As I watched the President's jobs legislation go down for a second time against the backdrop of a growing "Occupy Wall Street" movement, I couldn't help but wonder -- what happened to the Presidential bully pulpit? There was a time when the President created the framework of political debate in this country. How is it that this President struggles so much to connect with the electorate or to inspire Americans to act on their own behalf? Almost every major issue during the Obama presidency was defined for the President, not by the President. Has President Obama simply surrendered the bully pulpit or is the proliferation of advocacy media posing as hard news insurmountable?
President Obama deserves credit for taking his jobs proposal directly to the American people rather than trying to move a recalcitrant Congress. However, he was handicapped out of the gate by a media infrastructure that is designed to influence as much as it informs. A highly partisan media framed the jobs bill debate as it also framed the debates on the economic crisis, health care reform, the auto bailout, and countless other issues facing the nation.
The message that sticks with most Americans during this jobs debate is that the President wants to raise taxes. The fact that such an increase would only apply to those making more than a million dollars yearly is lost. What people hear is "tax increase." During the health reform debate, what Americans heard was that Medicare would be gutted and the government would form death panels to decide who among the sick and elderly would die and who would receive medical treatment. The auto bailout was portrayed as a communistic plot by the government to assume control of private industry, thus ending capitalism as we know it. Layered into these debates, and further adding to the nation's paranoia, was growing media coverage that the President might not have been born in the United States and could be an illegal president or that he is a Muslim who is actively supporting terrorism.
While many people believe these assertions to be laughable, many others really believe this nonsense. And where are they hearing this ridiculousness? Who in the media are the main proponents of such propaganda? Believe it or not, the biggest political opponent to this President isn't the Republican Party. The real challenger is talk radio.
As has been well documented, Republicans have spent the last thirty years creating and financially supporting a comprehensive message machine that includes outlet infrastructure such as Fox News, an infinite number of print and online outlets, and talk radio. And while Democrats can claim MSNBC, Current TV, progressive bloggers and a few fledgling talk radio programs, none have the power and reach of Conservative media -- particularly talk radio.
Talk radio is larger than any other media platform. Notwithstanding the amount of attention paid to cable news and the Internet, the raw numbers of voters who listen to talk radio dwarf all other political media. The main reason is that roughly 140 million people commute to and from work in automobiles, where they have no access to computer or TV screens. For around a third of them, or 48 million, talk radio is their media of choice.
Talk radio holds the dominant media presence in the nation's political discourse with ongoing political dialogue, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glen Beck are the top three talk personalities in the nation who reach a combined 40 million listeners each day -- nearly ten times greater than the combined audiences of Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Headline News and CNBC.
Within the current media landscape, Republicans are having a highly effective conversation with the American public -- all day, every day, and all year long -- not just intermittently as part of a policy proposal or political campaign. And what should trouble Democrats most is how effectively Republicans use this infrastructure to undermine the President and raise doubts in the minds of Americans about his effectiveness.
Despite talk radio's proven ability to influence the nation, and despite proof that even the smallest investment can yield successful progressive media brands (e.g. Rachel Maddow & Ed Schultz), Democrats largely ignore talk radio as a major political force. Although Democrats are nothing less than genius in their use of cutting edge mobile media, they typically view talk radio as a medium for troglodytes. They operate under the assumption that talk radio listeners are life-long die-hard right wingers whose views are not subject to change. That's simply not true.
According to the Pew Research Center for People & the Press, conservative Republicans make up only 28% of talk radio's audience, moderate Republicans make up 13%, moderate Democrats make up 13% and liberal Democrats make up 20% of talk radio's audience. Those identifying themselves as independents made up the remaining 26% of the talk audience. This means that potentially half of talk radio's audience is open-minded enough to be influenced. So far, Republicans are they only ones talking to them. From Democrats they hear mostly silence.
Social movements can occur as a reaction to inspiration or alienation. The proliferation of advocacy media and talk radio has driven a wedge so deep into the political psyche of this nation it's no wonder we're seeing the emergence of the Tea Party and Occupy movements. These are Americans who feel alienated by their leaders and lack confidence in their ability to solve the nation's ills. The result is a national divide that is growing daily as President Obama struggles to maintain the confidence of a nation that is becoming increasingly anxious while it helplessly watches the American middle class fade to near extinction.
Unless Democrats begin to recognize that they have a gaping communications hole in talk radio and begin to focus some strategic energy to fill it, they risk further alienating a country that is hungry for solutions and craving inspiration -- the kind of inspiration it felt from the President in 2008 and the kind of inspiration that can only come from a President. I don't believe President Obama has purposely surrendered the bully pulpit. But continuing to ignore talk radio will have the same effect. So what's the difference?
It was paid to go away by Wall Street lobbyists funding Obama's campaign.
He was elected due to the Carol Mosely Braun effect
Mr. Obama is an academic. He sees himself as a professor. When a professor speaks, his audience is required to listen. Usually, they have even paid to listen. Most professors don't expect to be questioned and they don't expect to have to defend themselves. When they are, they get huffy. They expect to have their words accepted and transcribed by people who want to pass the exam.
A President, with regard to the bully pulpit, must be much more like a salesman and a preacher. He must expect the next objection and be ready to overcome it. He must believe in his message with his heart. He must stir people and sell his ideas. He must be able to speak to people in their own language and convince them that he understands. He must be simultaneously ingratiating and elusive, enticing people to believe and follow.
President Reagan, like many before him, was often savaged by the media but he never let that interfere with his innate ability to make a connection with the people. We can't blame Rush Limbaugh for President Obama's shortcomings.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/oct/21/historian-din-outdoing-presidential-messages
St. Ronald was an actor and even given his natural talent to play a part, he would never have been able to cope with the 24/7 sleaze and slander that passes for rightwing radio these days. Of course, since his record included raising taxes, legalizing illegal immigrants, negotiating with terrorists, trading arms for hostages and "cutting and running" from Lebanon, today's right wing radio would have had to lie, slander and make vicious unsupported innuendo about him too. Unless he was covered by the IOKIYAR* rule, which I guess he would have been.
There can't be a bully pulpit any longer because all of our media is owned by only a very few multinational corporations, and no message that works against their benefit is going to penetrate, unless it becomes too loud to ignore. Which luckily for all of us, and thanks to OWS, it finally is.
*It's ok if you're a Republican
Simple accounting and the fact President Obama can be found on both sides of every issue.
The President merely decided to use his bully pulpit in a passive aggressive manner. When a bill passes, we've gotten what the President wants. If that weren't the case, he'd veto it. Yet, a lot of what the President has wanted was counter to what he promised while running for President. So, in the end, it's much easier to simply let the Republicans frame the debate, eventually go along with it, and then blame them for doing what he wanted anyways. The whole "health care" debacle was great proof of this.
-President Obama wanted a healthcare reform bill that maximized access to coverage for everyone, in addition to providing affordable options to all, negotiated the triggered public option with his 61st and 62nd votes in the Senate (Snowe/Voinovich/Collins), only to watch the effort almost completely collapse, when his "allies" pushed way further than they ever had the votes to push and the "activists" sat at home, assuming that they had just elected a POTUS with dictatorial powers.
-President Obama wanted a financial regulatory reform package built on a key slate of ideas; "unwind authority" for the federal government, expanded protections for consumers and the general public, and the Volker Rules, which were focused on separating, once again, the activities, and regulatory authority, of commercial banking (checking/savings/loans/currency&commodity derivatives) from the activities, and regulatory authority, of investment banking (stock/bonds/insurance/synthetic derivatives/etc). Instead of supporting such an effort, "allies", "activists" and "supporters" were so caught up in their zealotry about arbitrarily capping the size of institutions that hardly anything ended up getting passed.
I'd agree if he hadn't negotiated the public option away in private meetings (which he promised to be open to the public) before the debate even kicked off in Congress. He added insult to injury when he later tried justifying it by having his people claim he never supported the public option during the campaign. You can spit it however you want. But, the fact is that President Obama got what he wanted here which involved throwing a number of his supporters under the bus.
The gang of 8, have nothing to propose. Their interests are to protect the wealthy, and of course, win an election.
Probably coming from a clown who was so "allied with the 'progressive' cause" that he couldn't even be bothered to cast a ballot in the 2010 midterm election, the very election that gave the Republicans over 60 seat in the House, 7 seats in the Senate, and, most tellingly, took the actual number of folks who supported the 'public option' from 45 Senators down to 40 Senators.
get over yourself.
So guess what station is usually on the car radio?
Never heard a traffic report on NPR.