Day: December 7, 2010

…I don’t think there’s a single Democrat out there, who if they looked at where we started when I came into office and look at where we are now, would say that somehow we have not moved in the direction that I promised. Take a tally, look at what I promised during the campaign. There’s not a single thing that I said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do. And if I have not gotten it done yet, I’m still trying to do it.

Barack Obama, perhaps being a bit testy on the reaction of the left to his strategy and overall leadership style thus far.
And, basically, he’s right. The key issue, though, is the pervasive perception that when the GOP is in charge, they get the policy they want to the letter, often with Democratic help. Alternatively, when the Democrats are in charge, they rarely achieve that standard, and more often slump across the finish line with badly compromised legislation that is, as a result, more difficult to talk about and more difficult to defend, all the while presented in a manner best described as: “shut up, you smelly hippies; why can’t you just be happy with whatever shit sandwich it is we’re giving you today.”
Take tax cuts: most of America (wrongly) believes their taxes went up under Obama. Likewise the widespread but utterly misplaced belief in the increasing size of government under Obama (it’s gotten smaller). These and other issues like them are the direct product of a messy, painful compromise and triangulation-prone legislative output that can’t easily be described, much less described in two word, rhyming catch-phrases and, in the case of healthcare reform, isn’t even really in effect yet, and won’t be until 2015…nearly the end of a theoretical second term.
So: you’re supposed to be a communicator, Obama. Get out there and communicate, passionately, about something. Anything. Forcefully explain what you’ve done. And, more importantly, what you would have seen done if not for rampant obstructionism and demonstrable lies. Call out, by name, lies and the liars propagating them, be that House, Senate, or most popular broadcast news network employees. Repeatedly. Every day. Every hour. Every time a microphone is switched on, we want to see you fight. That is all. We will then shut up and sit quietly in the corner with our drugs that we are all on. Thanks in advance.

Quiet Down, We’re Playing the Inside Game

Good roundup of the Bush tax cut extension negotiations by Ezra Klein:

When the deal was cut, the president took an oblique shot at their preferences, saying “the American people didn’t send us here to wage symbolic battles or win symbolic victories.” And this came a mere week or two after the White House announced a federal pay freeze. The pattern, for progressives, seems clear: The White House uses them during elections, but doesn’t listen to, or consult them, while governing. In fact, it insults them, and then tells them to quiet down, they got the best bargain possible, even if it wasn’t the one they’d asked for, or been promised.
[…]

That the Obama administration has turned out to be fairly good at the inside Washington game of negotiations and legislative compromise and quite bad at communicating to the public and keeping their base excited is not what most would have predicted during the 2008 campaign. But it’s true.

Quiet Down, We’re Playing the Inside Game

I can’t help but think that if news organizations put a tenth of the amount of effort into external linking that they do into re-reporting other people’s stories, we’d have a much more vibrant and useful news culture.

Felix Salmon
As he also notes, the real nut is that when they re-report each other, they tend to do it very, very poorly. For some reason, though, the MSM is categorically opposed to providing a link, even when the story is about a specific website.

The President’s Last Stand Was No Stand At All

robertreich:

The deal the President struck with Republican leaders is an abomination. It will cost $900 billion over the next two years — larger than the bailout of Wall Street, GM, and Chrysler put together, larger than the stimulus package, larger than anything that’s come out of Washington…

And don’t think for one second that the GOP won’t be out there, probably today, screaming:

This President’s $900 BILLION deficit exploder is going to destroy the country. It’s bigger than all his other giant spending programs in the government takeover department. He’s a profligate socialist of the kind we just can’t afford anymore. We in the GOP delivered you, the wealthy, massive tax cuts and are thus: Serious People.

The media will not lift a finger to connect the $900B to the massive tax cuts for the wealthy. Watch and learn, Democrats. Watch and learn.

The President’s Last Stand Was No Stand At All

So long, Dandy Don Meredith:

Mr. Meredith showed up for the 1966 [NFL] title game with his face covered in stitches. He told everyone he’d been shopping with his wife, tripped, and went through a plate-glass window. He couldn’t play.

“You could’ve heard a pin drop,’’ [Dan] Reeves said. “Then coach Landry walked in and he peeled it off. It looked so real! He had a makeup artist put it on. We all wanted to choke him to death"

and

“I remember asking him once, ‘Why do they call you Dandy?’ ” [Steve] Sabol said. “And he just said, ‘Because I am.’ ”

Since all the evidence says that elections depend on the rate of change of unemployment, not its level, this is actually bad news for Obama: he’s setting himself up for an economic stall in the months leading into the 2012 election.

Paul Krugman, caught in the act of being exactly right. Couple this with the decision to let these Bush tax cuts expire in an election year again, and you’ve got recipe for disaster.
On what planet do these (so called) Democrats live? Do they expect to learn from the messaging disaster they perpetrated in the ten year leadup to this battle? Nothing I’ve seen from anybody, dog catcher up to President, has shown me that they have any chance of even budging the conversation, much less crafting a winning electoral message on this in the face of a still-stagnant economy and ~10% unemployment come 2012.
Obama’s determination to be the “next Carter” is really remarkably strong. I’d say he’s one killer rabbit away from being little more than a punch-line.
Get out there and fight for something, anything. What is so hard to understand about that? Why is it so terrifying for them? This is why they fail.