Wall Street Reform: If Obama Can't Win This Message War . . .

Wall Street Reform: If Obama Can't Win This Message War . . .

Unfortunately, David Corn gets this one pretty well right. The points he makes could be expanded into criticisms of Dem "message management" generally.

This has been personally frustrating to me for a long time: that the Republicans are waging a War of Messaging, relentlessly and (usually) with focus and discipline, while the Dems seem undecided whether there is a war, or a debate, or maybe a potentially-friendly game of some kind that is unfortunately beset with confusion and misunderstanding. As a result the Dems appear, year after year, to be unfocused and disorganized and, year after year, they get their butts thoroughly kicked by the Republicans. The Dems have a good message consultant in Drew Westin, but they pay little attention to him. The Republicans have one in Frank Luntz, and they follow his talking points with impressive discipline (as well as digesting talking points regularly from corporate think-tanks and consultants, as well as focus-groups, etc.).

Yes, Obama won in '08, and yes, he has been an inspirational speaker. But considering the monumental disaster of the Bush years, the wrecked economy, McCain's frequent lies, exaggerations and hypocrisies, etc., and the stunningly spectacular incompetence of Sarah Palin (more fully revealed since the election, but plenty on display during), it's worrying that the election was so close (tho not close enough to steal, as it was in '04).

Obama won praise for not delivering devastating, albeit perfectly legitimate, criticisms of Bush and, especially, McCain during the campaign -- for "taking the high road". I didn't participate in that praise. If the economy hadn't tanked, Obama likely would have lost, and the "high-road" strategy would be looking like another Dem wishy-washy failure against the Republican poltical-military juggernaut.

How would I have managed things differently? Apart from messaging points like Corn's (below), I would approach things generally like this....
Treat with honor and dignity statements and actions by your oponents (politicians and media alike) that reflect honesty and integrity. But where your opponents are guilty of scurrilous lies and major crimes, make sure they pay a political price. Call them out publicly, by name, showing what's wrong with their attack, referencing the relevant facts (because you can't trust journalists to do it for you), and challenging the offender to deny the facts, or to apologize. Never ignore attacks (as Obama so often did), because you then allow your opponent leverage in their own message-framing, and passively nurture public suspicions about you; you must fearlessly -- and obviously fearlessly -- stand up for yourself. Whatever you do, make sure that your opponents suffer public-poll pain whenever they tell outrageous lies against you. Make them gun-shy about doing it.

More than that, use language that is colorful, specific, evocative. Don't refer to "the Senate Majority Leader" without using his name, "Mitch McConnell", which is more easily associated with a face among the majority of the public who follow events only marginally. If he's going to be corporate whore, make sure the public sees a corporate whore when they see that face. Invite your opponents to stop fighting and to start cooperating -- but if they won't give up the fight, do not pretend that there is no war!

Republican strategists might be quite happy if Republicans have low public support, as long as they share it with the Democrats -- as long as the public despises politics in general, or Washington, or everything. That's bad for incumbents, who are mostly Democratic now. But the Democrats don't have to share the public gutter with the Republicans. If they got their messaging right -- and their policies! -- they could associate themselves with specific policies that the public like, and leave the Republicans in the gutter.

(Just to be clear, if anyone is confused about it: tho the above comments are given under the mantle of a strategic advisor to the Democrats, my politics are only slightly aligned with standard Dem positions. In these particular comments, that can be obscured by the stultifyingly narrow reality of two-party politics. Between the Democrats and the Republicans, I stand with the Democrats; but that doesn't mean that I stand with the Democrats....not more than a toe, or sometimes two.)

--MBC

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/19/wall-street-reform-if-obama-cant-win-this-message-war


David Corn
Wall Street Reform: If Obama Can't Win This Message War . . .
04/19/10

Let's review. For years, Wall Street masters of the universe, exploiting the deregulation swing of the 1990s, cooked up various financial instruments that virtually no one could understand -- not even the chief executives of the big firms -- and then when the credit default swaps hit the fan, the collapse of their trillion-dollar casino created a black hole that sucked up much of the economy, destroying more than 8 million jobs. But now that the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress, after bailing out the billionaire bozos, are finally moving to create new rules for the Gang That Couldn't Speculate Straight, Wall Street's reprobates have deployed hundreds of lobbyists to beat back these new safeguards. On top of that, Republicans are marching in lockstep opposition to the legislation that would establish these new rules, arguing that Obama and the Dems are actually bailing out the banks with these new regs.

Huh? If the regs aren't tough on Big Finance, why has Wall Street mobilized to thwart them? And if the reform package is a bailout for the banks, shouldn't the banks' lobbyists be trying to grease the way for the legislation instead of derailing it? The short explanation is the obvious one: The Republicans are not telling the truth. But don't take my word for it. Politifact.com assessed the GOP charge that the Obama-backed reform bill sets up a $50 billion "slush fund" that will be used for Wall Street bailouts and found it to be "false."

What we have here is a case of Republicans claiming up is down -- in order to do the bidding of the Big Finance players who screwed the rest of us. And that means that if Obama cannot win this message war, he really ought to reorganize.

In his first 14 months as president, Obama did a better job enacting major legislation than selling it. He passed nearly $800 billion in stimulus spending, and a wide range of economists have said this measure prevented the loss of another 2 million jobs. Yet with Republicans falsely claiming the stimulus created no new jobs -- a contention labeled a "pants on fire" lie by Politifact -- polls repeatedly have indicated that much of the public does not believe the stimulus has yielded jobs. And after Republicans bleated about non-existent "death panels" and a non-existent government takeover of health care, polls also have noted significant public skepticism about the just-passed health care overhaul. Obama aides and Democrats routinely say that public opinion regarding health care will move their way as Americans encounter the direct benefits of the measure. But that shift has yet to happen. (Gallup reported on Thursday that 45 percent of Americans say it was "a good thing" that Congress passed health care legislation, and 49 percent say it was "a bad thing." That marked little change from two weeks earlier -- and mirrored what Gallup polls had found during the months before the bill was approved by Congress.)

So Obama is 0 for 2 on the major message fronts. And he's been up against a rather feckless Republican leadership. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell? House Minority Leader John Boehner? These are not the most impressive political strategists. But with untruths -- even untruths that have been exposed -- they have prevented the president from reaping public opinion gains with his legislative victories.

Now comes the battle over Wall Street reform. The White House has been trying to get a fast jump on Republicans' false talking points. After McConnell declared that the package would institutionalize "taxpayer-funded bailouts of Wall Street banks," the White House slammed him on its blog, showing that McConnell's accusation was contradicted by the actual text of the bill. (McConnell's newest argument against the Wall Street reform legislation repeats a line Republicans used during their failed effort to stop health care reform: "We ought to go back to the drawing board.") On Friday, Obama decried the fact that Wall Street's "army of lobbyists" have found "some willing allies on the other side of Congress who have been trying to carve out a lot of exceptions and special loopholes so that people on Wall Street can keep making these risky bets without oversight." The goal of this partnership, he said, is to load the bill with "lobbyist-driven loopholes that put American taxpayers at risk." And, Obama declared, "every member of Congress is going to have to make a decision: Are they going to side with the special interests and the status quo, or are they going to side with the American people?" He vowed to veto legislation that does not include provisions to regulate the derivatives market.

This is a decent start. But as is often the case, Obama could be tougher on the Republicans. He could toss aside the usual Washington euphemisms (such as referring to "some" people on the "other side of Congress"). He ought to state plainly: The Republicans -- all the Republicans in the Senate -- are trying to kill this reform. Each of the 41 GOP senators has signed a letter opposing the legislation. It's deja vu all over again: complete GOP intransigence. This ought to prompt Obama to go ballistic.

Many Americans remain angry about Wall Street. They see that the money-traders made billions devising complicated and self-serving games that imperiled the entire economy; then they were bailed out, while unemployed Americans had to fend for themselves. And obscene mega-corporate bonuses resumed. People are right to be ticked off. Obama might find it useful to show that he shares that anger -- over and over. The White House can't finesse this point and deploy outrage once in a while. Taking the occasional populist poke won't suffice -- especially if the other side is again pushing a big lie. Obama needs to remind Americans repeatedly that he feels their rage and understands their cynicism. And Obama must show that. In other words, it's not only what he says, but how he says it.

Depicting the legislative battle over Wall Street reform as one in which lawmakers must side with either "special interests" or the "American people" is fine, but it doesn't thrill. If I could be so bold as to suggest a tutor for the president, he should spend a little time with Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who chairs an independent congressional panel overseeing the TARP bailout. She cooked up the idea for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which is part of the reform package now being debated in the Senate. She's exceptionally good at talking about these financial issues in clear-cut fashion. She does know how to display utter contempt for Big Finance -- without appearing shrill or marginal. "This is families versus banks," she likes to say, noting that there are not two sides to this issue. Not unless you're a rapacious Wall Streeter looking to preserve your opportunity to play dice with the American economy. She has pointed an accusing finger at specific banks, financial firms and GOP legislators to make a plain case: You are placing Americans in harm's way, and this must not stand. Put her up against McConnell or Boehner, and this debate would be settled within minutes.

To win the Wall Street reform message war -- and perhaps to win the legislative battle in the Senate -- Obama might have to call out the Republicans and the banks with more ferocity. The details of financial reform are even more complicated than those of health care reform. Neither side will succeed by scoring points about the details of a provision regarding collateralized debt obligations. You have to prevail in the struggle for control of the overarching narrative. Obama and the D's can do best by convincing Americans that Warren is right, that this is a fight between American families and the banks -- and that they are on the side of families, while the Republicans are in league with the rich schemers of Wall Street. With Americans still mad about the economic meltdown, with the GOP bedding down with Wall Street, this ought to be a cakewalk for Obama. That is, if he lets loose and puts his mouth where the money is.

UPDATE: In his weekly Internet and radio address, Obama did target McConnell and GOP Sen. John Cornyn: "Just the other day, in fact, the Leader of the Senate Republicans and the Chair of the Republican Senate campaign committee met with two dozen top Wall Street executives to talk about how to block progress on this issue. Lo and behold, when he returned to Washington, the Senate Republican Leader came out against the common-sense reforms we've proposed." Again, this is an okay start, but Obama will have to keep the pressure on McConnell. In that same address, Obama said, "My hope is that we can put this kind of politics aside. My hope is that Democrats and Republicans can find common ground and move forward together." WIth McConnell signaling that his hope is to kill Obama's initiative, it might be time for the president to declare war--and explain to the American public why there is no other alternative.