When a movement becomes a revolution
A terrific article in the Washington Post today follows one reporter’s journey watching the Internet transform from marginal to bona fide. Like it or not, the Internet is the new central front on the political battlefield.
“Obama’s unprecedented online success guarantees that there’s not a single campaign in 2012, Democratic or Republican, that won’t place the Web at the core of its operation. The floodgates are open. This doesn’t mean just hiring Web developers, bloggers, videographers — the works. It also means using the Internet to invite people into the process, giving them something to work for, offering them a stake in victory or defeat. More than any other medium in our history, the Web is by the people, for the people. Starting with Howard Dean, continuing with Obama and stretching out into the future, this new dynamic will transform the way campaigns are run — and, beyond that, the way the winning candidate governs. Fundamentally, all of this is redefining our relationship with our politics.”
New Look
Yes, we’ve finally made the switch to WordPress from TypePad for good ol’ PolicyMedia. In addition to taking advantage of the amazing new features of WordPress 2.7, we’re going to be branching out a bit as we work with other conservatives to make the message match the policy.
Obama’s Communications Team
For those of us interested in political communications, one of the premier posts in the field is the White House Press Secretary. While the role has changed in recent years, the President's chief flak is traditionally the vehicle through which news becomes important, via their close working relationship with the media (ok, I'm not talking about every press secretary here). The White House communications director likewise shapes the national debate on every major issue in ways the public can never even begin to imagine.
President-elect Obama continues to show he's no dummy — and no moderate — with his sharp picks for the White House communications team:
- Robert Gibbs, an Obama campaign spokesman, will be press secretary
- Ellen Moran, EMILY's List executive director, will be communications director
- Dan Pfeiffer named Obama's deputy communications director
Romney on the Bailout
Detroit-born former governor Mitt Romney has a prescription for Detroit that seems downright novel in the face of Washington's endless deficit spending: make automakers reform or die.
If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go
overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.
Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With
it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.
Do Republicans represent business values?
As a small business owner, this was a pretty disturbing observation:
the same time the dominant segment of the Republican Party wants to
regulate the lives and lifestyles of certain classes of people in the
most intrusive way possible. Some businessmen, especially those who
depend on Colorado having a reputation that draws visitors and
business, don’t see that as helpful."
‘Ups and downs of a digital-age campaign’
In The Boston Globe, a former Romney communications advisor lements the decline of traditional media and pleads with online media to more closely adhere to a journalistic “code of ethics.”
“Where are the online gatekeepers? Gatekeeping is the most important function for the offline media. Editors decide which stories get published. They make sure rumors aren’t printed. Sensitive information is double- and sometimes triple-sourced. Gatekeeping serves an important purpose in establishing the ethics of journalism. Sadly, it doesn’t exist on the Web.”
Unfortunately for traditional PR and communications people, that horse has left the barn.
Republicans Ponder Path to Renewal After Party Suffers a Harsh Setback - WSJ.com
“Key pieces of the longstanding Republican coalition of economic and social conservatives, culture-war soldiers and national-security hawks showed severe stress fractures during the long election, and leaders from different wings are now vying for party leadership.”
How do liberals view the media?
The answer to the old joke is “in the mirror,” of course.
Soaking in the final seconds of what may be an Obama win, the liberal writers at the New York Times are hyperventilating with anxiety. And since they can’t express it in the first person, they turn to New Yorkers to express their anxiety for them. Their piece also offers a little editorial perspective on how liberals view the media:
“Many liberal Democrats watch MSNBC, but some say it sounds too much like comfort food. CNN serves its election coverage with a stiff little chaser of doubt for Democrats, and many liberals say CNN and NPR are their regular evening companions. If they really want to rub the sore tooth of worry, they dial over to the ‘Obama’s radical friend Bill Ayers’ channel, otherwise known as Fox News.
“‘Mostly I flip between CNN and MSNBC, but I go to Fox if I want to get enraged,’ Mr. Downs said.”
Liberal plan to cut the military would cut jobs too
Bill Hobbs has a really good perspective on the potential fallout of Barney Franks’ plan to cut defense spending by 25% in wartime.
According to Hobbs, Franks’ proposal, in addition to being an extremely foolish and potentially devestating proposal given the ongoing Global War on Terror, could cost millions of jobs.
But could it also cost Democrats electoral success? According to Hobbs, several key states in national politics also contain large military populations. Franks’ proposal, while dangerous, also has the potential to ruin local economies in the very same areas where Democrats have made recent gains. This raises some interesting questions.
Given that Washington Democrats’ make most decisions based on political motivation, just how half-baked is Franks’ proposal? Does it have a chance of succeeding? Isn’t it likely that Democrats will join most Americans in condeming his plan, purely based on the political math? Could this result in political infighting among the new Democratic majority already?
Most importantly — what will be the cost to our troops on the front lines? Senator Obama has already tried to cut off funding for those brave men and women fighting for us around the world. Under Franks’ plan, those troops might literally be cut off, unable to even buy a plane ticket home.
‘Our Fair Share’
At a campaign event in La Crosse, Wisconsin, Senator Barack Obama just set a new platform for the Democratic Party. According to Obama, while talking about taxes, "All of us have a responsibility to pay our fair share."
This remarkable statement was likely thrown into the speech as fluff, and gazing deep into his teleprompter, the Senator and former community organizer probably didn’t realize how much this statement was a slap in the face to the Democratic establishment. Democrats in Washington thrive on the politics of class warfare, putting poor families into a class that does not pay taxes while putting middle and high income families into a group that pays ever increasing taxes. NOT paying one’s fair share is a cornerstone of their political party and coalitions.
Specifically, we need to ask the question — does Barack Obama now support the fair tax? Is it too much to ask, now that he’s made this bold statement?
For a man whose entire political career is built on rhetoric not experience, there’s nothing we have to go on other than his words. He has no actions, no record to further explain this line. Does he stand behind his words, or are even they empty and hollow?