Last night in Ohio I heard John Kerry and John Edwards deliver a stinging list of statistics and comparisons about what American workers and families were in danger of losing. Kerry made some excellent points about how people could lose what they had...
However, what is STILL missing is a "close the deal" idea that will go for the gut...hit the emotions of people who still wavering. I was thinking about how Bill Clinton always talked about the future and remembered about how during the primary debates, ONLY Carol Mosely Braun referred to the whole idea of how parents want to believe that their children will do better than they have.
James Carville also commented on this theme long ago.
Nearly exactly a year ago, I wrote an article about this and I want to know, is this something that we should email the Kerry campaign about??? I think it is!!
A Media Watch Special Report......... September 11, 2003
THE DEMOCRATIC MESSAGE IN 2004: LOOKING BACK TO FIND THE FUTURE
by Gloria R. Lalumia
On August 11, 2003, Former Texas Governor Ann Richards paid a visit to Larry King; a caller asked the following question:
CALLER: We all know that Democratic candidates are reduced to basically soundbytes and ridicule in the media. How can Democrats force attention back to the fact that whether it's the problems with the economy, national security, utility and industrial deregulation are the products of failed regressive Republican Party policies…
RICHARDS: Once our nominee is chosen, the opportunity for getting the message out there is going to be much easier than it is now. Because there's so many candidates it just kind of becomes a clutter. But once that nominee is chosen the biggest problem the Democrats are going to have is choosing a single message and not being all over the place. Because of the Bush record on the economy, on medical care, on education, we have such a wealth of stuff that we can use, that I'm afraid that we're going to get too splayed out and there isn't going to be a concise message. Do you understand? KING: You would make it a one-issue campaign?
RICHARDS: Well, no, you don't do that, but you try to select an issue so that it can encompass more than one or two things and consistently drive that message home
(
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/11/lkl.00.html).
********************
Here’s my take on the situation, Ann.
THEN
Think back and remember that by 1992 we had endured 12 years of Republican rule. Reagan had drained the economy and our spirits. The constant hammering on women’s rights, welfare mothers, basically anyone and anything that wasn’t with the right wing program, left many feeling as if they weren’t welcome in their own country. The Right-to-Lifers were unleashed, unions were slammed, and David Stockman told us of the plan to spend like crazy on defense and destroy the safety net. Lebanon was disaster. Then the out-of-touch Poppy Bush came along and dragged us into the 90’s but not before leaving us with the first TV war in Iraq.
Sound familiar? Of course it does, except these days we’re experiencing the same agenda turned up about 100 notches, with a heavy dose of Bush 2’s arrogance and testosterone thrown in for good measure. It’s been a pretty dispiriting couple of years.
But let’s not kid ourselves—the Reagan/Bush 1 years were just as stressful and enervating. By 1992 Democrats and Independents were desperate for air, sick of feeling stifled and worn down.
(SNIP)
NOW
Because of that campaign, I don’t think Ann Richards’ worries about the Democrats’ ability to get out a simple and clear message have to become the reality. If Democrats rummage around their campaign memorabilia and think back, they may find they don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
I’ve done some rummaging and I think I’ve found the “single message” that could be the foundation for the 2004 campaign. It’s printed on a souvenir I’ve kept from that incredible election eve rally…a simple card which bears the theme of the Clinton/Gore campaign and subsequent agenda:
“It’s time to PUT PEOPLE FIRST…FOR A CHANGE!”
Why do I think a message similar to the one used in 1992 is perfect for 2004? Well, as I’ve pointed out, we’re now experiencing a replay of the Reagan/Bush 1I years—with a vengeance. Four years of Bush 2I will certainly prove to be as grueling, if not more so, than the 12 years of Reagan/Bush 1. Not only has everything Clinton did to restore the country been undermined, but Bush-Cheney have gone back to finish the job started in the 80’s, even resurrecting the same cast of players to accomplish the final sell-out of the country to corporate interests. PNAC has moved from theory to full operations, with dire ramifications for both domestic and foreign policies. The “compassionate conservatism” mantra of the 2000 Bush campaign—a steal from the ‘92 Clinton/Gore playbook, in my opinion—has turned out to be a hollow manipulation of the original message. Whereas Clinton/Gore tried to follow through on the agenda outlined in their campaign book “Putting People First,” it’s clear that Bush never had any intention to be compassionate about anything.
It’s not my goal to rehash all the destructive policies of the Bush Administration which have worked against the citizens of this country while smoothing the way for business interests. One outrageous rule change follows another. It’s almost impossible to think of even one action that this gang has done for the people of this country. Even on the vital question of security for America, the Bush Administration is coming up short. (“Government's Hobbled Giant – Homeland Security Is Struggling,” Sunday, September 7, 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36519-2003Sep6.html).
Meanwhile, the campaign promises of a “compassionate conservative” approach to governance have disappeared. In terms of economic policy, large tax cuts to the highest income Americans have resulted in slashes in needed services at the state level and local levels of government. The ranks of the poor are growing. Clean air and water and the condition of the national parks have become low priorities, while the opening of public lands to drilling is proceeding. The EPA has even lied about the air quality following the attack on the World Trade Center. Workers face the loss of overtime pay. If they have their way, hospitals will have the legal right to turn you away from the emergency room if you don’t have insurance. The proposed Medicare drug plan serves the pharmaceutical companies better than recipients. No-bid contractors such as Halliburton exploit close ties to the Administraton and profit in Iraq, while our soldiers have to get by on a couple liters of water a day for drinking and hygiene.
Even Bush supporters supporters are restive as indicated by comments reported in an August 26, 2003 recent article in The New York Times entitled “Compassion' Agenda: A Liability in '04?” by Elisabeth Bumiller (
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/26/politics/26MEMO.html?hp):
“After three years, he's failed the test," said one prominent early supporter, the Rev. Jim Wallis, leader of Call to Renewal, a network of churches that fights poverty.
Mr. Wallis said Mr. Bush had told him as president-elect that "I don't understand how poor people think," and appealed to him for help by calling himself "a white Republican guy who doesn't get it, but I'd like to." Now, Mr. Wallis said, "his policy has not come even close to matching his words."
In his NYU/MoveOn.org speech on August 7, 2003, which Ann Richards believes Democratic candidates “will read and crib from,” Al Gore touched on the subject of Bush’s “compassionate” agenda, stating that “they
also promote the myth that there really is no such thing as the public interest…The test of compassion is action. What the administration offers with one had is the rhetoric of compassion; what it takes away with the other hand are the financial resources necessary to make compassion something more than an empty and fading impression.”
For Americans who swallowed the bitter pill of the 2000 “selection” and have had their worst fears about how the Bush agenda would unfold come true, there’s never been any question that Bush must go in 2004. And the hunger for “regime change at home” will reach a crescendo as the election campaign year goes into full swing.
(SNIP)
2004
That bit of musing might have been the final thought in this essay, until I happened across some words of wisdom by none other than Clinton’s 1992 mastermind, James Carville.
In the March 11, 2002 Salon Interview with Joan Walsh, Carville was already commenting on what he saw as strong currents in the Democratic party and the nation and the type of candidate he favored:
Carville: “And I think there's a real hunger in the party, and in the country, for someone who's gonna stand up for them, stand up and fight for something.”
Walsh: Who might that be? Do you have a candidate for 2004?
Carville: You know what? I'm for the person who can stand up and articulate where this party ought to go, who can do it in a tough way, who's not saying something one day and apologizing the next. I'll be for that person. (“Carville on His Candidate: The Salon Interview: James Carville”
(http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2002/03/11/carville/index_np.html?x intro only
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/pearly/htmls/carville-salon.html full text).
Within the last few months Carville has talked in more specific terms about the message such a candidate should deliver. In a July 23, 2003 interview with TomPaine.com, Carville argues that Democrats need a “big issue” in 2004:
‘"If it comes to who is going to get a break, people who make $1 million today or young kids who will make the country tomorrow, you don't even have to look."
And that lead to what Carville said was the big issue for Democrats in '04, what he called the Bush administration's reversal of "the generational promise of America – each time we do what we can do to make the next generation better."
"That promise, today like no other time in our lifetime, is under attack," he said. "The idea that we are a society beyond our own self-interest is under attack. We are told America is best when people are interested in ourselves. We know America is better when we're based on a common interest.
"We have a president that is no longer interested in what happens to the next generation. We have a president that is no longer interested in what happens to the promise of America.”’ (“James Carville's Rx For Democrats,” Steven Rosenfeld, TomPaine.com, July 23, 2003 http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8430).
In 1992, “Putting People First” carried with it the idea of reversing years of “losing ground” that many Americans had experienced under Reagan/Bush; Carville’s new twist on “generations” takes the 1992 mantra and connects it to the theme of what the people of this country can expect to leave for their children’s futures. (In my view, Clinton’s signature theme song, “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” by Fleetwood Mac was used to rev up anticipation for a Clinton presidency rather than the idea of “generations.”) A message of “the generational promise” seeks to reconnect Americans to a sense of “the greater good” and a positive sense of unity as a nation; it takes the “Putting People First” mantra to a higher level and gives Americans the opportunity to consider a broader purpose when they vote.
At the moment, all of the Democratic candidates are speaking out in mundane terms about working families and ways to address the problems they face. For example, during his September 7th appearance in San Francisco, Dean took on Arnold Schwartzenegger’s statement that he (Schwartzenegger) would not be taking any money from unions because he considers them a ''special interest" group.
Dean looked at the women surrounding him at the podium, and recited their occupations: nurses' aides, food service workers, and physical therapists. "Not exactly special interests," Dean said wryly. "I call them hard working Americans. (“Presidential Hopeful Howard Dean Gets a Big Show of Support in S.F.,” Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle, September 7, 2003 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/09/07/MN31311.DTL).
BUT…are ANY of the candidates moving beyond this sort of “sub-issue” and broadening the message that can form the “big issue” and inspiration for the 2004 campaign?
Well, yes, but it isn’t one of the frontrunners. At the end of the September 4, 2003 Democratic presidential debate in Albuquerque, Univision’s Maria Elena Salinas queried the candidates on the subject of immigration and amnesty for illegal workers in the U.S. In the last minutes of the discussion, Carol Mosely Braun remarked:
And this election– this election really does pit which direction our country is going to head. Are we going to put ourselves in a position to move forward, to reach out to others, to resolve these issues instead of having people locked up and their phones tapped and their e-mails tapped and locked up in secret arrests and the like?
Instead of doing that, can't we begin to reconcile our relations with others, to work well with others at the international community to begin to restore the kind of hope and optimism that has always characterized this country? Because I believe–if I can finish this–I believe the real issue here is our generation's responsibility to make sure that we leave no less for the next generation than we inherited from the last one. And working together is the only way we're going to be able to that. (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/debate03/part5.html)
There it is, the “big issue.” Hats off to Carol Mosely Braun for putting this idea out there! But, now we’ll have to wait in see if the message gets picked up by any of the other candidates any time soon. And, of course, we’ll have to see if this concept becomes the core of the Democratic national campaign in 2004.
I fervently hope that the Democratic candidate who goes head to head with Bush doesn’t waste valuable time, effort, and money searching for a new playbook when it’s obvious that building on the message of 1992 is the key. I implore the candidates – listen to Carville and, if Braun isn’t the candidate, listen to her!
And, heck, while they’re at it, why shouldn’t they listen to me! “PUT PEOPLE FIRST, NOW…AND FOR THE FUTURE!” – it’s a start and it could be a winner. For, I think most folks believe, just as in 1992, that people have to count in this country – now, in 2004, and for always.
Copyright 2003, Gloria R. Lalumia
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