"Democrats never developed a clear message on the Schiavo case, with the party's House leaders dividing in their votes and few party leaders making strong statements. But many Democratic strategists believe the party could benefit among moderate swing voters who believe Republicans overreached in the matter. Some Democrats noted that in several surveys last week, Bush's approval rating slipped to 45% or below -among his worst- while the marks for Congress skidded under 40%.This should have been the iceberg that sunk the Titanic because the right are indeed fractured and licking their wounds from this case after wildly misjudging the opinion of the country on this issue, but already the GOP are starting to spin this colossal misstep in their favor:
'The Republican Party traditionally has been the party opposed to the expansion of the federal government,' said Mellman, the pollster for Kerry. 'Now, across a whole range of issues, they have shown a commitment to expanding the reach of the federal government into personal life beyond which anybody has contemplated before.' "
"When you take [Democratic] opposition to partial-birth abortion at the beginning of life, and [acceptance of] pulling plugs at the end of life, you begin to get in a danger zone," said one GOP strategist close to the White House. "It could be that this case reinforces a larger impression ...of the Democratic Party."
and predictably, the Democrats are letting the "iron" cool.
Once again the Democrats have dropped the ball in coordinating an effort to get a defining and unifying message out, just as they have with Social Security, and have let the GOP define the issue.
The way they do this is by attacking the GOP for their idiotic actions without saying what they'd do differently. It's going to take regimented training, but here's how they can improve (and this is not my idea, but my adaptation of a concept that James Carville and Stanley Greenberg originated in their Democracy Corps memo "Re Social Security -A time for purpose and renewal" ):
From now on every speech from a democrat should begin with 'This is not about (X), it's about (Y)' and should not end without the phrase 'we believe' being used at least twice. Simplistic I know, but how else can you break bad habits?
Mellman's comment above illustrates just how pervasive insidious, and ingrained the current attack-paradigm is, and how important it is to tear ourselves away from it.
Break down what he says and it comes out as 'they have always said ___, now they're trying to do the opposite to an exponential degree' How does that tell the world what we believe? Why should they trust us?
Here's how it should have been said:
'This is not about w/r Terri Schiavo lives or dies -that's up to God and her family. This is about w/r the government should step in between a family and its personal medical decisions. We believe in families, and we believe that they have a right to make the difficult medical decisions that they face free from political intervention.'
It's hard not to point out how stupidly the GOP act -particularly when, as here, their hypocrisy is so flagrantly on display, but it's easy and lazy to stop after attacking their actions without promoting our alternative point of view, and we must break that habit. We should take support from the fact that the majority of the country agrees with us on this issue, but take care not to let it lull us into inaction.
Posts
