According to news reports, today Republican minority leader and Coppertone model John Boehner will give his "closing argument" to the American people on why they should throw out the Democrats and kill the Obama-Pelosi-Reid "job-killing agenda." He will be returning to his working class roots, speaking at a piping manufacturing plant, an unusual venue these days for a man who is seen much more frequently at gatherings of Wall Street executives with open checkbooks and the males-only country club where he works on his tan when not making the rounds at other clubs with industry lobbyists.
Either the Speaker-to-be is following the model of Michael Steele and free-lancing, or Karl Rove and the Republicans believe it is safe or even advantageous to bring him out in public after the White House made an effort to put Boehner's face on what a Republican majority might look like, with the president invoking his name eight times in one speech.
I have to admit that at the time I was agnostic as to whether it made sense to try to brand him at this late date, as Boehner has minimal name recognition among voters. But the White House was no doubt responding to three realities.
First, Boehner is an unknown to most Americans, which means that, unlike most Republicans in the news, he has not been well branded by the GOP -- which means for once Democrats might actually brand someone or something first rather than playing catch-up. Second, Boehner would indeed be the highest-ranking Republican were the GOP to assume control over the House (other than of course Karl Rove, who is now directing traffic on the right side of the street in Washington again). And third, a concrete face is always better than an abstraction when telling a story, and other than perhaps Sarah Palin, who Republicans could alternately accept and decline as the leader of their party, Boehner's tanned visage and history as errand-boy for virtually every major corporate special interest in his two decades in Washington (including his stint as the Marlboro Man, handing out tobacco lobby campaign checks to his fellow Republicans on the floor of the House) made him a potential counter-villain to the Republican's bogeywoman, Nancy Pelosi.
I remained agnostic until this week, when colleagues at Media Matters Action Network and I conducted a national messaging survey with 1,000 registered voters, selected to match the demographics of the voting and likely voting populations. The goal was to see how effectively we could speak with voters about Boehner as not only the symbol and standard-bearer for the GOP but also the water-boy for corporate America. (The results were surprisingly similar whether we looked at registered voters or likely voters, although as others have described, precisely how to determine who is a "likely voter" in this election is as much art as science, and the point of good messaging at this point is actually to change the dynamics of likely voting, not just to reflect them.)
As detailed in a memo published in Politico, what we found was clear: Boehner is a target well worth defining, who readily stands for precisely what Americans perceive to be the reasons they would have to hold their noses to vote for Congressional Republicans (perhaps the only group left who poll worse than Congressional Democrats with swing voters). We tested both paragraph-length narratives and single-sentence language designed to capture the essence of those narratives, and in each case, we tested them against the toughest opposition language we could test them against: the words of Boehner, Cantor, Limbaugh and others combined in defining the "Obama-Pelosi-Reid" agenda.
What we found, in brief, is that we could beat a tough GOP narrative about the "job-killing" socialists in the White House and Congress by 15 to 20 points with two narratives starring Boehner in the leading role (with best supporting bad actor going in one of the narratives to Karl Rove and his corporate allies), and we could win with over 15 different sentence-long descriptions of "what's the matter with Boehner" with margins ranging from 10 to 60 points against a tough conservative attack on the Obama-Pelosi-Reid axis of conservative evil.
The narratives that most moved likely voters -- including swing voters, who preferred them by double-digits over tough Republican rhetoric -- made clear whose voices Boehner would be speaking for as Speaker (e.g., the Wall Street executives he convened to try to block Wall Street reform). They harnessed the same populist anger at the hijacking of Washington by corporate special interests that has enlivened the tea partiers and is palpable across the political spectrum, and they focused on the extremism of the party Boehner would Speak for. A narrative that brought Karl Rove into the picture was slightly more polarizing with swing voters but slightly more powerful with likely Democratic voters.
In some ways what was most surprising was the success of the single-line statements of what we need in a Speaker and who John Boehner really speaks for (although these single-line statements came after the narratives, and likely reflect the power of branding, even over the course of a brief online encounter with voters). They ranged from relatively lofty and aspirational (e.g., "We need a Speaker who is also a listener, who can hear the voices of ordinary Americans" -- a theme colleagues and I found highly resonant across the political spectrum in message testing on the role of money in politics) -- to the harder-edged (e.g., "The Speaker of the House is a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Unfortunately, we know where John Boehner's heart is, and it isn't with the middle class," or "John Boehner understands deficits. He's spent nearly 20 years in Washington creating them.")
If there's a message in this message research, it is at once short-term and long-term. In the short run, if Democrats want to hang onto their seats in November, they would do well to define this election in terms of the middle class and small business versus the billionaires and big corporations that are hijacking our democracy; to use Boehner as a poster child for the party whose primary commitment is to the latter and whose tan is a testament to that commitment; and to avoid giving voters reason to regret their vote if they give it to Democrats again this time, by supporting the things they say they stand for and avoiding that golden mean between the public interest and the special interests that finance campaigns on both sides of the aisle.
In the longer run, branding matters. One of the biggest strategic and messaging mistakes of the last two years was the failure of Democrats to brand their opponents while their opponents were busy branding them -- and in particular the failure to brand the Bush Recession as the natural consequence of failed Republican economic principles. Two years ago, that was a virtually uncontested political proposition, as the voters made clear in handing Democrats the White House and supermajorities in both the House and Senate. Today, the public is split down the middle as to who caused the recession.
Reality doesn't brand itself. Hopefully it won't take a debacle in November and another 10 million jobs lost for reality to unveil itself again for a brief political moment and for progressives to have a second bite at the apple.
Its just a no-brainer
The fat cats own Boehner
He's on a retainer.
courtest of Calvin Trillin, The Nation, 10/4/10
1 Employee compensation (pay, 401K, health care, workers comp)
2 Taxes
3 Energy prices
4 Regulations
Why are 30 firms and unions filing for exemptions for the new health care bill? Small business is going to get stuck with the bill. Even with “Public Option†someone has to pay for it and small business will either get it on the front side with insurance or the back side with taxes.
Since the beginning of the campaign Obama has been vilifying people that make over 250K and most small businesses fall into this category. A few months ago the debate about the “Bush†tax cuts for the middle class (thought it was just for the rich) then Democrats say the Republicans were blocking their bill. The never submitted a bill to be blocked.
If Democrats maintain control of congress and pass cap and trade to quote Obama “Energy prices will necessarily skyrocketâ€
There is a fine line between not enough or too much regulations. Using history as a guide normally big business usually has lawyers to skirt the regulations while small business gets hosed.
I don’t see anywhere how the Democrats that have held Congress for 6 years has done anything for the little guy.
Oh, and by the way, the Democrats have held Congress for less than four years. For the past year and a half, they have had to govern without any input from the Republicans. So don't cry in your beer about how put upon you are. Oh, yeah! You make more than $250,000 a year! I'll bet you don't drink beer.
For the sake of argument I will concede the 250K limit however, without any extension of any of the Bush tax cuts everyone will be affected. A family of four making 50K a year will pay an additional $600 a year and get $1000 less for the child credit.
Beside if we are talking about creating jobs don’t you think having a favorable environment for business no matter how much they make would create more jobs?
According to you if a person making more then 250K benefits were so outrageous wouldn’t their adjustments to their expenditures be just as outrageous?
And you also assumed wrong again I am an avid beer drinker!
Oh and by the way, the dems controlled congress since 2006 like you said, and what happened since then?
Any member of the middle class or the working class who votes for Republican candidates, especially Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate, deserves the decay that has hollowed this economy. The Democrats have their faults, but they care about the little guy, whether it be an assembly-line worker or a true small businessman.
This reflects the real issue that the obstinate electorate can't get it through its head its never going to reach the fantasy level of the rich and famous and thereby stop lionizing them in order to face eco-political reality.
We forgot how great it was to have a home cook meal for the family and just sit home and watch television instead we wanted to go the movies not one day of the week but every day of the week. We even turned our back on God by thinking of doing other things that pleased us.
We did not want to pick apples, oranges, tomatoe and the like because it mean being in the hot sun all day for little pay. So we forced employers to look else where for help. Then we wanted better work enviornment that was safe, medical benefits short work hours, until companies found another source of people who would work for less, learn the ropes of the american people and become smarter to get their own business and become more powerful then the ones who misused their services.
We turn out backs to the fact that if someone did get sick and no insurance, they would get the same medical treatment asthose who did have insurance. Gradually insurance companies found a way to used that against us. We were led to believe that if they didn't their bill that the government, you know the ones that say government should state out of business, would pay it, or the person file bankruptcy and we still paid it.We fussed for years to make people who worked right beside us and making the same or more, refusing to get insurance because they wanted to spend their money on somethin g. Then when we started getting denied or charges a higher premimum for insurance because of our conditionthat made it a preexisting condition. So now we a reform bill to do everything that we cried we wanted..
Boehner cannot even tell the truth about his tan...
Democrats are not just going up against properly elected or even properly qualified people. The pile of baloney that's been heaped up in the last couple years is really thick.
Add to the above the idea of unlimited corporate spending and untaxed, 'nonprofit' groups crossing the line all the time now in their TV ads and this election is one big-(fill in blank here) mess.
It's great to brand Boehner as the anti-middle class guy he is, but with all this other stuff also going on, whatever is done is not likely going to matter much.
The Republicans want to eliminate the minimum wage. How low is low enough? One dollar an hour? One dollar per DAY? Give the Republicans a Mandate, and find out.
The Republican Party wants to cut taxes for the rich and business, in order to create jobs? For ten years, the very rich and the corporations GOT their tax cuts, while 10 million and more jobs went oversease. More of the same? Again, vote Republican, and find out.
The Republicans want to "privatize" the US educational system. Vouchers instead of public schools. Where does the money for those Vouchers come from? US. So, you'll get a Voucher for $2,200 per year per child, only to find out that it will cost you $10,000 per child to do it. What do you wind up with? A nation of barefoot, illiterate Huck Finns. Of course, it's not perfect, far from it, but does that justify dismantling it?
Anyone think that putting these Republicans in power will reduce your taxes, provide good paying jobs, and keep your house warmer this winter? I don't think so. All it will do is let the Govt. slough off more of its responsibilities (what is does, or USED to, provide), and take MORE money from you, to feed its useless, illegal/immoral Corporate wars abroad.
Was that the same time John Kerry was there? The Republicans who showed up at the 04 convention with their "Purple Heart" bandages did.
With 40 % of Americans in low paying service jobs now.....there are a lot of people they can hurt....isn't that the idea ? .
Would they do so if they actually believe the media is as liberally biased as they always whine? I think we've got to expose this most insidious lie of the post-Vietnam era--it makes the others possible.
It’s also true that Republicans have been trashing the stimulus when they’re actually, secretly in love with it—handing out giant checks and taking credit for it even as they trash it at the same time.
Until now…… GOP stimulus love fest exposed!
Despite their public condemnations of the economic stimulus plan approved last year, hundreds of Republican officials have been discovered holding secret crushes on this legislation, also known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The plan was approved with near-unanimous opposition from Republican lawmakers, yet interviews with Republican staffers, leaked documents and even public statements indicate that members of the GOP have been gushing over the stimulus since its inception.
Hints of a Republican love affair with the stimulus surfaced last week when a notebook owned by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) was found in the hallway outside his Congressional office.
(continued….)
http://www.thechicagodope.com/2010/10/04/gop-stimulus-love-fest-exposed/