB network. Thune would have been better off giving a more general answer about the need to compete in all states, and to focus on working with everyone to make laws that will help out the American people no matter which party wins this election or that election. It’s not all that quotable, but it’s still better than what was quoted.
It’s true that there are lots of strategic elements that go into winning races. But speaking about them publicly belittles the fact that for all the microtargeting, get-out-the-vote technology, polling, and positioning, elections are still about ideas. The techniques of battle don’t change the reason for battle.
And it’s simply poor technique to talk about the machinations of the campaign rather than the ideas.
As the political press covers the horse-race details of campaigns, it’s tempting to use their language and outlook. But candidates, party leaders, and movement figures have to be above the fray, and their comments have to reflect a commitment to creating policies which benefit the American people rather than building campaigns which outscore the opponent.
Come to think of it, maybe the right kind of media-savvy, unflappable sports star would be a good role model after all.
Tim Pawlenty received some attention for a recent video highlighting his tea party bona fides. But as I wrote over at Pundit League, it’s his “Standing with Scott” video that means the most to T-Paw’s nascent campaign for the Presidency.
Unlike his other videos, which mix action-movie trailer style with platitudes about America’s problems and potential, “Standing with Scott” pointedly takes on public sector unions in general and the mess in Wisconsin in particular. The footage of students cluelessly protesting based on their teachers’ instructions along with the direct criticism of the President give the video a clear, policy-driven message while maintaining a broad appeal. It touches on specific issues without going into so much depth that the average viewer would turn away. In that way, it’s a good road map for future messaging.
The video is also significant for who is not featured in it: Tim Pawlenty himself. Outside of a mention at the beginning and a quote at the end, the former Minnesota governor is nowhere to be found. With other videos featuring a heavy dose of T-Paw, the series run the risk of becoming an exercise in glorification. More videos like “Standing with Scott” can counterbalance that.
And the video goes beyond messaging, directing viewers back to a landing page where they can sign up for the Freedom First PAC mailing list. (It would be better if the page included facts about Walker’s position in Wisconsin, but it’s better than nothing.)
Pawlenty’s videos are an attempt to elevate the rhetoric and the urgency of the campaign and position the former Governor as a transformational leader in the mold of Obama. But empty rah-rah speeches ring hollow in the ears of savvy activists. If “Standing with Scott” becomes a first step – and more similar videos follow on other issues as they arise – questions about whether Pawlenty’s “Minnesota nice” personality can play on the Presidential stage may be answered.
From the coverage of the worst All-Star Game of any of the major sports, the Pro-Bowl, comes this nugget from game MVP DeAngelo Hall:
MVP DeAngelo Hall had one of his team’s five interceptions and returned a fumble 34 yards for a touchdown to help the NFC match a Pro Bowl scoring record in a 55-41 victory over turnover-prone AFC. He gets a new Cadillac for his efforts.
“I was just about to buy another SUV,” the Redskins cornerback said, “so to come out here and grab one for free, I like that.”
Yes, he really did brag that he was thinking about buying “another SUV” – not a “new” SUV, but another, as in addition to whatever car or cars he currently has in his fleet.
Clearly, Hall is missing a either a sense of context or the spirit of brotherhood with his fellow union members (and possibly both).
Even the normally-overkilled Super Bowl coverage seems to be overshadowed by news that the NFL labor situation may devolve in the same type of players-versus-ownership animus that has cost significant playing time – and even championships – in each of the other sports over the past 20 years. Matt Hasselbeck and Antonio Cromartie got into a much-hyped war of tweets over the potential lockout. (The football world remains shocked that a member of the normally stoic and reserved New York Jets got into such a verbal spat with a fellow player.)
The NFL Player’s Association needs to get their members on the same page or risk losing the important PR war that comes with high-profile CBA negotiations. One cornerback lashing out at the situation and another openly wondering how to arrange his fleet of cars won’t help it score points with fans.
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!
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.
Bearing Drift calls Maine Governor Paul LePage’s response to the NAACP “new Trumanism.” From the “everyone was thinking it and someone finally said it” file, here’s LaPage calling out the only organization in America that still thinks the term “colored” is socially acceptable:
Jim Eltringham 