Tony Blankley was Newt Gingrich’s press secretary when the Speaker presided over the two government shutdowns of 1995. He thinks the Republicans can now shut down the government without losing the public relations battle. I’ve actually been wondering whether or not he’s not right about that.
We lost that battle for three reasons: 1) because the shutdown was falsely but effectively framed in the public mind as motivated by the personal pique of the speaker and the desire of the GOP to “cut Medicare in order to give tax cuts to the rich,” 2) the issue of deficit spending and public debt was of much less concern to the public than it is now and 3) we were not able to deliver our interpretation of the issues directly to even our own supporters.
Back in 1995, there was no Fox News; there was no broadly used Internet; and conservative talk radio was not nearly as powerful as it is today. I had to try to get our message to the public through the filter of the mainstream media (New York Times, Washington Post, CNS, NBC, ABC, etc.) at a time when it was in fact mainstream. They were in no mood to fairly represent the facts, and we got shellacked.
Today, we are in the aftermath of an election that was largely about deficit spending and Obamacare (and the trillions most GOP voters correctly believe it will get us further in debt). So that not only is the deficit issue far more powerfully motivating than it was in 1995 — but if the GOP fails to even try to seriously reduce the deficit (which means addressing, among other issues, Medicare and Social Security), it is likely to pay harshly in the next election for such inaction.
I think we’re crazy if we think we can automatically win a media debate about a government shutdown. The mighty right-wing wurlitzer is so much stronger today than it was in 1995 that it can convince 40% of the country that the Sun is blue and global warming is a myth made up by socialists. We should assume nothing from the history of the 1995 government shutdowns.
I think the left needs to get serious about nurturing their own alternative media. If they don’t, we’re going to continue to lose battles that we used to win.
They can get started by buying some advertising on this site.
Winning the debate would depend on having one instead of singing Kumbaya with the Devil. We can’t blame all the Dem communication incompetence and failure on the media environment.
Geither’s letter to Reid gives some pretty strong talking points.
If we can’t even have a debate about the lowest tax rates since the depression, how can we win any debate at all?
I would argue that the bias of the institutional press is towards the status quo more than anything else. They hate radicalism. The fact that they perceive anything left of center as radicalism is depressing, but they also will hate the the radicalism of the right from time to time. The two instances of this in the last 20 years are the government shutdowns of the mid-90’s and the attempt to undo Social Security in the mid-00’s. I don’t see why this should change now.
Boehner is not Gingrich in terms of being an unsympathetic character, but he is not a winner, either. It should be easy for the White House to be above this fight and paint House Republicans as out of touch with the realities of American politics and as too-big-for-their britches. The Beltway elite love that the Tea Party was a huge pain in the ass for Obama, but they don’t want the yokels to actually think they’re powerful, either.
I agree that the left needs to get serious about alternative media. Unfortunately the wealthy on the left are cheap cheap cheap. The right spends freely: on think tanks, tv channels, white-papers, etc etc.
The left doesn’t pay well at all.
Philly could help with this. From a distance (both time and space), my recollection is that Ed Rendell made a name for himself when he was mayor of Philadelphia during a municipal workers’ strike when he ran a media-savvy (for its time) campaign against the unions by highlighting the most outrageous (to the average citizen) aspects of the unions’ contracts, and the reasonableness of the city’s demands. The unions quickly caved to most of Rendell’s demands, and a national political career was launched. Do I have that right?
Secondly, whether I do or not, I’d recommend that strategy to Obama and the Washington Dems. Quietly assemble the best stories to highlight the extremism of the Republicans, and then, if the House doesn’t (cave and) raise the debt limit, hit them with a “story of the day” on all media fronts: press, radio, TV, web, etc. Heck, Dems could even (partially) hijack the debate on Fox with a concentrated push.
Your thoughts?
other than the dems wouldn’t do that?
It’s a good idea. “If we don’t raise the debt ceiling, our troops will be left in the field without ammo, thanks to the Republicans who want to cut social security.”
but that’s assuming the dems would do that, and the won’t. It’s not civil or bipartisan.
No.
85% of Social Security recipients have direct deposit.
The only people in the country with enough clout to matter will continue to be paid regardless.
The average American’s response: Everyone else can go hang. ‘Government shutdown’ means someone at the DMV who was short with me goes unpaid. Bring it on.
The Atlantic poses the question: Are There No Left-Wing Blogs on the Internet?. Your name, along with those of the entire ‘blogroll’, was not mentioned. Those they picked don’t look much like “the left” to me.