I think the reason that the Democrats lost the PR war was because the Democrats WANTED to lose that war. If the public heard the loud and boisterous GOP obstructionism, then it would provide perfect cover to the blue dogs and conservadems who wanted to kill any Progressive measures early on.

Which is exactly what happened. The Democratic party was using the GOP PR machine to its own advantage in silencing one of its own wings.

And that works because the Progressive wing will still vote Democrat (or so the Party hopes).

*I* won’t still vote Democratic. I won’t vote at all for national races, in fact, after 44 years of never missing an election. Obama has killed the goose that laid the golden egg, i.e. broken the “the alternative is so much worse!” malarkey that keeps us trudging to the polls to vote for Democrats, only to be shat on, time and time again.

I don’t even come here very much any more. I read almost no political blogs these days.

well, read the comments at http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/04/12/no-budget-resolution-democrats-contemplate-giving-up-important-power-in-face-of-republican-obstructionism/ to see what people who agree with you are saying.

I may vote Democrat – but only when its a true progressive running. Straight ticket is GONE.

I won’t vote for Palin. I will leave that space blank next election. But I think the main difference in having her vs. Obama in the WH is that we can actually have some Democrat support when we oppose her.

The only thing worse than seeing yet another message war loss is the knowledge that no one in will learn the right lesson from it. Look for future griping (probably on the Daily Kos rec list) about how stupid Americans are for not knowing or believing that the bill reduces the deficit, when the the blame belongs to the ineptitude of the Democratic Party and the weakness of its –and other big liberal organizations’–communications and PR capabilities. Look for more talk from Obama about the wonky “facts” about the bill. He’ll probably start carting around a ten-point policy sheet that he’ll refer to. …doomed to fail again and again…

I haven’t typed ‘Ds are too dumb to live’ recently, so here goes: Ds are too dumb to live.

While it’s certainly the case that Democratic leadership is a failure in multiple ways (spine, focus, whipping, and now messaging) it doesn’t help that the mainstream media is owned by the pharmaceutical and health care industries. Go ahead and TRY to popularize health care reform on TV. Go ahead. Even if the Dems were smarter than a fifth grader, they’d STILL be challenged to get the message out through the owned media.

If you believe the bill helps average Americans, I have some nice land east of Maimi for sale for you, and a bridge or two in NY as a deal sweetener.

If it reduces the deficit, it does it by shifting payment of the money to the citizens.

Jon, the Democrats have allowed the Repubs to ‘frame the argument’ for so many years, it would seem as though they have forgotten how to frame the arguments and are always in reactive mode.

The main problem for the Dems,IMHO,is that the party is NOT seen as one where principles are put above politics; too bad because the U.S. voter sees ‘principles above politics’ as the ‘prima facie’ evidence whether someone is worth voting for(when the public is deciding between an incumbent and a challenger).

This messaging loss on the thing (deficit reducing) that President Obama and Congressional leadership probably cared most about being part of the bill is a dramatic failure that will probably have serious implications in November.

My guess is that if the bill had some positive impact on peoples’ lives right away, the deficit question probably would have been unimportant. But since most of the effects of the bill have been pushed off so far, deficits will matter more than they should, because the people who are angry about that won’t be balanced by people who are happy that things are better for them.

That’s one of the reasons the PR campaign is going badly. That the Democrats passed a bill that’s somewhere between useless and damaging to most of us just makes it that much worse.

“Who cares if you’re not going to see any real effects from the Health Insurance Profit Protection Act until 2014, and who cares if you’re going to have premiums sky-rocket, and who cares if poor people still aren’t going to be able to afford health care, and who cares if the soon to retire geezers are going to lose their life savings to exhorbitant premiums and out-of-reach pharmaceuticals, you effing RETARDS! It’s going to reduce the deficit!”

Run with that message Dems. Run.

If the Republicans were guilty of outright lies in their health care debate messaging, the Democrats were guilty of not telling the whole truth.

They did everything they could to rally support around a massive corporate giveaway that is more of the continuing “Democratic” way of reform: privatize the profits and socialize the losses. They, the Dems, receive campaign donations in return. It’s the only reason they want to TRY to sustain the unsustainable business of private health insurance. They’ll continue to dish out US Treasury dollars to that industry and filling their campaign coffers until a breaking point is reached.

I guess the problem is that the legislation simply perpetuated or worsened the complexities of the current system – officializing the insurance industry, etc. – without providing major reforms. The result, unsurprisingly, is that if the legislation reduces net government cost (ie debt) though it still doesn’t reduce overall health care provision cost, but increases it by a marginal amount over time, the people won’t see it as a great victory. Certainly, it is difficult to hear the revolution roaring in your ears when the cry is “our CBO score showed a net loss to deficit year-over-year despite overall cost increases!!!”

It strikes me as a difficult “messaging” problem to solve -

It doesn’t help that the Democrats are owned by the pharmaceutical and health insurance lobbies, either. In fact, that is probably more damaging a situation for all of us than corporatized mass media.

I am not sure the American people aren’t just a little bit smarter than the CBO. What assumptions does CBO make when scoring the bill? Does anyone know?

About 1/3 of the allegedly newly insured get shunted into Medicaid. There are significant areas of the country where it is already difficult to find a doctor that will accept Medicaid. Does CBO score the bill expecting all those new medicaid enrollees to see a non existant doctor for their care or does it accurately anticipate the number who will continue to go the emergencey room at 10 times the cost?

Does the bill really reduce costs or does it just reduce the rate of increase? If unfunded costs to the taxpayer are expected to be 20% without the bill and are reduced to 18% with the bill it takes a politician to embrace the idea that “reducing the rate of increasing the deficit” is the same as “reducing the deficit.”

The real message that is being missed is that maybe people don’t like this bill because they recognize a turd when they smell one and no amount of polishing is going to make it smell good!

Slightly OT, can anyone here explain the etymology behind the similarity between message and massage?

There are no meaningful cost controls in the health care legislation. The idea that people will stop going to emergency rooms is pure fantasy.

Another thing– I try to be well-informed, but until very recently I was unaware that the original sanctions for not complying with the individual mandate had been changed in the Senate Finance Committee last October. In the final legislation, the IRS is not allowed to enforce the mandate with liens and prosecution under the Tax Code.

If there are prominent Democrats saying “we won’t put anyone in prison for refusing to buy health insurance,” I have not heard them. Meanwhile not only the entire right-wing noise machine but even Jay Leno and Keith Olbermann have been telling everyone about the threat of going to jail.

“There’s some controversy over the part of the new health care bill that says if you don’t buy health insurance, you can go to jail for five years. They say it’ll prevent freeloaders of the system. If they do go to jail, won’t they get free health care for five years?” -Jay Leno

No single payer? No sale. No public option? No sale. No Medicare buy-in? No sale. I am one of the self-insured, albeit by choice. And I hereby pledge that I will not buy this perversion of health care reform. Pass this at your peril, Senators, and sign it at yours, Mr. President. I will not buy this insurance. Brand me a lawbreaker if you choose. Fine me if you will. Jail me if you must. –Keith Olbermann

. They even got into a serious fight with labor unions over excise taxes. Defending the new taxes depressed support for the bill and almost derailed the legislation because of a fight within the party. Yet, politically, Democrats have basically have nothing on a PR front to show for their efforts

This was the Dems baby this was Rahm’s fight if we are Fing Retards and we did the PR for the public Option which scores better than Obama’s plan then what does that make Rahm?

Well yes, there is THAT!

With Democrats, only the latter has any chance of a ‘happy ending.’

There are no meaningful cost controls in the health care legislation. The idea that people will stop going to emergency rooms is pure fantasy.

There will always be emergency room visits however people will be able to go to the hospital for the flu or other non emergency stuff without going to the emergency room for treatment.

They lost because they used GOPer talking points or at least presented it based on the conservatism’s cynical view of human nature. Soulless greed using pseudo technocratic language.

“We won’t put anyone in prison for refusing to buy health insurance” is hardly a great basis upon which to execute a PR campaign. The idea is to really, really convince someone the Democrats have done something great, and historic. The trouble is the Democrats only did half of that, and the half done was decidedly not “great”. They didn’t really take huge steps for the people, most of whom will now simply face a government mandate to hold a private health insurance product sold to them, largely, on the terms of an industry dominated by regional monopolies operating together as a trust. The fact that the insurance companies can’t refuse to sell you a policy because you had a condition already is irrelevant given that there is no real rate control authority available.

Again, the messaging problem is rooted in the reality that the Democrats really didn’t accomplish anything particularly good for the people, but instead instituted a plan a lot more like corporate welfare than anything else.

So what is Rahm going to do about this PR problem we don’t like this bill because its not enough but Rahm swore he could sell this bill to voters and it would help Obama.
Or will Rahm do nothing again and the Dems will get stuck with another NAFTA?

Totally OT: Kathleen Parker awarded Pulitzer for commentary.
And, no, this is not The Onion.

Worst thing about that is that the increased Medicaid coverage is one of the better features of the bill. It’s good that more people are covered. It’s bad that the quality of that coverage may make it just as useless as the insurance the other people who are now “covered” will be forced to buy, depending where one lives.

Oh, and I suppose I should add that I’ve been assuming that just about any improvement to the health care situation would improve the deficit picture, but that assumption may not be correct. So, I do have to question the CBO scores, at least a little.

Does anyone here remember the great film Spinning Boris? This is the film in which American election managers and consultants have to work to get the incredibly anti-charismatic Boris Yeltsin elected in Russia despite himself.

The sequel to this film could be named “Spinning Health Insurance ‘Reform’”.

WTF

I’ll have to go to the transcript to figure out what Palin actually said and try to figure out whose facts were right

Kathleen does not know that sure Sarah cut taxes but Sarah is the Earmark Welfare queen?

Sarah kept talking about her executive record cutting taxes to bad Wassila got $27 million in the kind earmarks John says that he is against.

From 2000 to 2003, she secured over $27 million in earmarks, averaging $6.7 million in federal money every year for her town of about 6,700 people. …(read on)

As mayor, Sarah Palin managed to secure a thousand dollars a year per person in her city in earmarks, yet…

When Palin left office in 2002, Wasilla had “racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt,” or roughly $3,000 of debt per resident. …(more)

http://www.crooksandliars.com/…..n-in-debt/

Has Kathleen been investigating Sarah as VP at all?

She did her homework, studied hard, and delivered with spunk.

How can Kathleen say that Sarah did her homework when Kathleen admits that she will have to go to the transcript to figure out whose answers were right?
Thats like saying I copied off Sarah’s paper because she did her homework but I don’t know if the answers are right.
And then saying that Sarah is so smart because she did her homework.
First rule Kathleen never cheat off a stupid person.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/404

Kathleen is a hack what Judy Miller wasn’t available?

Well, right, and that’s the big problem; that Obama signaled early on that he was more interested in a show of progress than in actual progress. He wanted to be able to say he passed the first significant health insurance legislation since the New Deal, even if he didn’t really pass anything but a rearrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic.

This all comes down to corporations having bought our political systems, and I’m at a loss as to how to change that…

How do I edit my quote marks and why do all my spaces disappear when I use edit?

Oops, my bad. Thanks for the diary.

Edit – ah, it’s from 2008.
Little did you know that you were attacking a soon-to-be giant of opinion journalism!

“PR”?!?! The Democrats ignored the majority Public Opinion (or the American public) and polls (even when those polls were slanted towards Democrats). The Democrats lied at every step. And, the American public knows that no government program is ever “deficit reducing” (or even deficit neutral)…especially this one! The Democrats’ “MESSAGE” was a lie, and a clear majority of the American Public knew it…simple as that.

A Pulitzer for commentary? Isn’t that kind of like getting an Oscar for Best Actress in a Hot-Chick movie?

As the economy continues to improve a great deal of the criticism of this administration’s messaging will wane.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, the prosperity of a political message lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him who makes it.

Not sure on the quote marks thing but if you refresh your browser after you edit, all the original formatitng is still there.

You and I aren’t really able to change the system, its a malfunctioning system failing in a way such that the specific malfunction (the political system only responds to elites with huge sums of money) prevents correction of the failure (the political system is dominated by elites with huge sums of money) through the normal means (new candidates not harnessed by huge sums of money are elected by broad margins and enact populist reforms).

The political system is beginning to fall victim to its own excesses, and it is some combination of these continued excesses along with the societal decline resulting that will eventually enforce real changes.

Until then, it is just a train wreck. I’d recommend not affiliating yourself with the Democrats or the Republicans, as a major contribution any individual voter/donor can manage.

Kathleen is a hot chick? Bwahahaha! I get your point Commentary is opinion sans facts why is there a Pulitzer for this?

Well-put.

Here’s the problem with Democratic messaging: The vast majority of Democrats, especially the leadership, have no idea how to speak to normal people. All of them, from politicians to pundits, all speak as if they are standing in front of a grad school class and are trying to impress someone with how brilliant they are. Obama does a great job of communicating when he’s unleashed to do so and Alan Grayson is a breath of fresh air because he speaks his mind. However, I’m sure a lot of the Democratic leadership or Left leadership and thinkers turn their noses up when anyone dares to speak like a person on the street rather than some puffed up buffoon at some Upper West Side party — the kind of parties that normal people are not invited to.

Thanks:)

All of them, from politicians to pundits, all speak as if they are standing in front of a grad school class and are trying to impress someone with how brilliant they are.

Agreed but there ideas are at the level community college students get laughed at.

it won’t push the governemnt into debt, they’re passing on the bill to normal americans

I couldn’t agree more with you about the issue of elitism. What you do expect from a political class the mere price of entry into comes in the form of graduation from one of about 10 universities in the country? For evidence of this see: the Harvard Administration er sorry the Obama Administration.

Obama does a great job of communicating

Yes but its easy to look good debating the GOP. Lets see him debate us on healthcare. Its politically impossible we can’t pass it.
Did you even try to pressure the GOP for votes by cutting funding to the stuff they want? Did you hold up aid for Israel until National Healthcare passed?
Why Israel gets aid money from us and they have healthcare and we don’t would have been a great PR point to bad Obama never fought for healthcare.

The good news for the Dems … 1 out of 39 comments for, oldgold is still shilling for the party.

Great Numbers

I don’t know. When you can get a Nobel Peace Prize for continuing a policy of killing innocent people with robot drones, is anything out of the question?

“…bought our political systems, and I’m at a loss as to how to change that…”

The deafness and corruption is largely due to the need for enough campaign finance money to buy lots of TV time. The only way to beat back the corruption is to make the money irrelavent. If as few as 10% of the voters would commit to voting against incumbants of either party until meaningful campaign finance reform was passed, we could break this beast. Note that in many districts it would only take 3 or 4 % to accomplish this.

Democrats risked internal fights over mechanisms to make the bill deficit-reducing and took serious political hits for adding new taxes to the bill. Yet, for all this, they get basically no credit.

i give them credit for being a bunch of stupid deficit terrorists.

on the bright side, at least it is some evidence that the americans living outside of deecee are not as stupid as the people in deecee. there’s no way the dems should get credit for bad policy, which is what attempting to reduce the fed deficit is, and i’m glad they get no credit for their bad policy.

Maybe we should rethink the word Elite and replace it with Special? Between Bush and Obama all the Elite has not exactly wowed me with the smarts except when Obama talks.
Obama’s ideas are better than the GOP’s but still not the best ideas.

When you can get a Nobel Peace Prize for continuing a policy of killing innocent people with robot drones, is anything out of the question?

Valid Point

No

Critiquing Democrats on the health care reform bill is like taking candy from a statue. It is almost embarrassing.

Though politicians have many times proven you can sell nothing as something, in the case of health care, the product lost them the PR battle. With only a few good aspects–pre-existing conditions being the main one–and 2700 pages of baloney, there is not really much to sell.

Add to that a provision forcing people to buy insurance from a private insurance company or get fined, you don’t have much to “sell.”

But, really, the source of the problem on both PR and content was lack to public hearings fully exploring health care. I mean really open, well publicized hearings held on C-Span (meaning committee hearings) that explored fully foreign systems of coverage, single payer, public option, etc. etc, etc. They have gotten better content and better PR.

This points to the real nature of the bill and everyone saw, but the Dem’s thought was well hidden–they didn’t want the light of day to see what they were doing because they weren’t intending to do anything good. They thought they’d be able to release an already set 2400 page bill and just be able to tell people, “It’s good, trust us,” and they’d go along.

No dice. And they are paying a price now.

Fair enough, “special” or some other word that indicates “wealthy, powerful, entitled, and incredibly unimpressive or even outright stupid.”

HA!

This isn’t a public relations issue. It’s a piece-of-crap legislation issue. Americans aren’t buying the lie. Why would I think this bill will reduce the deficit after finding out that the President and many Congressional leaders lied about so many other aspects of the bill – like wanting a public option? The bill is not reform and will help very few citizens. It will hurt most of us when we are mandated to purchase insurance companies who are not required in any way to keep costs affordable.

I supported the Democrats my entire adult life until a few weeks ago. I’m done. They are no different than the Republicans. Third parties will get my vote or no one will.

it won’t push the government into debt

There’s an alternate theory about the Health Insurance Profit Protection Act.

As premiums double and triple over the next few years, more families will be forced to drop coverage and choose to pay the mandate fine, thus assisting with defect reduction. That was the plan all along

Ah, I see, so HIPPA was a backdoor tax increase?

Here’s the thing about “not enforcing” the mandate.

Number 1, it will be “enforced” on the poorer folks. Believe it or not, it’s the working poor that are more likely to get refunds at tax filing season than the non-working rich assholes.

And the penalty WILL BE enforced there as they will withhold any and all penalties from refunds. They can’t attach a lien onto your paycheck, but they CAN withhold a refund otherwise due to you.

Number 2, this “non-enforcement” is going to be the first “tweak” of the bill IF too many don’t purchase. If enough folks follow the law, then it’ll likely remain as written now. But if large numbers of folks choose to not purchase AND try and not pay the penalty, it WILL BE INEVITABLE that they will then treat the penalty as any other tax.

Also, IMHO (IANAL), by specifically exempting the IRS from using their regular means to collect the penalties, it will, once in court, weaken their argument that it’s a “tax” which is the only way they have any hope of this mandate being constitutional (again IMO, although I still think it fails technically). However, by specifically writing this “non-enforcement” language in the bill, they are now almost admitting it is NOT a tax because it’s not being enforced like other taxes, and I would guess those lawyers in all 50 states that are going to sue over the mandate will use that info. And I wish them ALL well.

I will say again, the Constitution (as I’ve always been taught) was a LIMITING document. It was supposed to limit the power of government. Finding bad guys with no rules is easier than finding bad guys with rules like requiring warrants and probable cause for searches, lawyers for trials, etc. They knew this and agreed that individual liberty could only be obtained by limiting government power. If that same Constitution doesn’t limit the government from forcing it’s citizens to purchase this product from this industry, and/or that product from that industry, then IMO it’s a pretty worthless piece of shit document in terms of limiting government power.

I’m almost ready to agree with wingnuts about the federal government becoming too powerful. Warrants are no longer needed, they can tell you what you can and can’t put into your own body, what women can and can’t do with their own body, and what goods and services every citizen must purchase or face sanctions.

I’d vote against that Constitution all day long given the chance. Am I a right winger now?

I really wouldn’t worry too much. The fine is so much lower than the cost of insurance–even from a public option–most people will opt to just pay the fine. I mean, $2000 as opposed to $10,000?? When you get sick, you just get your insurance then–due to no pre-existing conditions clause.

With no enforcement teeth, likely you will get people getting no insurance, waiting to get sick, not even paying the fine.

We all get the best of all worlds; less taxes coming in, a high risk pool driving costs up and politicians fighting over whose fault it is.

I am sure this bill is going to be a case study for many, many years in how NOT to do something.

In response to Seymore Friendly @ 54 (show text)
Ah, I see, so HIPPA was a backdoor tax increase?

Ha – yes, that’s the way I see it as one that can’t afford insurance even with the credits …

On the other hand, I Just Received My Refund From The Kucinich Committee.

TOO FUNNY – They’re returning my contribution because Dennis is concerned about all ‘those american families’ that don’t have coverage.

Just Too Fricken Funny

Am I a right winger now

In the Same Right Wing As Me. Glad To Have The Company oldfatguy

Self deleted – misread what was originally written

Well, that proves you are right and I am wrong – not.

Marshall Mcluhan

Waste of diary space. I don’t come to fdl for lamebrained Democratic talking points.

The CBO projections are a joke. Almost the entire deficit reduction number is accounted for by the assumption that employers are going to pass along the savings from avoiding the excise tax to workers in wages. Give me a call when you get your raise.

The Medicaid expansion numbers are a joke too. There’s a federal bailout coming for the state share of existing eligibles as state revenues collapse. There’s no other savings strategy — provider rates are already cut to the bone. The money tagged for eligibility expansion is already spent, but nobody wants to admit it.

If Obama wanted to cut the deficit, he should have done single payer, Medicare expansion or at least a real public option. If you think they should run around now and proclaim their stinginess because look, the health care bill will lower the deficit, hey great! I’m sure that will work out just as well as when they predicted that unemployment would peak at 8%, when everyone knew the stimulus was too small to have that kind of effect.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts’ costs are exploding and after just four years starting to erode the “near universal” coverage.

Obama owns the entire health care mess now.

The problems begin when Dems act and talk like Rethugs. None of the discussion is rational and it goes down hill from there. Things won’t get better until they get much much worse.

When health care reform stood some chance of actually being reform (by which I mean it actually could have improved the insurance system we have rather than entrenching it so we can all write checks to insurers under the force of law), it seems to me that it was pretty popular. Right up until they delivered the coup de grâce, the public option was still the most popular part of the bill. What they did was yank most everything which had broad support and left us with this gift to Wellpoint.

Health care reform was plenty popular. But Obama’s health insurance/government medical industrial complex give away? Not so much.

I won’t be voting Democratic again anytime soon unless the Democrat that’s running actually represents the things I believe in. These Democrats? They’re Republicans.

He also owns illegal detention, torture, wiretapping, 2 wars, the anti-abortion misogyny he offered to please Stupak, and a weak banking bill, but I could go on and on……….

Smart guy.

Last I looked we still have a two party system.

Yeah, it sucks. But until a legitimate 3rd party is created that can actually get candidates elected to high office, we’re stuck with it.

That is, unless you folks want to vote Tea Party.

Otherwise, liberals and progressives are stuck with the Democratic party.

My advice … work to support progressive politicians in the Democratic party (there are a number) and make your views known to your own congressman and senators.

The Dems might very well be moderate Republicans for the most part … but letting the current crop of GOPers win is worse. Yes. It is. Worse.

The ultimate problem is corporate influence. Somehow we have to overcome it or this country will be in big trouble. I mean, bigger trouble.

Someone please come up with a viable progessive party that can compete with the Dems and GOP.

Until then, I will vote democrat.

The Dems might very well be moderate Republicans for the most part … but letting the current crop of GOPers win is worse. Yes. It is. Worse.

I’ll tell you what’s worse. Enabling these two parties to continue to shift to the right and still believing they’re our only two options. They’ve moved so far right since RayGun that the Democrats now are moderate to conservative Republicans and the Republicans are off the reservation batshit crazy.

And if we continue to enable that trend, then you can bet the ranch that trend will continue. If you’re ok with that trend, I encourage you to continue to enable that trend. For those of us that want that trend to stop, and reverse, we’ll be looking elsewhere. And when enough of us do that, a vacuum and opportunity will become apparent to all, and there will lots of folks fighting to be that third party. You’re logic is self-fulling. Support the Democrats until a third party arises ensures no third party arises.

Doing the same thing over and over again (voting for the Democrats) and expecting a different result (the Democrats actually acting like Democrats) is…. well insane.

The Democrats lost the PR hissy fit (I won’t dignify PR with a serious word like “war”) because they couldn’t and wouldn’t bother to fight the real, life-and-death, health war.

The healthcare debate was never about anything as trivial as PR. Professional Democrats thought that it was. That was the problem. The electorate thought otherwise. That is going to be the problem–for the louses that run our Party.

For the rest of us, the coming electoral earthquake will be the least significant outcome of this revolting performance: a lot of us will be dead or bankrupt.

.

As the economy continues to improve

You mean like “job growth” reports which show that job growth failed to keep pace with new entrants into the job market?

PR never matters long term and Truth always prevails.

Why was Iraq war un-defendable for Republicans. Reason for given justification was not true. I thought Democrats learned from it.

Public Option was the true reform embedding a cost-control and accountability tool for policy makers in the health care sector. Bill could have been then labeled as Health Care Reform and the base would have been energized now.

If they are really interested in salvaging some points with the base they can as well pass the anti-trust exemption for health sector languishing in senate after passing house which surprise even most of the republicans support.