By all account, they don't see any of it. Remember the claim is that the Dems messaging failed, and most people don't know what this WH and Congress have accomplished.
I agree. I wasn't saying they understood the content of HCR or finreg. Yes the Dems messaging failed, that's clear, they lost. If their messaging goal was look at the good stuff in these bills they had to fail. These bills are too complicated and the explanations always have too many bullet points for people to digest and understand in numbers that sway elections. Also it was very easy to paint them as big government programs that even if they might do some good are too expensive for us to afford right now - all lies but an easy message to sell.
How does that translate to a voting out Democrats and giving Republicans about 60 more seats in the House?
It's simple isn't it? You vote out the guys that didn't fix your problems. Ah but we did fix their problems, you might say, right here in paragraph 231, subsection K, item 25,... bzzz! You lose.
One way you can avoid that kind of wrath is to concentrate your message on what you didn't get (not in the last month but from day one) and make clear whose fault that is. Don't say you got 90% of what you wanted and then not expect to get 90% of the punishment. If you got what you wanted, accomplished what you wanted to accomplish and I'm still hurting then I have no sympathy for you do I? Obama should not have said HCR is 90% of what we wanted and is a great triumph (or a fucking big deal) even if it is. He should have said HCR is deeply lacking since the Republicans would not let us add the public option and drug re-importation which we really wanted and maybe we can fix it in the next congress.
Then they should have done that with finreg and every other important piece of legislation.
You seem to thing that do nothing was the solution. Do you really believe that whatever health care bill had passed, Republicans wouldn't have trashed it with the same results?
I don't think Obama should have done nothing. I think he could have done less, I mean he did a lot and look how badly things went. OF COURSE the GOP would have trashed any alternative HCR bill and it would have had the same results if Obama and the Dems did the same thing. When the Obama administration passes the XYZ bill the GOP will say how it's the worst thing yet done by the admin. Unless the bill is so perfect that people will know the GOP is is just playing politics but if XYZ is flawed and missing pieces that were popular and easy sells to the voters don't tell them it's 90% of what they wanted. Tell people it's unfortunate that XYZ is as timid as it is but given the conservative climate in congress we just couldn't get better. "If I get a better congress in 2011 I promise I'll add the teeth to XYZ" he should be saying.
But what do they say? "XYZ is a historic bi-partisan bill that will finally solve the problems that have plagued us for decades. Working with leaders of both parties we've ... blah blah blah". If XYZ contains unfortunate compromises - the story should be about who caused those compromises.
That's the other problem, selling stuff isn't going to change anything.
Selling is how elections are won because, unfortunately, most voters will not go out and research the issues on their own.
Selling Grayson's way didn't help him keep his seat. Selling Feingold's way didn't help him keep his seat. Feingold ran on health care reform, and was damn proud of it.
Hey, I was a big proponent that Obama and the Dems should go way more progressive but I see the election results and I've modified my views. I see that a more progressive message did not protect anyone.
I learned from this election. Did you?
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