Progressive Movement

On Thursday Senate Democrats (with two Republicans) did the right thing and sent the Iraq Supplemental Bill to the President with timetables to withdrawal U.S. forces from Iraq.

Now we have all heard the rhetoric from both sides. Preluded by Sen. Reid’s “the war is lost” statement, the Republicans are casting the Democrats as defeatists who are handing the terrorists victory. Democrats, on the other hand, have cast themselves as realists who are doing the will of the people.

There are a couple of problems here for the Democrats. First, if your main motivation is doing what the public wants, you are not projecting leadership. Meekly doing what the mob wants is ultimately not what people look for in leaders, although their short term desires tell them otherwise.

That is one of the main reasons Bush is still President. He was able to cast John Kerry as a flip-flopper going whatever way the wind blew. Bush, on the other hand, was cast as unflappable, even if it went against public or world opinion. People like that, even progressives. Of course the problem with that is when you never change course, like Bush, but that is another topic.

Secondly, the Democrats are on defense. Republicans, like usual, are attacking the Democrats; painting them negatively. Democrats are trying to paint themselves positively. This is a losing proposition; they need to attack back.

How to do this? (more…)

Messaging, Bush, Pelosi, Reid, Iraq supplemental | No Comments »

By now we have all heard about the Cheney/Reid steel cage match from Monday. Not much of a steel cage match IMHO, but it certainly makes for a good tag line.  All of the actions seems to be out of the ring.
Here are both speeches in their entirety.

From a messaging standpoint Cheney and Reid were polar opposites. Cheney’s tone was single-minded and aggressive. Reid’s was thoughtful. Cheney did indeed look like an attack dog - Reid an elder statesman.

Cheney’s tone matched his message. He is trying to characterize the Dems as defeatists who are hurting America with the call for troop withdrawal in the Iraq Supplemental Bill. You will also notice he went back to the tried and true flip-flopping charge against Reid and the Democrats. So his main gist is that Dems are weak on defense and not to be trusted.

His attack dog style matched his desire to rile up the patriotic fervor of middle America against liberals and the troop withdrawal language in the Supplemental that Bush will veto.

Reid wants to appear measured and rational in order to counter Cheney’s rabidness. It makes him look like he has thought things through and is doing what his party thinks is best for the country. He wants to appear trustworthy to Cheney’s semi-scary persona.

So Reid did well here. But what of the content? (more…)

Messaging, Reid, Cheney, Iraq supplemental | No Comments »

Here is a good post explaining how Republicans promote the image of diversity within the party. This shows how good the conservatives are at messaging. If you do not have policies that help a particular group, then you put the face of that group up on camera, give them a book deal, a radio show, and some speaking engagements. It creates the impression you care about that particular group and that it is okay to support you.

It is a rather cynical way to look at it, but all the African American conservatives I know are the ones on TV. If you were to judge the political make up of the black community based on how they were represented by black commentators in the media, you would think African-Americans voted 70-30 in favor of Republicans. The reality is blacks vote 90-10 for the Democrats.

Still, this illusion helps soften the conservative image. My only beef with the post linked to above is that it attributes the promotion of black, conservative pundits to conservative white guilt. On the contrary, there is no guilt. It is a cold maneuver designed to trick African Americans into thinking that conservatives represent them.

Nonetheless, it is a great study of how to break into a demographic you do not have. Start with the image. To make it stick you need to back up the image with content, policy, or action. This is where Republicans fail. But they have the initial part down perfectly. Dems should do this with white, married, suburban mothers and God fearing, Southern white men.

Messaging, Racism | No Comments »

Now that the feeding frenzy over the Virginia Tech shootings has calmed down I can watch the news again. And lo and behold I detect bias!

Okay, sit back down. I know that was a shocker, but check out this reporting from “the most trusted name in news” CNN.

“BUSH: As the investigation of the hearings went forward, it was clear that the attorney general broke no law. He did no wrongdoing.

ARENA: But there are still questions about how effective Gonzales can be, in not only advancing the administration’s priorities but in his day to day responsibilities.”

The reporter assumes that the only question left is how effective Gonzales is, not whether he broke the law. Wrong! The question is whether or not they fired attorneys illegally. That has not yet been answered thanks to the Administration’s bungled cover up.

The second question is whether these attorneys were fired because they would not pursue bogus cases of voter fraud. If so, then the Admin is conspiring to defraud voters, primarily African Americans. That will be extremely difficult to prove, but that is a massive, illegal no-no. If we could only get a current U.S. attorney to say they are pursuing bogus voter fraud cases in order to keep their jobs. Unlikely.

Now check out this interview of Sen. Reid, by Dana Bash. (more…)

Uncategorized, Messaging, Iraq, media, Reid | No Comments »

In on of the greatest lapses of memory in modern history, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said some version of ‘I do not recall’ in his Senate testimony Thursday at least 64 times. Funny, I thought lawyers were supposed to be smart. The top one of the land cannot remember things from last November? All facetiousness aside, that was a pathetic display of leadership and accountability.

And it certainly smells fishy. What exactly is he covering up? Unfortunately, many people are focusing on the denials rather than what the denials are hiding. What denials hide usually are crimes.

Or they are just extremely embarrassing. But it is hard to imagine using private emails accounts to discuss official business years before this scandal even hit the light of day just because what you were plotting was embarrassing. It only makes sense if Rove, Gonzales, and other executive branch officials knew that what they were doing was criminal.

Yet the Democrats and progressives continue to focus on the sensationalistic aspects of the cover up. I am watching “Real Time” with Bill Maher and HBO and his two conservative guests repeat the Republican talking point that there is no crime, it was just incompetently handled. They are saying the same thing about Scooter Libby. In other words, Democrats are trying to criminalize the cover up.

Well, if the cover up itself involves a crime, such as lying under oath to Congress, then it is perfectly legitimate to criminalize it. Clinton was impeached for the same thing; lying about Monica Lewinsky in a legal deposition. So the Republicans are being hypocritical by claiming there is no crime in lying under oath.

But as I have said before, lying under oath destroys the legal system. As such it is a serious crime and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Ultimately though that is not the main point. What disturbed me was that neither Gov. Brian Schweitzer (more…)

Messaging, Analysis, Scooter Libby, Attorney Scandal, Alberto Gonzales | No Comments »

Yesterday, April 18th, the official start of the decline in women’s rights began.  The Supreme Court held up a certain type of late term abortion ban that did not take into account the health of the woman.

In essence, completely contradicting established precedent, the court decided that the life of a living, breathing human was not worth as much as a fetus.

I am no lawyer, so I will leave all of that analysis to those who know better.  But as far as messaging, two things need to be made clear.

First, Bush’s conservative judges rejected the established precedent of protecting the health of the woman to push a religious objective.

I would phrase it something like this:

1) The conservative justices chose religious bias over established law.
2) This is a clear violation of the separation between church and state.

Secondly, focus on the fetus vs. human life decision.

1) Conservative justices think a fetus is more important than an actual person.

You can argue about a woman’s right to decide the fate of her own body, but many people do not believe that extends to abortion, or are at least unsure about it.  So arguing that point does not gain too many adherents.  However, breaking down what happened to issues everyone, even conservatives, cares about will help people in the middle understand what the real issues are.

Some of the messaging I have seen focuses on curtailing doctor/client privacy and rights, not allowing doctors to make educated decisions about the appropriate course of action, etc… While all true, (more…)

Messaging, Abortion, Supreme Court | No Comments »

While we have been focused on either the Attorney-Gate or the recent shooting massacre, other things have happened that are kinda cool. The biggest, IMHO, is that The Sudan has agreed to allow UN peacekeepers into Darfur. Granted, this is not the political solution that must occur for there to be real peace in The Sudan, but it is a pretty big step. Most of all, it shows the power of diplomacy.

So why did Khartoum, after years of obstinance, accept 3,000 UN peacekeepers and six attack helicopters into Darfur to supplement the 7,000 strong African Union (AU) peacekeepers already there?

Mia Farrow. No, really. She came up with the idea of using the 2008 Beijing Olympics to pressure China on their refusal to give The Sudan grief over Darfur. This Chinese support for The Sudan has been a major stumbling block in getting any real progress on Darfur. Now that has changed.

This is a prime example of how diplomacy works. It can often take awhile, and sometimes various gambits fail. But over time it usually works. You just have to find the right pressure points and messengers.

Of course, the strategy is important too. Recently, (more…)

China, Darfur | 1 Comment »

We all know the story about Virginia Tech.  Still, we have little to go on now to understand why Cho Seung-Hui decided to strike out and kill 32 young souls before snuffing out his own life. And while we certainly always hate seeing this stuff happen, every time it does there is a national conversation about how to prevent it - and usually nothing happens.

Sometimes it does, but it very rarely helps.  Politicians feel they have to so something; the public demands action in a time like this.  And in order to help shape what that political action is, various interest groups jump in and try to dominate the narrative of the tragedy.

That is already happening in this case.  I am not blaming these interest groups or activists.  They earnestly believe their solution will fix the problem.  And often we do not pay attention to the underlying issues for such random acts of intense violence until they happen.  Thus, these groups and individuals feel times like these are the only time the public will listen.  Unfortunately, they are ususally correct.

Still, I cannot see what legislative action we can take that will prevent such things in the future.  Liberals often want more gun control, but unless the guns used are fully automatic, it is hard to argue that banning handguns would help.

Better counseling might help, but identifying who needs help and how to get them the help they need without invading privacy or making diagnostic mistakes is hugely problematic and not the kind of thing that is legislated very well.

What if some well-meaning teacher or other similar professional thinks someone might go off the deep end, but the person is nothing more than a mild outcast or loner?  That person may then end up being vilified or rejected, further hurting their psyche, really driving them off the deep end, or at least making their life more miserable.

I cannot help but think of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ and thinking someone who just does not completely fit into the status quo could get institutionalized as a potential postal (a noun I have coined to refer to someone who goes ‘postal’) even though they are just a bit unique.  That is the kind of trouble that might occur if we try to legislate an early warning system for the likes of Cho Seung-Hui.

Now it does seem in this case that there was plenty of evidence Cho was having serious problems, but again, how you deal with it is another problem.  Maybe all we can do is improve the response when crises like these begin to happen.  Better preperation?

There is no messaging advice here, other than not to try and message it.  These acts of inexplicable violence bring up nothing but questions.  We need to find a way to address the underlying causes of such outbursts, and that takes tons of time, energy, and clear headed thought, none of which we have now.  I just hope we can continue this discussion well after the media frenzy dies down, because that is what is most needed.

gun control, virginia tech shooting | No Comments »