"We will lose on legislation. But we will win the message war every day, and every week, until November 2010," said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., an outspoken conservative who has participated on the GOP message teams. "Our goal is to bring down approval numbers for [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and for House Democrats. That will take repetition. This is a marathon, not a sprint."
Good. You do that, Republicans. Let me paraphrase your failed leader: Bring it on. Let me quote his still anonymous underling:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality-judiciously, as you will-we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
That was 2004, and the nation was still blinded by the light. Reality and spin had a rematch in 2006 and 2008, and guess what:
Bush, by turn wistful, reflective and defiant, conceded that mistakes had been made.
The "Mission Accomplished" banner as the backdrop for a speech on an aircraft carrier in May 2003, less than two months after the invasion of Iraq, was "clearly" a mistake, he said.
"It sent the wrong message. We were trying to say something differently," Bush said.
[...]
"I've thought long and hard about Katrina," Bush said. "Could I have done something differently, like land Air Force One either in New Orleans or Baton Rouge?"
I agree with Yglesias that the Republican strategy of the moment, such as it is, is very much a short-term, win-the-news cycle approach: oppose Obama, make a lot of noise, and hope something sticks with the public and sparks a comeback.
This is the field operation versus the news-cycle election.
The McCain campaign is the news-cycle campaign. It is built around its television advertisements and attention-getting claims made on the stump that are all about winning that day's news cycle.
The basic idea is, if you win enough news cycles, you've dominated the discourse, you've manipulated the news coverage, you've gotten your message out at the other fellow's expense, you've kept him on the defensive. Do all that and you're going to win. Many of these advertisements and claims are contemptible lies (see sidebar). The nature of McCain's campaign is all the more shameful considering that he's doing many of the exact things that were done to him by George Bush's campaign in 2000 and employing some of the selfsame people who did it to him to do it to Obama.
This obsession was born, I think, during last summer's drilling fight with Nancy Pelosi in the House, which Republicans cite constantly as the moment that will someday be recognized as the beginning of their rebirth, their A.D. 0: They mounted a lot of antics, their brazenly hyperbolic rhetoric ended up all over the news, and a frightened Pelosi backed down. When I talked to a number of conservatives for a story on the future of the congressional GOP, many -- Marsha Blackburn, Louie Gohmert, Republican Study Committee chair Tom Price -- explained to me that the energy fight had proven this to them: The GOP lost power due to a failure to communicate its ideas. "Communication" was the it word within the minority. "We need to improve the ways we communicate,"
ROVE: I'm looking at all of these Robert and adding them up. I add up to a Republican Senate and Republican House. You may end up with a different math but you are entitled to your math and I'm entitled to THE math.
SIEGEL: I don't know if we're entitled to a different math but your...
ROVE: I said THE math.
It's not new for Republicans, they have clearly valued spin and perception over grit and reality for arguably the entirety of the movement Conservative revolution. From Nixon introducing HMOs as a great improvement while only being sold on them because they were driven toward less health care, to Reagan calling ketchup a vegetable to Bush increasing the amount of wetlands by classifying golf course water obstacles as "wetland" they only know how to manipulate perception. It is a foundational assumption of their leadership's ethos, and while they were in power, it was certainly effective because Democrats had only their version of what could have been to compete with it. Now Democrats can wield actual policy which is more effective than PR.
Democrats and liberals have to embrace this opportunity. Win the legislation. Make the reality of ordinary people's lives easier, happier and safer. Democrats have the majorities now. In the past, the GOP could easily obey Bill Kristol's 1993 advice to block all reform but they've never been weaker than now.
Of course we will still fight the media battles. Perception is important. But in any choice between better policy and winning a 24 hour cycle, the default should be to lose the cycle and win the policy.
And though I was bombastic above in my "bring it on" above, I know we could well lose. But nothing for it. The nation and the world cannot endure any more conservative governance. We will win because we have to. The alternative is unthinkable.
