While most contributors here are using more appropriate terms, such as wealthy or rich or oligarchy, some folks here are falling into the right-wing messaging/framing trap of using the the phrase "top earners". "Top earners" is one of the most obnoxious, Orwellian labels that the conservatives and the MSM have ever created.
While I expect media companies owned by Rupert Murdock or GE to engage in this kind of right-wing framing, I would like Kossacks to please consider using more accurate and less conservative-narrative-reinforcing terms.
I avoid this phrase like the plague, and am uncomfortable even repeating it in this diary, but it seems that some Kossacks have fallen in this rhetorical trap. I'll explain over the jump...
Mark Mellman's latest Hill column captures the essence of the moment, and echoes what I have been telling my friends for a while: this is the most unpredictable election in at least a dozen years- arguably the most unpredictable in my political career (which has been a 30-year run so far). I've said it over and over again, and it remains true: you look at some data, and it is easy to see all the conventional wisdom about a Republican tidal wave coming true. Another set of data tells you this may be a surprising year in terms of Democrats holding their own. We just don't know the last-minute factors which will turn this one way or another.
If the Obama team hadn't decided that outside efforts to help candidates were to be discouraged at all costs, and our groups working on campaigns weren't being outspent 7-1 by the Chamber of Commerce with their foreign money, the Koch brothers, and Karl Rove's banking, oil, and insurance company buddies, I think we'd have a better than even chance to do better than expected and hold the House and Senate. The Republicans' completely secretive corporate money is just overwhelming us in a lot of places, and it is spreading the field by putting lots of formerly safe seats into real danger. It is easy to imagine losing 55 or 60 seats in the House.
But this whole populist anti-Wall Street, anti-corporate special interest thing is still stirring around on our side, too, and there is real evidence that it is working for Democrats in a lot of key races. Check out this number from a Bloomberg poll:
BLOOMBERG NATIONAL POLL: Would it make "you more likely or less likely to support a particular candidate .... [if that] Campaign was aided by advertising paid for by anonymous business groups"? More likely: 9% ... Less Likely: 47% ... Would Not Matter: 41% ... Not Sure: 3%
We've been seeing numbers like that all over the place in different races, and more and more Democratic candidates are picking up on the message and going on offense against the sleazy corporate ads flooding their districts. Meanwhile, activists all over the country are doing local demonstrations taking on these corporate advertisers with their undisclosed donations: there were 52 events around the country by MoveOn volunteers alone. And now the White House and DNC are getting into the act, attacking the Chamber and American Crossroads and their mysterious donations from who knows where.
If voters begin to understand that Democrats really are on their side, and will fight back against these shadowy special interests with their hundreds of millions in dollars coming from who knows where, our candidates can win a lot of these close races even with the outside groups outspending them so badly. But they also have to hear loud and clear from Democratic elected officials that they are standing up to these special interests when it matter the most, which brings me to my final point of the day: we need a far clearer and stronger message from the White House on whether they will take on the big banks that have committed foreclosure fraud. So far on this issue as it has emerged over the last couple of weeks, when the White House had to make a choice on policy, the President has mostly done the right thing: his veto of that make-foreclosures-quick-and-easy nightmare of a bill that snuck through Congress in the dead of night was incredibly important. And while I would have chosen to go with a complete foreclosure moratorium, I give the White House a lot of credit for having Gibbs come out yesterday in support of the state AGs in their investigation of this fraud debacle, and in saying these simple but crucial words that probably hit some of these fraudulent bankers like a punch in the guts: "We just want to take the just and necessary steps to ensure that the process is being followed legally." The reason that simple idea is so crucial is that banks and foreclosure mills are desperately moving to try and find ways to get around the inconveniences of the laws on the books so that they can get these foreclosures processed. With the White House vetoing their first attempt to circumvent the law, and saying clearly they are backing AGs in making certain that the law is actually adhered to, it gives the bankers and their foreclosure mills a massive problem.
So that's mostly to the good, and plays into the populist surge that democrats are trying to ride in the final weeks of the campaign. What is terrible is the messaging coming out of Tim Geithner's mouth. Check out this convoluted stuff:
Charlie Rose: You're encouraging banks to declare a moratorium on foreclosures?
Tim Geithner: No, I wouldn't say it that way. I think that you know what you're seeing in housing still now is a national tragedy, still very, very difficult. You know, again, this was a crisis caused by a lot of people were taken advantage of, a lot of people were too optimistic about what they could afford in terms of a house, lot of people were speculating in real estate, and a lot of innocent victims got caught up in the consequences of those basic mistakes. You saw, you know, the nation's largest banks that ran these servicing businesses, not invest anything like what they needed to, to run that business effectively in a downturn like that. And you're seeing the consequences of all those mistakes play out still across the American economy. Now, you've seen some banks suspend temporarily the foreclosure process so they can just make sure that they're not causing any injustice to the borrowers and that's very important for that to happen. And we're going to -
Charlie Rose: So you're pleased to see that happen.
Tim Geithner: I think where that's happening again the suspension is to make sure they're not causing any injustice is very important, but I think it's important to recognize, Charlie, that if you -- a national moratorium would be very damaging to exactly the kind of people we're trying to protect, because the consequence of that would be in neighborhoods that have been most affected by the foreclosure crisis, where you see lots of houses on the block empty, unoccupied, what it means is those communities will be living longer with houses unoccupied, with more pressure on their house price with the people still in their houses. That would be very damaging, and so again we want to make sure we're holding these services accountable, that they're not causing any injustice to people who can afford to stay in their home, and we're going to make sure we're careful in doing that. But we also want to make sure that we're not going to make the problem worse.
Geithner here defends the banks, not only giving them a free pass on the fraud going on the foreclosure market, but actually saying they should get credit for temporarily suspending the foreclosure process "so they can make sure that they're not causing any injustice to the borrowers". Does anyone besides Geithner and the occasional Ayn Rand acolyte believe that these bankers are such moral, salt of the earth types that they care about the injustice being done to mortgage holders? It is this kind of messaging that makes a muddle of what Democrats are trying to do nationwide. The explosion of the mortgage fraud issue gives us our best opportunity yet to re-frame this election around populist economic issues that show Democrats to be fighters for the middle class and against the big banks and other special interests. The White House is on the right track ingoing after the Chamber and Karl Rove's secretive and possibly foreign funding. They are doing the right thing in vetoing that terrible make-illegal-foreclosures-fast-and-easy bill, in backing the AGs, and in backing the rule of law on foreclosure fraud. Now they need to get their messaging right: make it clear, tough, and not in doubt as to being on the side of homeowners against the banks who are trying to rip people off.
Anyone confidently predicting what will happen in this election is full of themselves and will probably be proven wrong: no one knows how this puppy will turn out. The money and voters' anger about the economy could overwhelm the Democrats, especially if they mush up their message. But an anti-special interest, anti-secretive corporate funding message gives us a real chance to make the results different than we thought.
So I get polls and focus group reports and all manner of public opinion analysis and strategy documents crossing my desk every day, and have for the two decades I have been involved in national politics. I am not given to hyperbole, but this memo from Stan Greenberg ranks right near the top of being one of the most important that I have ever seen, because it definitively lays out a strategy for Democrats, even at this late date, to make these elections far more competitive. I strongly encourage all of you to read it if you haven't already, and to pass it along to every candidate you are talking to, giving to, and working with. If we can get enough candidates to buy into this strategy, it can change the dynamics of the 2010 election cycle.
For months, I- along with many of my colleagues in progressive politics, especially the folks at MoveOn.org- have had the theory that key to our being competitive in this year's elections given the weak economy is that we need to lead with a message about being willing to take on the powerful special interests that run DC, and then move to a fighting-for-the-middle-class economic message. The swing voters in this election feel like neither party gets it, and they want to someone to fight for them instead of the powers that be that rule Washington. Greenberg tested this message strategy, along with several other messages Democrats have been using, against the strongest Republican messages out there, and the results surprised even me: this idea of leading with taking on special interests and then going straight into fighting for the middle class moves the dial 9 points in the right direction. Given how late it is in the cycle, and how cynical and unhappy voters are, that is incredible. None of the other Democratic messages came even close to that movement, and one of them (a Third Way-style message echoed by too many Democrats over the last few months about going forward rather than backward) even cost us points.
I think this message has the potential to make Democrats much more competitive in what has been the toughest political environment for the Democrats at least since 1994.
Stan and I are both veterans of that 1994 disaster, when President Clinton's normally sure-footed political instincts were short circuited by his desire to brag about all the cool things he felt that he had accomplished. The problem was that no one felt the impact of all those legislative achievements yet, Democratic base voters didn't turn out, and working-class swing voters turned against us with a vengeance. I have been fearing this same scenario for over 18 months now. However, this dynamic can still be turned around, because we have a message that works. It has the potential to both reinvigorate discouraged Democratic base voters and appeal to white working class swing voters, the ones not all that impressed by tea partiers' extreme platform. And it sure works better than this bland forward vs backward frame establishment Democrats have been using. There are no guarantees: no matter what, this will be a hell of a tough election. But Stan's data shows clearly this strategy has the potential to change the frame and give us a shot.
There is momentum building on this. As I wrote yesterday, Obama is starting to get it, and is moving more toward this frame all the time, and individual candidates are also using this frame in ads and speeches more and more. MoveOn's Other 98% campaign, the Target boycott, and the ads they are beginning to run going after corporate spending in elections are all creating a sense of momentum. A groundswell is building. We just have to keep it building and hope it is not too late.
Current polling from NYTimes, Democracy Corps, and several other public and private sources show a really strange paradox in this year's election cycle. On the one hand as the media is broadcasting endlessly, it is clear that people are unhappy with Congress, wanting to throw incumbents out on their ear, wanting to change course- all of which leads the punditry to declare that the Democrats are dead meat. And of course, it is impossible to forget the scary poll numbers in a lot of individual races.
On the other hand, there is a lot of other data seeming quite favorable to Democrats, and the internals in the polling make it clear there are real opportunities for gains on where we are today. Our approval numbers are better than the Republicans, although neither party is exactly thrilling people. We lead on the tax cut fight, which is the big pre-election issue; people think Democrats are more likely than Republicans to create jobs, which is the most important issue in the election; by a big margin, people think Democrats will do more to help the middle class; people even say Democrats are more likely to help small business. Apparently, even the Democratic message tying George W. Bush to current Republicans also seems to be sinking in, frankly better than I thought it would.
If it weren't for the polls showing Democrats in deep trouble, these other polls would make you think we're going to have to have a great year. What is going on?
I have two theories on this confusing mixture of polling data, neither of which is new to my writing, so please forgive the repetition if you recognize the themes from earlier posts:
1. Much of the confusion and seeming contradiction in these various data points is explained by the simple idea that I have been suggesting for about 18 months now: neither party is liked or trusted right now. You can also throw in all the tea party Republican primary victories into this explanation: voters, whether left, right, or uncertain middle don't feel like the establishment of either party is doing well by them. Voters keep sending the same message over and over again, and the Village establishment keeps missing, or ignoring, the point:
Voters didn't like the Republican establishment in 2006, so they voted in a new Congress
Democratic primary voters didn't like the establishment, so they rejected the Clintons for someone brand new
Voters didn't like the Bush team, so in 2008, they voted for someone as different from George W. Bush as you could imagine
Voters didn't feel the new guy was that much different from the old guy, and sent a message in the big New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts races so far this cycle
Republican primary voters don't like what the Republican establishment has been serving up, so they started to vote for whoever was the most anti-establishment.
This is not ideological. This is not party identity driven. This is all about the middle class seeing the American dream slip away from them, being as squeezed economically as they have been in three generations, and desperately trying to tell all politicians from every party and ideology that they want change: big change, right now.
2. The populist/reformist message that progressives have been pushing now for several months is starting to get some traction. The reason some of these poll numbers are showing signs of life and potential opportunities for Democrats in this tough as nails political environment is because Democrats are starting to finally focus in on a message that sells the idea that Democrats are on the same side as the beleaguered middle class. MoveOn's The Other 98% campaign, ads and speeches by candidates and the White House, Elizabeth Warren's appointment: the Democrats are finally starting to seem like they get it. Check out Obama's radio address and a clip of a recent speech. Check out these ads from Barbara Boxer and Robin Carnahan. Check out Elizabeth Warren's interview with Rachel Maddow. Check out this clip from Kendrick Meek. Democrats are finally- finally, finally, finally- starting to sound like the kind of progressive populists who might actually be capable of appealing to voters outside the DC Village.
Maybe it's not in time, and maybe it's not enough. Maybe voters just won't believe it at the end of the day: the skepticism is deep and wide. The President has spent far too much time sounding like Tim Geithner and not nearly enough sounding like Elizabeth Warren. But at least it is finally starting to feel like we are putting up a fight.
I want to stress that although President Obama is the focus of this discussion, this is really about something much bigger: it's about how we understand history and politics and the meaning of being progressive. I'll have much more to say about that in other diaries this weekend.
George Lakoff offered one of the best perspectives imaginable for addressing the larger question this week, in his HuffPo essay, "Disaster Messaging". In it, he begins by giving his description of an all-too-familiar dynamic:
Democrats are constantly resorting to disaster messaging. Here's a description the typical situation.
The Republicans outmessage the Democrats. The Democrats, having no effective response, face disaster: They lose politically, either in electoral support or failure on crucial legislation.
The Democrats then take polls and do focus groups. The pollsters discover that extremist Republicans control the most common ("mainstream") way of thinking and talking about the given issue.
The pollsters recommend that Democrats move to the right: adopt conservative Republican language and a less extreme version of conservative policy, along with weakened versions of some Democratic ideas.
The Democrats believe that, if they follow this advice, they can gain enough independent and Republican support to pass legislation that, at least, will be some improvement on the extreme Republican position.
Otherwise, the pollsters warn, Democrats will lose popular support -- and elections -- to the Republicans, because "mainstream" thought and language resides with the Republicans.
Believing the pollsters, the Democrats change their policy and their messaging, and move to the right.
The Republicans demand even more and refuse to support the Democrats.
We have seen this on issues like health care, immigration, global warming, finance reform, and so on. We are seeing it again on the Death Gusher in the Gulf. It happens even with a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.
Why? Is there anything the Democrats can do about it? First, it has to be understood. It doesn't just happen.
My answer to the above is 40 years of unanswered conservative hegemonic warfare. Lakoff's answer is more narrowly focused, but entirely consistent: conservatives understand (whether consciously or not) that they're playing for the long haul, that every battle of ideas is inter-related, and that compromising validates the other side, so it should generally be avoided at all costs. He puts this much more precisely in terms of his area of expertise, and it's well worth reading through to get more grounded in the specifics, which he presents in a series of brief sections:
This isn't a criticism so much as a bewilderment at how the White House sometimes says two different things in its messaging. To me, from a purely communications and observational point of view, one problem with the White House's handling of BP has been the message that is "we're in charge here, we will stop this" on one day, then "only BP can clean up the spill, they have the technology, we're powerless to stop it, no we're not going to nationalize them".
Well, here's Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on The Kudlow Report last night:
Sec. GEITHNER: We have a pro-growth agenda. Part of the agenda is growing exports. They're central to our future. What the president today is to say, that is important to the United States, we're going to be committed to making sure we're that we're expanding opportunities for American business everywhere. Now, this president understands deeply that governments don't create jobs, businesses create jobs. And our job as government is try to make sure we're creating the conditions that allow businesses to prosper so they can hire people back, get this economy going again.
This echoes President Obama, as quoted in a piece by TAP's Tim Fernholz:
"Now, government can't create jobs, but it can help create the conditions for small businesses to grow and thrive and hire more workers," President Barack Obama said yesterday as he urged Congress to take up new jobs legislation at an event honoring Small Business Owners of the Year. "Government can't guarantee a company's success, but it can knock down the barriers that prevent small-business owners from getting loans or investing in the future."
The president was right, except for one little clause: the idea that government can't create jobs. Of course the government can create jobs, unless you rank police officers and teachers, or in a less Norman Rockwell-mode, DMV employees and meter readers, among the unemployed. Which, to be clear, you should not.
Aside from being (a) false, as Tim points out, and (b) a conservative talking point that encourages the "if we want to create jobs, we have to lower corporate taxes and loosen regulations" line of thinking, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that this Administration has been saying for a year and a half "our Administration's stimulus package has either saved or created x number of jobs" over and over and over again, but then stomps on its own message in a quick effort to appeal to business and Wall Street.
And they wonder why no one in the public thinks the stimulus worked. Just a thought.
Here at The Opportunity Agenda, we talk a lot about values, and the importance of building communications around them. In fact, we built a whole organization around six core values that drive our work and the way we talk about it. We do this, of course, because these values matter to us. Seeing them realized and supported are central to our goals. But as NPR explained recently, leading with values is also a savvy communications strategy. In a story on people's beliefs about climate change, reporter Christopher Joyce describes findings from Yale's Cultural Cognition Project that people form their views about climate change, among other things, based more on their existing worldview - and values - than on the facts presented to them.
It happened once, twice; I trust the third time could not charm me more. I have witnessed the power of a gesture, one made without words. I have seen the light that glows when people connect in quiet ways. Now experienced on more than one occasion, I have come to appreciate the peaceful power of consistent communication. I had not fully acknowledged what could be accomplished until I arrived on the scene, alone. Then I saw it. I felt it. I could hardly believe that a single steadfast individual, could convey a message without words, and still receive such a resounding response. Yet, while there, it occurred. I was struck by what had not been apparent for near a decade. The stance of a quiet soul, stated calmly, clearly, and with care, can move more persons than I ever imagined.
In May, Mark Walsh, founding CEO of Air America and a Democratic media strategist, accepted Grow the Hope's invitation to speak to the community about messaging and media. Many of the people in attendance had rallied behind Obama on his presidential campaign. Their work is not over, however. As David Hart, the founder of Grow the Hope (GTH), would say:
"Electing a smart and moral man as our President was an important step, but it's not enough... The challenges we face are far too massive for any one person to solve alone. The task is not his alone, it is ours together."
The Versailles punditalkcrazy's attempt to deny the progressive mandate of the 2008 election has reached some ridiculous proportions, to be sure. And it's important to keep calling them out on it. But at the same time, there are some things they say that have at least a germ of truth. But most often, this only serves to underscore the folly of taking their advice.
now look at what Obama ran on. One of the key issues was tax cuts. Those two words are basically a conservative message and always have been. And he grabbed them, and I don't believe his tax policy is something I would support, but he sold it as if it were. No question this country is center-right.
Now, of course, there's oodles of evidence that America is not center-right. But Buchanan is absolutely right that "tax cuts" are a conservative message. And in making tax cuts a central part of his message, Obama has embraced a conservative frame (though not as blatantly as if he repeatedly and only said "tax relief"). This is just one of a wide range of blurring strategies that Democrats adopt--consciously or unconsciously--that undercut public support for what they are ultimately trying to do.
The McCain campaign has come up with an intriguing new way to sell his opposition to a timetable for withdrawal: McCain just might withdraw from Iraq sooner than Obama's 16 month deadline!
"He'd like troops to come home earlier than 16 months if the conditions allow it," said Congresswoman Heather Wilson of New Mexico, on a conference call with reporters just now. "Senator Obama has said it's a 16-month timeline no matter what."
Wilson walked this line back a bit later on, reminding people that any such withdrawal would have to be based on conditions on the ground, and might take longer: "Whether that happens in 12 months, or 16 months, or 24 months, the important thing is that our troops come home with victory and America's vital national interests secured."
Rarely have I seen a campaign, in the course of a single week, call another candidate both too steadfast and too flexible on the same issue. I guess, however, this is to be expected from a campaign that regularly calls Obama both the most extreme member of the Senate and a habitual flip-flopper. Because, you know, there is nothing that extremists do more often than change their minds to follow the crowd.
During his town hall meeting with voters in Kansas City yesterday, McCain said, "Senator Obama has the most extreme record of any member of the United States Senate."
John McCain also thinks that Obama just does whatever the politics of the situation demand. In fact, the top story on McCain's campaign website right now is a documentary entitled "Obama: Whatever the Politics Demand."
McCain is thus simultaneously describing Obama in two contradictory ways, without anyone in the media calling him on it. It is simply impossible for someone to be the most extreme member of the Senate and a Senator who just does whatever the politics of the situation demands. If Obama is the most extreme Senator, he quite clearly has not gone along with whatever the politics of the situation have demanded. By definition, being the most extreme means that you are least likely to follow hte crowd. On the other hand, if Obama is a situational politician with no core beliefs who never sand up for anything, then he can not be an extremist. McCain's two basic attacks on Obama are canceling each other out. It is a logical fallacy.
Unless, of course, the McCain campaign thinks that the political situations of the last few years have demanded extreme left policies. That couldn't be what they are saying, could it? If only someone was willing to risk their seat in the front of McCain's campaign plane in order to ask this question.
Barack Obama is getting very close to hitting the messaging that will win this campaign: Iraq hurts the economy. Check out his remarks on McCain, Iraq, the economy, and transportation costs today:
"John McCain, just yesterday, on the Today Show said that he didn't think it was that important how long troops are there as long as we are not suffering casualties," Obama said. "I agree that obviously the most important thing is making sure that our young men and women aren't killed, but the notion that if they are not being killed that we can leave them there in perpetuity -- 100 years, John McCain says.(...)
First of all, that means he's not thinking about the extraordinary burden that families are under on two or three or four tours of duty. But he's also not thinking about taxpayers who are spending $10- to $12 billion a month in Iraq. And that's money that could go to rebuilding Wisconsin and putting people back to work right here in the United States of America."
The simple message, "Iraq hurts the economy," will win this campaign. Obama is not getting close to refining this message. It succeeds for several reasons:
It combines the two top issues in the minds of Americans, Iraq and the economy. Even though there is a pundit push to marginalize Iraq in this election, it was decisive in both nomination campaigns. Also, given the huge amount of money we have spent on Iraq that has delivered virtually no economic return for the vast majority of Americans, there is no justification for viewing them as separate issues.
It is a long-term progressive message. Hammering home the notion that excessive military spending and elective wars like Iraq are fundamentally damaging to the American economy has the potential to shift national opinion on one of the "untouchable symptoms": the value of military spending. Winning an election on a message that the Iraq war is bad for the economy is the first step, over the long-term, of redirecting the spending of the federal government away from the military-industrial complex.
John McCain reinforces it. Recently, McCain's top economic advisor suggested that in order to pay for corporate tax cuts, McCain will cut military spending. So, with the McCain campaign agreeing that military spending needs to be reduced, this will be an easy point to hammer home.
Obama is getting close to nailing the winning message, which goes something like this:
John McCain wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years, even though Americans are spending $10-12B in Iraq every month. Now, to pay for a corporate tax cut, McCain's top economic advisor says he will cut defense spending. By contrast, Barack Obama will end the Iraq war and use that money to invest in American jobs, transportation, health care and a new energy economy. Senator Obama will put the peace dividend to work for you.
That is probably a bit wordy and dry, but I feel confident that a great speaker like Obama can eventually hit it on the head. This is the message we need to win the election, and also to govern like progressives in the future. It is great to see Obama already close to sticking the landing on this one.
Update: I meant to say that Obama is getting close to nailing this message. Damn typos.
Not only did George Bush and John McCain support the war, their shared ideological base helped designed and start it. This is probably the most stark difference between Obama and McCain, and yet with the economy in the toilet there is no question that Democrats need to spend the vast majority of their time focusing on their traditional strength -- economic issues.
Having a clear, consistent, and simple economic message will be key to Obama's ability to capture lower-information voters. Is there a way to craft a message that can leverage Obama's stance on Iraq and foreign policy in general while at the same time hammering away at the core economic issues -- gas prices, food prices, the middle-class squeeze -- the issues that we need to own if we're going to win November? I believe there is.
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