Until the White House figures out how to control the message, the Republicans will eat their lunch

[DainBramaged]

It is such a simple concept, control the message, keep the MSM in your pocket and keep them involved, have your minions out on the talking head circuit explaining what you intend to do and how you are going to do it, with or without Republican support, and then do it. Booshe did it WITHOUT filibuster proof majorities, Obama can't?


NADA slips in a reduction of the inheritance tax, Harry Reid is trying to slip in legalized on-line gambling to pay off his masters, they did NOTHING for the 99ers, tampered with the WRONG end of Social Security instead of raising the deduction ceiling, and on and on.

Instead, we are blamed for the mess the White House is in.

[JamesA1102]

1. True but the MSM leans to the right

which makes it twice as hard for the left to get their message out.

[DainBramaged]

2. How many times was Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi available for or on the Sunday talk shows this year?

Think about that. Why didn't they make themselves available?

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Were they ever invited to appear??? I do not think one can invite oneself.

[DainBramaged]

13. They have to be available to be invited

I called Harry Reid earlier this year and asked when he was going to be on Press the Meat, and the response was he has a busy schedule and would soon.

Once this year, once.

[emulatorloo]

5. Were they invited?

The pattern I see on these cable show is

- treat anything a Republican says at face value. Never fact check
- treat anything a Democrat says with the utmost skepticism

About the only show that does any well founded research and reporting on Republicans is the Rachel Maddow Show.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. and invite 2or 3 repukes for every Dem. Nott o mention that there is an entire channel devoted to

spreading the repuke likes...FAUX NOISE does nothing else but that.

[emulatorloo]

9. and slip Liz Cheney into the "discussion panel"

And let her go on and on unchallenged or fact-checked.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. If the Dems had listened to George Lakoff the way the repukes listened to Frank Luntz

we would not have this situation in the first place.
The repukes are playing chess...and the Dems are still figuring out checkers.

Great interview on WBAI yesterday morning..
Here is link.

It was on Ian Masters' Show, Background Briefing. It was towards the last half of the show.

It was AMAZING. Lakoff explained, in very painful detail what the problem is with Liberal/Progressive/Democratic messaging, and
why, even though the American public agrees with the ideas that the left espouse, the public has no idea what those ideas are.
He says that the right is light years ahead of the left when it comes to getting across their ideas, and influencing the public
to support policies, that they do not understand, and if they did, they would disagree with them.

The solution is so straightforward..but, as for the past 10 years, Lakoff is being ignored.

Here are the archives...
http://archive.wbai.org/show1.php?showid=backbrief

download and/or listen to
Tuesday December 7, 2010 9:00am

I do not know how to forward to the point at which the interview with Lakoff starts...at about 40 minutes into the show
The rest of it is worth listening to anyway.

WELL WORTH LISTENING TO! IT SHOULD BE SENT TO THE WHITE HOUSE AND EVERY DEM IN THE GOVT

[emulatorloo]

7. thanks for the link - I look forward to listening to it. Lakoff knows what he is talking about

We should lock him and Tim Kaine (etc) in a room for a couple hours.

[BrklynLiberal]

11. It is so frustrating to listen him, and know that if even half of his ideas had been

implemented, we would not be where we are.

The idea of Lakoff and Kaine in a room together makes me want to laugh until I cry.

[PVnRT]

10. I've been saying that since 2005

[BrklynLiberal]

12. Yep...me too. Been posting his name and ideas for years....

WTF is wrong with the Dems???

That WBAI interview is excellent

[Egnever]

8. white house has no control over the message

Its the media that controls the message. The president speaks almost daily about his message and it is largely ignored by the media unless they find some gotcha in his statements. To believe otherwise is hopelessly naive.

[old guy]

14. You're 100% correct. Keep telling people this.

[DainBramaged]

15. OK trhen I must be blowing smoke out of my ass

thanks for the info......

[Egnever]

22. Yes you are

[DainBramaged]

29. No I'm not, and I didn't mean myself literally

:eyes:

[saracat]

18. What freaking baloney. The President controls the words out of his own mouth.

And those words have been really poorly chosen as has his timing, which he also chooses. This had to be the worst messaged and media challanged Admin in history. Period and it is by choice.

[BrklynLiberal]

21. +1000. What an incredible contrast between this and the campaign. WHY????????

[Egnever]

24. Talk about baloney

:eyes:

[donheld]

28. Are you saying the President has no control at all?

[Egnever]

30. His only control is standing there and speaking to whoever will listen

Our media is not interested in listening. As i said in a previous post he is out there every day making statements but the only statements you hear are cherry picked unless you are willing to put in the effort to get them unfiltered by the media.

[saracat]

31. The entire Press Conference was televised. It wasn't "cherry picked"

and he chooses "when" to release statements, as in the release of the "compromise" before the WH Christmas party. What part of that do you not understand? When is this president going to be held responsible for his own words? Sheesh.

[DainBramaged]

32. Find wall bang head against it till you bleed

There are some here that, no matter how badly the White House press office and the communications director fuck up, they will blame it on the MSM.

[saracat]

33. Accountability is a foreign word to some.

[donheld]

37. It's been what's come out of his mouth that's been a problem lately

[donheld]

27. +10000 He's had how long to figure that out?

[treestar]

16. This is always said of Democratic Presidents

The Republicans "control the message" because they own the M$M and because their "message" is simple.

Democratic always have it harder. Plus, they refuse to work together a lot. Can't have "lockstep." Oh no, that would be wrong!

So it's hopeless to blame them for it. And worse to help the Republicans on by buying into the Republican frame ourselves. We do that every day here. We don't have to.

[musiclawyer]

17. Totally agree

Whoever is in charge of communications should be fired.
Politics they say has always been a blood sport. Indeed, but in the the 20th century you could find a few elected officials who moved easily amongst both camps. No shots were fired, deals could be reached with the help of such middle men. That was then. This is a new era.

There are two camps. One wants to go forward. The other backward. There is no in between. It is that simple.

1. You can't have players NOT on the same page. If they are are not, they sit and and punish them if they dont. ( See, Leiberman).

2. And you can't have player sympathetic to the other side ( Nelson, Lincoln, etc). Or you take them out of the game literally. The Senate rules should have been changes in January 09. This was a mortal sin then and will be again in Jan '11.

3. Because the other side wants nothing but your defeat, all your talks with them must begin from whatever high ground you have ( I.e. single payer etc)

4. And Most Importantly, the message needs to be coninuous, unrelenting, and unwavering , i.e. "The GOP is the party of backwards, the party of corporations not people, the party of wanting to make you poor and keeping you poor and without opportunity." You say it enough and in enough places, it becomes true! In turn winning elections is hella easier.

Why Why Why I ask you does this administration not get this?

[BrklynLiberal]

19. Google "George Lakoff". The Dems have been ignoring him...at their own peril

http://www.truth-out.org/disaster-messaging61170

<snip>
Democrats are constantly resorting to disaster messaging. Here's a description of the typical situation:

* The Republicans out-message 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.
<snip>

and the Dems do it over and over and over...perfect example of Einstein's definition of insanity:doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

[laundry_queen]

34. +1000000

I completely agree with everything you said. They need to hire a marketing team and get out there and POSITION their 'product'. Honestly, it is so freakin' simple that I can't help wonder if there's a REASON they aren't doing this?!?

[musiclawyer]

38. "it is so freakin' simple "

Exactly. I don't even have a degree in PR or marketing. But this ship is run by fools
My take on it is that there are too many wise ole Clinton era people providing advice. Like I said, that era is dead and buried. Next dem nominee, whoever it is, even if we are talking about 2016, must have ZERO clinton era people, ZERO DLC connections. The good smart thinkers have never been on the inside.

[delightfulstar]

20. Wish the Rethugs would gag on it, too.

That does tend to happen when you bite off more than you can chew. They've certainly done that, and how! (And at our expense, no less.)

[tigereye]

23. exactly!

:banghead:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. They ARE doing their best to "control the message"...as far as Wikileaks is concerned.

[guitar man]

26. How the rethugs control the message

1. Manufacture a lie, doesn't matter how outrageous, just manufacture a lie

2. Repeat it over and over

3. Ignore anyone that tries to refute the lie with facts...in fact, act hurt, shocked and outraged that they are calling you out on your bullshit. Play the victim when confronted, accuse the confronter of hating America

4. Repeat steps 1-3 over and over and over

:grr:

[Better Believe It]

35. It must also be a clear, honest, truthful and powerful message on class.

It is all about class. But, we rarely hear President Obama and many other Democratic leaders use the term working class or even working people.

It's always about the "middle class"!

[dave29]

36. Not everyone likes the message

hence it's inability to be controlled.

To control the message you need everyone on the same page, and clearly we are not, as a party.