Never Change a Winning Strategy?
Karl Rove, the president’s top political adviser, is interviewed by radio talk show host Sean Hannity, right. Hannity and 39 other mostly conservative radio hosts were invited to join top officials and broadcast from a large tent on the White House grounds. Story, A7. (By Susan Biddle — The Washington Post)
Peter Baker reports for the Washington Post that the GOP has decided to use the same strategy it used in the last “two campain cycles”. The strategy, quite simply, is to get the message out that things would be even worse if the Democrats would be in power. More / higher taxes, weak on national security: in short the ‘normal’ talking points. Rhetoric. By doing so, the GOP hopes to rally the conservative base.
Beset by discouraging polls and division within ideological ranks, the White House is accelerating efforts to woo back disaffected conservatives and energize the Republican base in a reprise of a strategy that succeeded in the last two campaign cycles.
President Bush and Vice President Cheney have given multiple interviews to conservative journalists, senior adviser Karl Rove has telephoned religious and social activists, and the White House has staged signing ceremonies for legislation cracking down on terrorism and illegal immigration. Two weeks before Election Day, Bush aides invited dozens of radio talk show hosts for a marathon broadcast from the White House yesterday to reach conservative listeners.
The message that Bush and others are sending to alienated supporters is that, no matter how upset they have been about various policies or political missteps over the past couple of years, life would be far worse under the Democrats. They name liberal lawmakers who would take charge of key committees and warn conservatives that taxes would go up and protection against terrorists would go down. And they cite, in particular, the confirmation of two conservative Supreme Court justices who might have been blocked by a Democratic Senate.
As I see it, it is not going to work. “It would be even worse with them in power”, is not the best of arguments. When people vote, they want to get something in return: in essence, general policies they embrace. The problem is, many conservatives feel ignored. They are called on when election time has arrived, but that’s about it.
Some conservatives said it is too late. “They honestly need a baseball bat against the head,” said Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who helped Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) take over Congress in the 1990s. “Because if they don’t change the lexicon immediately, as bad as this election is going to be, they’re going to lose the presidency in 2008. I’ve given up on 2006. They’ve already made so many mistakes, there’s no way they can fix it in two weeks. But I’m worried now they’re going to lose all the marbles.”
[...]
The White House courtship of the right paid enormous dividends in the past, but this year it is complicated by a far more skeptical audience than in 2002 and 2004. Conservatives who were key to those victories have grown frustrated with the Bush policies on federal spending, immigration, Iraq and foreign affairs, and uncertain of his commitment to issues such as preventing legalized same-sex marriage. The Mark Foley page scandal did not help reassure “values voters,” as strategists call them, nor did the publication of a book by former White House official David Kuo saying that Bush aides dismissed Christian conservatives as “nuts.”
The GOP needs to be reformed. I have said this before: as I see it they need to refocus on their principles and on how to put those principles into real policies.
Rhetoric works. But only for so long. At a certain moment one has to perform. And when one doesn’t, the result is defeat.
35 Responses to “Never Change a Winning Strategy?”
A liberal bashing marathon, will Jerry Lewis be the host? So what we are to understand is that if Democrats are elected the gates of hell will open up and married, gay, bat winged demons will come out and tax us. I like it, the theme fits well with Halloween and I can use my devil costume for both parties and poking liberals with my pitchfork.
Just as they’ve long been the party of Big Oil, Big Money, Big Pharma, Big Religion, they’re now cementing their reputation as the party of Big Talk and, in the end, Big Mess.
Why oh why does my country hate me so much?
This really isn’t that big of a deal. The RNC for years has been faxing talking points to radio stations, editorial boards, and pundits for years.
Rove needs a disclaimer:
Now this army of talk radio hosts can have a nonstop bashfest, until they convince their audiences that the Dems have been responsible for terrorism, the aids epidemic, pimping poverty to the black community,the loss of Vietnam, the loss in Iraq, the failure to find Bin Laden, Katrina-you name it. Two weeks of that will make the Republicans look like the only choice to make if we want to save Western civilization and the entire fate of mankind.
All they are going to end up doing is “Preach to the choir”. The choir makes up roughly one-third of the electorate, and the choir already everything they are going to be pumping our over the next week and a half.
It is the one-third to 40% in the middle that will make the difference in this election. And everything I have been reading seems to point to the fact that two-thirds of the middle group have already made up their minds, and that is time to “shoot the elephant”. If that group of voters is not convinced to “shoot the donkey” instead, all the rallying of the base is going to be for naught.
But then scare tactics seems to be what Rove and Co. seem to have mastered, and it is only reasonable to expect that they are going to do what they are best at. In fact it could probably be argued that they may not even know how to do it any other way.
At any rate, we won’t know for sure about any of this until late in the night of November 7th. So my only true words of wisdom are: “Vote for whomever you support, what ever the party, but DO VOTE!!!”
They turn the White House lawn into a circus and it’s not a big deal?
KR How long before the Repugs radio hosts claim that the Dems are puppy killers? Maybe us Libruls want to tell the children that there is no Santi Claus.
Rudi- I noticed Speaker Hastert came out of the ethics committee hearing still blaming “some Democrats” (who may have hoarded the dreaded e-mails until releasing them to the media right before the election) for Foley-gate! Of course he has nothing to back that up and ABC traces them to a Republican staffer- but why should the truth matter when its down to us or them???
Now this army of talk radio hosts can have a nonstop bashfest, until they convince their audiences that the Dems have been responsible for terrorism, the aids epidemic, pimping poverty to the black community,the loss of Vietnam, the loss in Iraq, the failure to find Bin Laden, Katrina-you name it.
Their audience already believe those things
Bush said in his speech that he “did not question the patriotism of his critics�, but he just got out of a strategy session with AM pundits that are more than happy to call critics traitors and subversives among other things. I wish a reporter had called him on that. You are the company you keep.
Isn’t using government property for a controlled single party campaign kind of illegal?
And by these pundits doing this wouldn’t they have to be compnesated, or atleast allow a dessenting opinion?
It seems the FEC might be intersted eh?
Yes, I think Gore found that out in ’96. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.
That’s why the repeal of the fairness doctrine was so heinous. We’ve come a long way since ’87- when Rush pioneered conservative talk radio. Now they are invited to the White House so that they can go out and attack the 62% of America that no longer backs Bush. Of course Rachel Maddow of Air America’s invitation got lost in the mail, LOL! That’s our democracy in action.
Kim,
The fact that 62% of America no longer backs Bush shows that these radio talk show hosts don’t pose the threat that you claim they do. If they were so all powerful, they would have convinced people to continue supporting Bush and the GOP.
I do think that Bush inviting them to the White House is wrong, but bringing back the Fairness Doctrine has nothing to do with it. Yes, repeal of that law did enable conservative talk radio to flourish because many conservatives previously felt there was a need for a venue to air conservative views. Thus the marketplace allowed for personalities to bring that to the forefront, and unfortunately some people like Limbaugh have a talent for it even though they aren’t really advancing the real intellectual arguments that need to be heard.
Elected officials shouldn’t use their incumbency (particularly in the White House) to influence pundits and donors, but neither should the pundits be restricted in their free speech rights. Poor quality free speech should be countered with better quality speech, not with laws to shut it down.
I disagree- if you have something going out into the public marketplace it should be something that is based on the truth–not half-truths, spin and lies. Journalists have to have several reliable sources to get their articles approved by their editors- it should be the same for these hosts. Or, they can make it very clear that what they have to say is strictly opinion or conjecture, and listeners can decide whether or not they agree.
What we have now is a total blurring of factual reporting, opinion, political advocacy and political advertising.
Also, I disagree that this development has nothing to do with dismantling FCC regulations- it has everything to do with it. Rush would be knocked off the air in a week if he had to be honest on his show, LOL!
You don’t need government to regulate speech, you just need the media to start doing its job again. The real problem is that “balanced” has come to mean letting both sides say their spin and then “letting the people decide” who’s right. In reality it should be up to the press to highlight what are lies, half-truths and spin. If both sides were called on their propagandizing then people would start to pay attention to more relavent sources — or at least minimize the power of those that didn’t.
Mikkel- I’m concerned that now that each side gets their news after it has been through the “spin” cycle, many people on both sides of the aisle no longer care whether what they are hearing is fair or not. A whole generation has grown up since ’87, and they are used to it, and even like it. Look at how popular right and left websites are where everyone basically parrots the same views.
I think as a society, we are becoming too comfortable with spin, half-truths and lies. It results in ratcheted up partisanship, citizens who are badly informed and enables a politician like George Bush to enlist loyalists in the media to fight the good fight for him. Part of the reason we went into Iraq were the NYT’s articles by Judy Miller, who was a little too close to her White House source, Scooter Libby—making it easy for the administration to manipulate the media.
My fear is someday we may not even know what the truth is.
Kim I don’t see how the government enforcing equality alleviates any of those problems — it could make it even worse because they could suppress the facts in interest of “fairness.” Plus, if our media started being skeptical of all claims and highlighted outright falsehoods while also writing what the general consensus on the “truth” is (and what’s not known) and the American people didn’t care…well then we don’t deserve to have our freedoms. I don’t view the populace as passive victims, it’s our fault that we’ve gotten to the point we have and our responsibility to try to convince people of an alternative.
Mikkel,
I agree completely. I’m far more concerned about the degradation of ethics among real journalists than I am about people like Rush Limbaugh. Even though Air America was not successful, there are other venues that are giving the infotainment spin from the Democratic perspective, so it’s not as though this is all one sided. I’d prefer that listeners/viewers would take a more enlightened approach but I do think that this is a phase that will eventually wind down. People have got to eventually realize that we don’t elect good leaders or influence good policy decisions by defining the half of the country that we disagree with as dangerous idiots.
Kim, do you realize that Limbaugh constantly tells his audience that he’s biased? He doesn’t pretend otherwise or lie about it, he openly admits that he is not a journalist but a pundit or editorialist.
Kim,
I think Mikkel makes an excellent point here. Earlier you compared the Fairness Doctrine to FCC regulations on obscenities. But in the latter case, the govt is regulating something apolitical. It doesn’t matter if they err too far in suppressing this kind of speech because the worst that would happen is that some form of entertainment would be somewhat restricted, perhaps more than it needed to be. But if the govt goes too far in stifling political speech, then it could well err on the side of secrecy so that the public wouldn’t learn facts that it should know. In fact even though I don’t like today’s poisoned partisan environment at all, I’d say that the fact that things have come full circle and people from the left are very vocally airing their dissent from Bush’s policies, has in some ways been good because we have learned things that we otherwise wouldn’t have known.
Yes, On that point I agree. I think one of the major problems we are facing as a nation is that government agencies have become politicized, and no longer operate independently. I don’t think that that was the case in ’87. But I have lost a lot of faith in the governments ability to function. Now we have little confidence even in our election process. This doesn’t seem good enough, and I’m not sure what to do to fix it, but I don’t think just waiting for the public to wake up and realize they are being brainwashed is the answer, either.
I think I am starting to go towards the third party camp—-because we are at a crossroads where the problems we face are greater than I can remember, and the confidence in our government’s ability to solve them is at an all-time low. Until we restore confidence in the governing process, why give it more to do???
Kim I think I am starting to go towards the third party camp
Don’t you know you’re supposed to be part of the DNC pep squad? Didn’t anybody get the memo about 86ing this third party talk?
I hate to break up this love fest, but the strategy works because unfortunately, the Democrats are worse. On every issue which the base dislikes Republican performance, the Democrats have promised to do worse… again. I realize it’s hard to do better when you have no interest in foreign policy and your whole domestic policy is based on buying votes with taxpayer money, but the Democrats haven’t even tried.
The American people are disappointed with the GOP. They are not ready to trust the country to a party that thinks any action to protect the country is evil unless it is certified by the UN. They don’t believe that kowtowing to the most corrupt organization in existance or consulting with a hundred petty dictators is nuanced. They know it is slow suicide.
In the end, the base will reluctantly come home. They have no where else to go. The Democrats offer a sad mishmash of hedonism and overregulation. They offer a weak and uncertain foreign policy. They offer Nancy Pelosi, Alcee Hastings and Ned Lamont. In other words, they offer nothing, again.
“In other words, they offer nothing, again.”
As opposed to producing nothing which the GOP has done consistantly for 12 years. Nice try, but it doesn’t work anymore.
Ken Hahn- How are things going at the RNC? Say hi to Ken Mehlman for me. BTW, I like Ned Lamont. I may not agree with him on every issue, but on the one that matters to me, the war, we are kindred spirits. ciao!
I want to know where the disclaimer about the RNC being responsible for this posting was after Ken’s little rant.
I didn’t know the Democrats offered hedonism! Man I would never have voted for a Republican if I knew that.
Grognard -better hedonists in the open than closeted gay congressmen who serve on committees to protect children from predators, then prey on them when no one’s looking!
In an attempt to avoid looking like what it really was there was a smattering of real journalists at the event. Rove spoke to NPR and was condescending, snarky and as per usual he tried to claim something that wasn’t true. He tried to tell Robert Siegel that NPR had only been looking at general trend polls whereas he had been examining 68 polls a week about specific races. Odd, the news reports I’ve heard there and the detailed discussions with both Democratic and Republican pollsters on Talk of the Nation (A civilized talk show that brings on people from both sides, what a concept!) spoke of both and carefully delineated the differences.
Mikkel: very well said.
Mikkel- we need a factcheck.org on media outlets, and more transparency about their corporate ownership. But ever since Rush started complaining about bias in the MSM, accusations have been slung at even the most reputable sources that they are slanted to the right or left. Who would you trust to highlight the lies and half-truths???
Kim,
Which sources do you consider so reputable, that have been falsely maligned (at least that’s my interpretation of what you are asserting- correct me if I’m wrong).
CS- I don’t know if its been falsely maligned- but generally I trust the Washington Post most of the time. I also trust Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews,Bob Schieffer, Tim Russert, and Lou Dobbs. Columnists I trust—David Ignatious, David Broder, Mike Allen.
I do know that most of the right wing talk show hosts rant about the MSM, and even the administration targeted the media, because they didn’t like reports that were coming out about the war. I believe that to some extent violence was highlighted over reconstruction, but I do believe that Bush wanted to downplay the violence for obvious reasons.
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TITLE: Election ’06 – 14 Days Till Nov. 7 (October 25, 2006)
BLOG NAME: Pajamas Media
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