Obama losing the stimulus message war

[biopowertoday]

I have not seen him on the TV so I really do not know if he is 'frustrated"
Something will pass---we just do not know what at this point--so I am not as bleak as this article.




..........At this crucial juncture in the push to pass an economic recovery package, President Obama finds himself in the most unlikely of places: He is losing the message war.

Despite Obama’s sky high personal approval ratings, polls show support has declined for his stimulus bill since Republicans and their conservative talk-radio allies began railing against what they labeled as pork barrel spending within it.

The sheer size of it – hovering at about $900 billion — has prompted more protests that are now causing some moderate and conservative Democrats to flinch and, worse, hesitate.

The anxiety over lost momentum seemed almost palpable this week as the president in television interviews voiced frustration with his White House’s progress and the way his recovery program was being demonized as a Democratic spending frenzy.

In Obama’s own words ...............

Obama losing the stimulus message war




Jeanne Cummings Jeanne Cummings – Thu Feb 5, 5:04 am ET

[monmouth]

1. He's losing the message war because the media is owned by the right....n/t

[Jennicut]

2. LOL. So obvious to most of us here.

Clinton never had it easy with the "liberal" media either and yet was popular with the public.

[Numba6]

25. The Media won't do the Dems job for them

anymore than the media did Obama's job for him (weeks of Rev. Wright, anyone?)

[Thrill]

3. Its the Democrats in Congress job to push Obama's agenda

And they aren't out there doing it.

Obama is doing his part

[biopowertoday]

7. The Dem Congress needs a media blitz.

[Beacool]

4. Here's more

Already, he’s trying – rolling out Michelle Obama to talk stimulus Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday (at a train station, no less) and sitting down with key senators one-on-one.

But this is unfamiliar turf for a team that achieved near epic status for its communication skills during the presidential campaign. They’ve rarely ever had to play catch-up.

With the president’s gifted oratory and a technologically savvy team, the Obama camp was able to seize control of the national conversation as early as April and never fully relinquish it right through his Inaugural Address two weeks ago.

To be sure, some of Obama’s headaches stem from the normal dysfunction that occurs when a White House is in transition. Phones don’t work, chains of command are fuzzy, and there are formalities that need tending to.

But the Obama team also made its own mistakes. The president’s troubled cabinet nominees added to the cacophony that at times drowned out the White House economic messages in the past two weeks.
And it seems more apparent each day that the nascent Obama Administration isn’t fully prepared for the task at hand.

The president’s decision to push through a massive stimulus bill, while perhaps unavoidable, is forcing the much-vaunted Chicago crowd to adapt at lightning speed to its more skillful adversaries on Capitol Hill, while at the same time taking a crash course on harnessing the full power of bully pulpit. If he doesn’t figure it out soon, Obama is likely to find out that his stimulus package looks very different than he had in mind indeed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090205/pl_politico/18444

[Thrill]

5. Typical Politico BS. You'll be hard pressed to find an Article on that site

that isn't an Obama hit piece

[Beacool]

9. Well, yeah...........

But I noticed that the OP hadn't posted the link, so I added it.

;)

[biopowertoday]

13. Thank you. sorry I missed doing that.

[Beacool]

20. No problema...........

:7

[fugop]

12. Ridiculous

You know what I love? I love how they keep setting up complete falsehoods as the truth to push the narrative they want. They want to say how Obama is losing control of everything, and they clearly want the narrative to be that he's gonna learn how hard it is now that he's in office. That he had it sooooo easy and just coasted through to the presidency but now it's time to pay the piper.

Which is bullshit. I read commentary of how he never lost control of the message (Hello, Rev. Wright? Bitter controversy? McCain celeb ads? Ayers? Palin? Helloooo, is anyone there in crazyville???). It's just insane. Now the same rags that beat him up during the primaries and the general over all those drummed-up controversies are trying to pretend that he coasted in there on a rainbow and is just now facing challenges.

What the hell? I can only hope that - as with the ebb and flow of the primary and election - people at long last are tuning out the mainstream idiots as irrelevant, realizing that 99% of what they report is just crap to fill time.

[Beacool]

22. The media will always have their whipping boy/girl.

During the primaries it was Hillary, but now that Obama is president, it's his turn.

The media will always turn on the guy in charge, they did it to Bill too.

:shrug:

[fugop]

23. Except ...

I have to disagree on the premise that Obama got a free pass during the primaries. (see Rev. Wright and Bittergate for examples of the media going into a frenzy over dopey, trumped-up issues). I think both Hillary and Obama were savaged by the media bobbleheads. From my standpoint, only McCain and Palin got easy treatment. Obama was shredded during the primary over the nonstop Wright-athon and Bitter-athon. HIllary, too, took a number of hits over silly stuff. It just kills me that the media relies on manufactured controversy after sitting on their asses for eight years of Bush.

[high density]

6. What?

The Repube option is a combination of doing nothing and more tax cuts. We know for a fact, based on the Bush tax cuts, that more tax cuts will not create jobs. Doing nothing is what Hoover did, and that obviously did not give the confidence needed to get the economy could get back on track. Over the past couple of years, this country has spent a trillion bucks and thousands of lives on a war. "Conservative" or "moderate" complaints about the cost of it are in the eye-rolling category at this point given how eager these people were to spend massive amounts of money during the Bushco years.

[TeamJordan23]

8. Blame falls on the Dem Congress. nm

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

14. Absolutely right. What a bunch of wimps.

[Blue_Tires]

33. +1

[demo dutch]

10. I heared on CNN last night that he thinks he has the votes to pass by end of this week

[Thrill]

15. Yup Final vote might actually happen today

Which makes me think that after speaking with Snowe, Collins, Nelson, and Specter he got their votes

[bdamomma]

11. He is pushing his message and has been it's the damn media

being in the back pockets of corporations who are not reporting it.

[depakid]

16. All of the libertarians and corporate media panderers take notice

This is your reward.

Enjoy it.

[Beacool]

17. More on the same subject, but this time by the WP

Obama Losing Stimulus Fight to Defeated GOP

WASHINGTON -- The irony of President Barack Obama's Blue Tuesday is that the wall-to-wall television interviews he granted were designed not to apologize for Tom Daschle's fall from grace but to fight back against the Republicans' success in tarnishing his stimulus package.

Obama's network appearances were planned as a response to a wholly unanticipated development: Republicans -- short on new ideas, low on votes, and deeply unpopular in the polls -- have been winning the media wars over the president's central initiative.

They have done so largely by focusing on minor bits of the stimulus that amount, as Obama said in at least two of his network interviews, to "less than 1 percent of the overall package." But Republicans have succeeded in defining the proposal by its least significant parts.

Daschle's withdrawal as the nominee for secretary of health and human services poses a long-term challenge to the administration's ambitious health care plans because he was so crucial to the White House's strategy. But the battering the stimulus has taken is an immediate problem.

Although Obama aides dismiss the media coverage as "cable chatter" important only inside the "Washington echo chamber," they acknowledge that Congress does its work inside that noisy hall and that the journalistic back-and-forth has tainted its key legislative objective. "We didn't give it as much air cover last week as we should," said one top adviser. "We lost a week."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/obama_losing_stimulus_fight_to.html

:eyes:

[biopowertoday]

18. EJ: Time to Play Hardball:

I do believe obama is hitting back.

Time to Play Hardball

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Thursday, February 5, 2009; A17

The irony of President Obama's Blue Tuesday is that the wall-to-wall television interviews he granted were designed not to apologize for Tom Daschle's fall from grace but to fight back against the Republicans' success in tarnishing his stimulus package.

Obama's network appearances were planned as a response to a wholly unanticipated development: Republicans -- short on new ideas, low on votes and deeply unpopular in the polls -- have been winning the media war over the president's central initiative.

They have done so largely by focusing on minor bits of the stimulus that amount, as Obama said in at least two of his network interviews, to "less than 1 percent of the overall package." But Republicans have succeeded in defining the proposal by its least significant parts.
..................

Although Obama aides dismiss the media coverage as "cable chatter" important only inside the "Washington echo chamber," they acknowledge that Congress does its work inside that noisy hall and that the journalistic back-and-forth has tainted its key legislative objective. "We didn't give it as much air cover last week as we should" have, said one top adviser. "We lost a week."..........................




http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020402835.html

[Political Heretic]

19. JOBS BILL! JOBS BILL! JOBS BILL!!!! It's not a "stimulus" bill. IT IS A JOBS BILL!!!!!!

[KittyWampus]

27. Would you please start a thread so we can get that out? IMO, Economic Recovery Bill is better

[AtomicKitten]

21. Pfft. It's just a flesh wound. n/t

[Jennicut]

26. It looks like it might be passed tonight anyways.

All the hand-wringing will move on to another issue.

[AtomicKitten]

29. I think so too, but it's been fun watching the wingnuts/Blue Dogs bark. n/t

[Numba6]

24. Obama and the Dems got rolled.

Where are the Dems who should be out supporting this bill in the media?

By absence, the Dems allowed the Republicans to reframe the debate so "bipartisanship" became the watchword rather than economic recovery. And they allowed the most partisan side define "bipartisanship" as caving in to the side who lost the Nov. election.

By absence, the Dems allow the GOP to take any potshot against the bill, regardless of logic & inconsistencies in argument.

Republicans demand more housing relief, even tho it was the GOP who marched in lockstep & voted against the housing bill last fall.

Republicans demand more tax cuts, even though this policy has failed over the last 8 years.

They denounce "earmarks" that don't exist, and label any spending they don't like as "pork" & no on is there to argue against them.

Who won in November, anyway?

[w4rma]

28. Obama and the Democratic Party have the votes for the overall bill. I'm not concerned.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8169320

I do, however, want this bipartisan amendment in there:
Bipartisan amendment to stop subsidizing job outsourcing
http://www.openleft.com/userDiary.do?personId=1146
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=114&topic_id=55860&mesg_id=55860

In fact, this amendment is more important to me than the entire rest of the bill.

[zulchzulu]

30. The Repigs think that Obama is losing the Stimulus message war

It's going to pass. Obama let them sink in their usual antics and not join in. When the economy starts turning around in 2010, Obama can send out the message that the Repigs were determined to try to stop progress. It will be the Democrats' chance to win at least 6 of the Senate races where GOP incumbents are running.

This is chess. The Repigs think it's tic-tac-toe.

[Jennicut]

31. He won't lose the war if it passes with help of even 3 Repubs.

He does not really need most of the Repub Party, they are irrelevant thought they will try very hard to mess things up for Obama. Governing the country is not really an idea they know how to get around, its all about future strategy. They can go f*ck themselves.

[Parker CA]

34. He wins if it passes because it passes, and he wins if it doesn't, because he has been

working to get puke support and they are turning their shoulder on them. The real test is going to be whether the stimulus works, because the pukes will say 1000 times that they didn't support it if it fails, but my instinct tells me that it will work and the pukes are fearful of that. I believe Obama has this and have not thought otherwise since this entire debacle began.

[AlinPA]

35. Repigs will stop the progress on the bill with a vote against cloture. They

can then say "back to the drawing boards" while Limbaugh celebrates with more pills.
There is no way the repigs will allow Obama any success with this bill.

[rufus dog]

32. It appears that he outsmarted them again

It is now being reported that a stripped down version of the bill was voted on in the Senate. The version included ONLY the tax cuts with no spending and 36 Republicans voted Yea! So President Obama knew the media would be in lock step with the Repubs and allowed them to team up and spend three days bashing the bill, gain a bit of confidence and then go on record for tax cuts only. A proven failed policy. Then he comes out and bashes them for using the same old failed tactics. The only response is to go back on TV and continue to lie and any Democrat with half a spine can call them out and put the talking head in a position of lying or reporting facts.