Don't Get Too Attached to Your Candidates

A couple of things happened yesterday that moved me to write this diary. I had just finished my Candidate Review Series Recap. I went through 6 weeks of research and analysis. I even did some navel gazing. I got a chance to see most of the campaigns in action. And I still couldn't come to a decision.

That puts me in the minority of Dems. It also makes me worry very much about something. So, what am I worried about? Follow me below the fold...


The first thing to occur happened away from the keyboard. At least my keyboard. We have a very active and very well organized volunteer Obama campaign presence here in the Tampa Bay Area of Florida. As someone who has some small experience in campaigning, I took the first opportunity I had to drop in on one of their meetings in my hometown, St. Petersburg.

Most of the meeting was taken up with the group members relating their experience on the campaign walk the Obama campaign conducted this week end. Some of us in the room did not participate. That's because the Obama campaign picked a date that was in direct conflict with the Florida Democratic Party Jefferson Jackson weekend. It was see Nancy Pelosi and 2,000 Democratic activists, or go knock on some doors. Well, I can and have knocked on doors plenty of other times. Nancy Pelosi won.

As the folks who walked told their war stories, it became quickly apparent that this was, indeed, an amateur, volunteer organization. But their enthusiasm was endemic. The conversation then moved on to the Obama campaign's participation in the St. Petersburg Pride Festival at the end of the month. This Festival is the largest GLBT Pride festival in Florida, and is a very big deal in St. Pete. Again, having some small experience in this sort of thing, I offered a few suggestions intended to make the Obama group's participation more effective and more fun.

It was then that the first really interesting thing happened. I was challenged by an acquaintance sitting next me as to whether I had gotten off the fence and picked a candidate. It was obvious she had not read my Candidate Review Recap, because I relayed in it that I had not. She then asked me what I was doing at their meeting, as if I wished their campaign ill.

Here is something I want to repeat from the first of my Candidate Review series:

I am going to support the Democratic nominee. Period.

So before a nominee is chosen, I will do what I can, as I have in the past, to help any of the campaigns that I can. I will not work against any campaign, only for them. That was pretty much my answer to my acquaintance.

The second event happened in cyberspace on DailyKos. I returned home to read this comment from my friend Boofdah on my Review Recap Diary:

If she (Hillary) gets the nom I hate to say this, but we're in a world of hurt. :-/

It's a relief that at least (so far), we have a couple of really great local candidates, like this guy, to get behind and do grassroots work for, in case my preferred Presidential candidate (see my sig) doesn't get the nod. I hate to be a sullen poor sport; but I
honest-to-God can't get excited about volunteering for HRC. :(

Obama-rama!

We have recently been through this in Florida. In last year's governor's race, we had a fierce primary battle. Adherents to both sides were fervently attached to their chosen candidates. The blogosphere was filled with vituperative comments flying from both sides. At the end of the primary, all too many of the supporters of the loser could not bring themselves to work for their party's nominee.

Did any of this lead to the ultimate defeat of our party's nominee? Probably not. Did it contribute to the loss of our party's nominee. Absolutely.

So, what is the answer to this. One of the great things about Democrats is our passion. No one should wish for that passion to be diminished. I certainly do not.

I'd like to see a passionate discussion. I'd like to see what thoughts are out there about how best to be advocates for our candidates, while at the same time recognizing that any one of our candidates is infinitely preferable to any one from the other side.

After all, isn't the ultimate goal to get one of our candidates into the White House?

Would You Give Money to This Man?

There is an effort under way, quietly, to make an impact on local politics. The goal is to get reasonable people who share progressive values elected to local office. The difference here is to not leave this to chance. This efforts' mission is to identify, nurture and finance these candidates early on in the process.

The business plan, including an initial budget proposal, for this effort has been drafted. Political goals for 2007 have been drafted. Most folks who have been asked about the idea and specific plans have been supportive, in theory.

The issue for this effort, now, is how to turn this theoretical support into concrete support. Unfortunately in realpolitik today, that means money. While many people are supportive of the effort and have added their ideas and encouragement, no one has stepped up to fulfill a financial commitment.

While the effort is designed to be somewhat under the radar, there is a face in the forefront. It is a face that really doesn't seek the spotlight. This might be part of the problem. So what we are going to do here is to describe this face:

• Note: Here's a plea. If you think you know the identity of this person, keep it to yourself. Comments and suggestions are welcome, but please make them generic or issue related, not specific to the individual as much to as to the mission.
• This guy has met and had both private and public discussions with every major Dem presidential candidate for the last three cycles. His history in this area goes back before that, but the current streak goes back to 1996.
• He has travelled extensively with a former Senator and Governor during the Senators' short lived presidential bid. He feels fortunate to be considered a friend of the family. And while he loves the Senator, he thinks the Senators' wife walks on water.
• During these travels with the Senator, he met an independent film maker who happens to have a highly placed mother (currently second in line of presidential succession). Because of this relationship with the daughter, the well placed mother calls the dude by his first name (even when he is not wearing a name tag) and has, from time to time, made her staff available to assist the guy in his various political efforts.
• That brings us to what our guy considers one of his serious drawbacks. Most of his most intimate political experiences have been with unsuccessful efforts. However, he likes to think about Abraham Lincoln and Toby Ziegler. That may seem like an unlikely pairing, but consider this: Neither one had been particularly successful until they hit the big one.
• Our guy has never considered himself particularly creative. However he was informed by someone who has been spectacularly successfully creative that he has it all wrong. This dude perceived in our guy an ability to recognize and act on a good idea when he hears it. While our guy did not consider this particularly creative, his creative friend told him that that is one of the most sought after capabilities amongst advertising and other "creative types". Our guy is still not totally convinced, but he does enjoy hanging out with creative types.
• One of the dude's most cherished values is "community". Because of this, he has a burning desire to add value to the community that he loves so much. This is why he is willing to be the face of the subject effort when his preference is to remain securely in the background.

So there is a thumbnail sketch of our guy. Here are two questions for you:

• Are you supportive of the proposed effort?
• Would you let this dude control your financial contribution to this effort?

I truly am interested in receiving your feedback. Don't hold back. Let me know what you really think.

The Big Lie - Iraq - Again

I have been writing a series of How to Talk diaries. The goal of these diaries is to enable us to have successful conversations with people who should be agreeing with us, but do not yet.

One of the standard features of this series is a section called Mangle the Memes. This section gives us some tools to deal with the lock step counter arguments framed by the Right Wing Smear Machine, which is famous for generating and propagating The Big Lie.

This diary is going to deal with the current Big Lie - the consequences of a rapid pull out from Iraq. Want to know how to mangle this meme? Then follow me down the rabbit hole...


A Google search on "house republican consequences" yields 1,290,000 hits. I am not about to list them all, but I do want to focus on a couple of key points inside The Big Lie:

• a swift U.S. pullout
• Portrayal of Republican talking points as the only possible outcome

these are the two key points inside The Big Lie. In the initial How To Talk diary I defined Mangle the Memes:

The other side is not going to take all this lying down. They are going
to counter attack you with their favorite memes. You are going to counter attack them by never letting a meme go unchallenged. You have already defined your
terminology. You can mix up your counterattacks by using your predefined
terminology in response to their memes, or you can turn their own memes back on
them. Use either of these tactics, or both. You will confound your opposition
and carry the day

So lets take on the first of the key points above - a swift U.S. pullout.

Here is the first lie within The Big Lie. The other side is portraying calls for a withdrawal from Iraq as a swift U.S. pullout. The lie is no one is calling for a swift pullout. Rep. John Murtha got the pullout ball rolling in 2005 as reported by Fox Noise:

Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and decorated Marine Corps veteran who served in the Vietnam War, last week urged the withdrawal of all U.S. troops within six months.

Is 6 months your idea of swift? Here is how the President talked about Murtha and his proposal:

Congressman Murtha is a fine man, a good man, who served our country with honor and distinction as a Marine in Vietnam and as a United States congressman.
He is a strong supporter of the United States military. And I know the decision
to call for an immediate withdrawal of our troops...

An immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq will only strengthen the terrorists' ... they can turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a safe haven for terror, a place where they can plot and plan attacks against America

Even Harvard's Nieman Watchdog has fallen into the immediate pullout trap. Consider this:

General William Odom, one of the earliest advocates of an immediate withdrawal

Here is General Odom's earliest statement on this subject as reported by the Nieman Watchdog:

debating an early pullout. Many US officers in Iraq, especially
at company and field grade levels, know that while they are winning every tactical battle, they are losing strategically.

How does debating an early pullout become one of the earliest advocates of an immediate withdrawal?

The very next Odom article published by the Nieman Watchdog, describes Odom's previous article

as get out of Iraq now

The real problem here is that Odom did not say that. Odom went form calling for debating an early pullout to one of the earliest advocates of an immediate withdrawal in a span of just over 15 months. Nowhere in this period does the Nieman Watchdog report Odom actually calling for an immediate withdrawal

So there is lie number one. General Odom calls for debating an early pullout. This is turned into one of the earliest advocates of an immediate withdrawal. John Murtha's call for withdrawal of all U.S. troops within six months is turned into an immediate withdrawal by no less than the President of the United States.

Once we understand what the lie is, refuting it becomes a fairly straightforward exercise. Whenever you hear someone describing an immediate withdrawal, stop them right there. Ask them who is proposing an immediate withdrawal. They will not be able to give you a name. If they try to give you a name, ask them to supply a link or some other documentation. Accept only direct quotes attributed to that name. These can not be supplied because they do not exist.

That should be enough to end the conversation right there. You will have defeated the premise of the argument for all these dire consequences to necessarily follow.

In the next installment of the Big Lie, we will see how to defeat the cause - effect argument for a non-existent immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

What Every So Called Political Professional Needs to Know

Do you ever hear a phrase or a saying that just sticks with you? The kind of thing that keeps popping into your head at the weirdest times? Here is the story of one that should be first and foremost in the minds of every one who considers themselves a political professional.

I was standing in this room with a bunch of disgusted Democrats. It was early in 2003. They were still pissed off about the 2000 election fiasco in Florida. And they were absolutely steaming about the governors race that was so badly handled in 2002.

It was the 2000 elections that they were using as a rallying cry. The number 537 played a prominent part in this discussion. There was no crying over the spilt milk of 2002 here. This was all about 2004, and the lessons learned in 2000 and not applied in 2002.

It was a pretty interesting group. There was a County Commissioner whose mother was to run for the US Senate and who is now, herself, a newly minted Congresswoman. There was a former County Commissioner who ran a valiant but unsuccessful Congressional campaign in 2006. The campaign manager for the incumbent Congressman was there. There were some dudes there, but none of us were as impressive as the women in the room.

The matriarch of this group was the mother of the successful attorney who had graciously offered up her home for the evening. One of the interesting things we did that night was to go around the room and offer up our reasons for being a Democrat. That's a story for another time. As we were about to wrap up for the night, the matriarch said she wanted to leave us with something to think about.

Our matriarch was, at that time, a recently retired County Commissioner. She did not stay retired for long. She is now a very successful County Clerk. She wanted to leave us with something that had stuck with her for a very long time. It was something that was told to her by someone we all knew. This fellow was a former teacher and a union leader. He became a Mayor and then a Governor. He wasn't with us that night because he had changed teams in the midst of his rise to political fame and fortune.

There were a lot of people in that room that night who had won, and lost, a lot of elections. But they all nodded when our matriarch relayed this pearl of wisdom to us:

If you have a dozen committed volunteers, you can win any election.

Now those of you who have worked on large campaigns are probably shaking your head at the perceived naivete of that statement. But think about it for a second. This wasn't a statement from some dude who just got elected dog catcher. He had been elected and re-elected as a union leader. He was the mayor of a major city. He was the governor of a significant state. If you still don't get it, maybe you should take up another profession.

At the end of the day, in a close election, what is going to make the difference? In my mind it is the ability to get more of your voters to the polls than the other guy does. In the 2000 presidential election in Florida, 538 more Democratic voters would have changed the history of the world. That's less than 10 votes in each county in Florida. Or for your dozen volunteers, less than 45 successful calls per person.

But the real power of the dozen volunteers is not just the work they do directly. It is the dozen volunteers recruited by each of them, and the dozen volunteers recruited by each of those volunteers. It is the fact that these dozen volunteers believe in you that sustains you. So let's not let these dozen volunteers down again.

Let's not ever lose another election because we did not put enough resources into our ground game. Remember what a difference 538 votes would have made in 2000. For all the mistakes of the Kerry campaign in 2004, they got that lesson, sorta. They got more Democratic votes to the polls than any other candidate in history. Their problem there was that the other guy did better than they did. Who'd a thunk it?

The 2006 election cycle was one that saw many wonderful victories for our team. But I keep thinking about the one we let get away. We faced a daunting challenge. Our opponent would raise and have spent more money on his behalf than in any other campaign in the country that cycle. He had run several statewide races before. This was our guy's first try at statewide office. And we were not going to get close in the money raising department.

Still for all that, we were closing at the end. We could have won this one. So why didn't we? We did not get more of our voters to the polls than the other guy did. At the end of the day that is the only story that matters. Our team made a conscious decision to put as much of the money as they possibly could into television. It's a huge state after all. You can't win statewide in Florida playing retail politics they said.

Well, they were wrong. You can do it. One of our greatest campaigners walked throughout the entire state. Another went out and spent days working ordinary jobs with ordinary people. That's retail politics folks. And ground is cheap. Ridiculously cheap. But that is where you leverage those 12 committed volunteers. You pay your organizers to look after their care and feeding and to give them some direction. Then you get out of the way and let them do their thing.

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement. Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant.

How to Talk About Universal Health Care Insurance: Part 1

A few weeks ago I posted a diary titled How to Talk to Small Business People . So many of the comments were about health care issues that it become apparent that this was a topic in desperate need of further conversation. So instead of "How to Talk To..", today it is "How to Talk About..."

Usually you will see this subject discussed using the short hand of "Universal Health Care" as if that were the issue. That is not the issue. As we will see below the fold, we already have Universal Health Care. What we do not have is Universal Health Care insurance.

So follow along and we'll see what can be done about this situation.

We need to make one thing perfectly clear right from the start. That is that we do not have a health care crisis in this country. We do have a health care insurance crisis. No one in need of care who presents themselves for treatment is denied treatment. Ok, almost no one. But the general rule is that if you present yourself for health care, you will receive it. From VOANews.com:

Karen Davenport, executive director of health care policy for the Centerfor American Progress:"The ones that are probably of greatest concern would be the people who areuninsured who delay care and who end up using not just emergency room services,but more complex, more complicated, more intensive services when they do getcare," she said.

Since they are uninsured, these patients run up bills that they are unable to pay. More from VOANews:

"I think that we provide a high amount of uncompensated care here at Children's National Medical Center, anywhere from $28 and $30 million a year that we report that is provided as uncompensated care," noted Chavanu. "And that's really approximately eight to ten percent of our population."
According to the American Hospital Association, hospitals doled out $27 billion in uncompensated care in 2004.

Like any other business, hospitals pass along the cost of bad debts to their other customers in the form of higher prices. Unlike other businesses, hospitals are not able to control their credit risk. They treat whoever shows up. We all wind up paying for this in the form of higher hospital bills which ultimately turn into higher health care insurance premiums. So what can be done to alleviate this situation?

MALCOLM GLADWELL lays out some of the facts about our current health care system in this article in the New Yorker:

Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two andhalf times the industrialized world’s median of $2,193; the extra spending comesto hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

<snip>

The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita peryear—or close to four hundred billion dollars—on health-care-related paperworkand administration.

Other countries pay around 30% of what we spend on health care related adminstrative overhead. Between the uncompensated service hospitals provide and the excess cost of administration, there is about $300 billion needless spending in our current health care system. That comes to more than $1,000 per year for every man, woman and child in this country.
So we have plenty of room for improvemnt in the administration of our health care delivery system. There is one other myth to bust about health care in this country. We already have a working model for a single payer health care system up and running in the United States. It is called Medicare.

So who are the uninsured? The Census Bureau provides us with this information:

• In 2004, 45.8 million people were without health insurance coverage, up from 45.0 million people in 2003.
• The percentage and number of children (people under 18 years old) without health insurance in 2004 was 11.2 percent and 8.3 million.
• With a 2004 uninsured rate at 18.9 percent, children in poverty were more likely to be uninsured than all children.
• The uninsured rate and number of uninsured in 2004 was:
• 11.3 percent and 22.0 million for non-Hispanic Whites, and
• 19.7 percent and 7.2 million for Blacks.
• The number of uninsured increased in 2004 for Hispanics from 13.2 million in 2003 to 13.7 million; their uninsured rate was 32.7 percent.

These figures show us that an undue burden is placed on people of color, who also tend to be at the lower levels of the socio-economic ladder. Blacks and Hispanics make up 46% of the uninsured population. They account for only 19% of the total population.
How about some characteristics of the uninsured? Again, from the Census Bureau :

• 73% of the uninsured in the workforce worked sometime during the year.
• 63% of the uninsured who worked during the year worked at companies with fewer than 100 employees.
• 62% of the uninsured in the workforce had a high school diploma or less.

It turns out that the uninsured are not only the unemployed. In fact, nearly 3 out of 4 uninsured in the workforce had been employed during the year. Of this group, nearly 2 out of 3 worked for small businesses (less than 100 employees.) And nearly 2 out of 3 uninsured in the workforce had only a high school diploma or less.

Some of the issues and makeup of the health insurance problem have been laid out. This is the first step. In Part 2, we will talk about some proposed solutions and how to talk about them.

In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves. But be gentle.

All You Gotta Do is Act Locally

After the 2000 Presidential election debacle in Florida, I did what many of my fellow Floridians did. After I got done slamming my head up against the wall and puking at the sight of Katherine Harris (I still do that, BTW), I started doing some soul searching and some number crunching.

What came out of that was the realization that if we had just been a little smarter, worked just a little harder, we could have changed the course of history. And it was right there in front of us the whole time.

So, below the fold, I'm gonna take you to the big time, all you gotta do is...


Regardless of what we think of it, the final official vote count in Florida for the 2000 Presidential Election had Al Gore losing Florida's then 25 Electoral Votes to George W Bush by 537 votes. After the Supremes sang their final tune, ole Al sang "Turn out the lights, the party's over". And that was all she wrote.

How could this have happened? We had the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County. We had hanging and pregnant and dimpled chads. We had the Goper Goon squad led by John Bolton (yeah that John Bolton) beating on the glass at the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections office.

But all of that should not have mattered. There are those who say elections are never perfect. The only time we even care about this crap is when the elections are so close. And you know, they're right. Any plan conceived by humans becomes worthless once the opening bell rings. But it didn't have to be that way.

I live in Pinellas County Florida. Pinellas is the western anchor of the infamous I-4 Corridor in Central Florida. It is now the swing County in the swing region in the swing state. I bet my fellow Pinellans didn't get it that we are such swingers. We swung to Al Gore by 10,000 votes, so you'd think we could say we did our part. But that ain't the whole truth. The sad fact is we left 10,023 votes on the table in Pinellas. That is the number of votes rung up by erstwhile Green Party candidate Don Quiote de la Nader. Don Ralph Nader and company can be said, fairly or unfairly to have cost Al Gore the White House.

You could use the John Kerry 2000 Electoral analysis. His answer when asked in early 2003 how her was going to win in the South was an absolute classic. After his jaw stopped tightening up and his face stopped turning red, here's what he said:

If Al Gore had won New Hampshire, he'd be President of the United
States.

The last time I checked, New Hampshire was not even is Southern New England, much less the Southern United States. But that was the way Kerry looked at it. I shoulda, known, I shoulda known. I did work for Bob Graham's abortive campaign, and then sat back as Kerry claimed the nomination. And there wasn't nuthin I could do about it. So, I got on the Kerry Bandwagon and did what I could for him. But we all know how that turned out.

So, here we go into the the nascent stages of the 2008 Presidential campaign cycle. John Edwards and Tom Vilsack have announced. A host of others from Biden to Clinton to Obama and some in between are lined up waiting their turn to jump.What are we going to do this time to make the outcome better?

I tried something in the 2004 cycle. I tried to snake some of those 10,000 Ralph Nader votes back from our Green Party friends. I went to Green Party gatherings and made nice. I listened to what they had to say. I found where where our values overlapped. And I took to heart something that is the Green Party Mantra:

Think Globally and Act Locally

Once that sank in, I think I helped make a difference. And I don't think I'm anything special, or that I did anything all of y'all could have done and probably done better than I did. Ralph Nader was again on the ballot as the Green Party candidate in 2004. My pitch to the Green's was pretty simple. Greens and Dems share most of the same values. Greens could make an impact on the Dems and move the Party in their direction if the got in the game on the side of the Dems. And the clincher was my sig line:

You cain't govern if you cain't win

Did it work? Well, John Kerry lost Pinellas County by 226 votes. But Ralph Nader only got 2,042 votes in Pinellas. Did we pick up an additional 8,000 votes for Kerry? I don't know. I'd like to think so. I know we got some, maybe most.

And all I had to do was act locally.

How to Talk to Small Business People

Today we are back on track. The last two weeks have been spent on How to Talk to the Main Stream Media. While I personally thought they would be very useful, they did not get overwhelming responses. That's OK though, it was good exercise for me to run through my own personal do's and don'ts when dealing with the media.

How to Talk to Small Business People has a more "traditional" goal. Once again we will be trying to convince people who should be agreeing with us that we have the better ideas, and that our candidates are the better ones because they espouse these ideas and values. We need to do this in such a way as that our subjects will not be immediately turned off to our arguments before we even get started.

Speaking of getting started....

Cross Posted at Florida Kossacks


Small businesses create more jobs and are the sources of more innovations than any other segment of our society. They have a very strong sense of self reliance and personal accountability. Community is highly valued by Small Business People. The operate their businesses and employ people in our communities. They raise their families and worship together with us in our communities. They give back to their communities by serving in Kiwanis, Optimists, and all other manner of civic organizations, both international and local in scope.

Small Business People also vote overwhelmingly Republican. They are mistaken in their understanding of what the Republican Party stands for (by its deeds, not by its words). Most Small Business People are moderate by nature - they want their products and services to be sought out by the widest range of potential customers possible. Time and again, that has been shown to be in the "broad middle".

Define the Overarching Strategy

What is the best strategy to use when deciding How to Talk to Small Business People? It is not much different than in talking to any other segment of society you wish to persuade. The first thing to do is to identify which among your values is most applicable to this subject. Emphasize those values that are shared by the subjects, in this case Small Business People. Any facilitator of conflict resolution worth his or her own salt will first seek to identify areas of common agreement. We should view this exercise no differently.

Small Business People value personal accountability. They know full well that given an even chance, they and they alone, are responsible for their own success or failure. Small business people value community. They raise their families, worship and run their businesses in their communities. They are the backbone of the Kiwanis, the Optimists and other civic organizations. They run for City Council, belong to the Chamber of Commerce and support their churches and local charities.

Small Business People value independence and freedom from over burdensome governmental regulations. Their trade group is the National Federation of Independent Businesses. The issues that are important to them include competition, government and regulatory reform and tax relief. The NFIB website proudly proclaims:

Advocacy is a top priority for NFIB.

Their list of legislative accomplishments includes tax relief and "tort reform" amongst others.


Define the Terminology

Small Business People tend to self identify as Republicans because they believe the Republican Party is the party of business. They are only partially correct. The Republican Party is the party of big business. The Gopers give a lot of lip service to small business but that's about all they really give them. All the major legislative efforts of the Republicans have been centered on benefiting big business. Very little is actually done with small business people as the major focus.

Tax rollbacks on the very wealthy are a good example. The Republicans claimed that rolling back the tax cuts for the very wealthy would negatively impact small business people, and therefore hurt job creation, the economy, mother hood and apple pie. The truth of the matter is that most small business people are able to arrange their financial affairs in such a way as to not show very high taxable incomes. Where they are running into real problems is with the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) . This is a tax scheme that was devised to keep the super rich from avoiding paying taxes at all. It has not been modified to keep up with the times, however. So now it is going to ensnare people it was never meant to cover. We can go a long way to getting small business people on our side by making AMT reform a priority.

Fair competition is another area that small business people are getting lied to by the Republicans. I am going to use Wal Mart as an example only here. Small business people don't like the idea of welfare or government subsidies. Because of their sense of community, most of them want to provide and many do, health and other benefits for their employees. What they don't realize is that companies that hire primarily part time employees and pay them no benefits and low wages are getting subsidized by the government. These part time employees get free health care from the government when they get sick. Many of them are on food stamps and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Even though they are working, many work 2 or more jobs, their incomes are still low enough to qualify for government assistance.

When you explain to a small business person that the big company he is competing with is getting these subsidies from the government, they tend to get very unhappy. Usually when they think about welfare, they only think about the Welfare Queens ripping off the government. They don't stop to think that their competition is benefiting from the welfare system by having the government pick up the spread between a living wage and what they are actually paying their employees. When you explain that to a small business person, the idea of a living wage begins to look a whole lot more reasonable to them.

The other argument that Republican use against raising the minimum wage or a living wage is that it will cost jobs and put small business people out of business. Many states have a higher minimum wage than the Federal Minimum Wage. In Florida, we passed a State Constitutional Amendment raising the minimum wage and indexing it for inflation. Florida is still leading the nation in job creation. Scratch that argument. Small business people understand economics. After they get that the government is subsidizing below living wage paying employers, they are susceptible to another argument. That is that if you can't afford to pay a living wage ( not get the government to subsidize you), economically you should not be in that business. A truly free market would force you out of business without the government subsidies. Small Business People really get that argument.

Mangle the Memes

You are not going to get through to Small business People unless you can get past the memes that they have bee indoctrinated on since birth. Use examples to show them that the Republican Party is not the party of rugged individualists, but is instead the party of corporate welfare.

Small Business People tend to be on the patriotic side. Be ready to show them that Dems are competent to keep us safe from terrorists and will otherwise protect our national security. After all, most people now get that Dumbya did not make us safer by invading Iraq.

Don't let them get away with calling us "tax and spend" Dems. Remind them that it was a Dem President who balanced the budget and left office with a surplus. Also, it is the Dems in Congress who are bringing back pay - go budgeting. That's something small business people really understand.

We have more in common with the Small business community than most people think. We have a lot more in common with them than the Republicans really do. The Gopers have just done a better job of convincing the small business community that they share their values. In fact, we share more values in practice than the Gopers do.

If you can remember to speak to small business people in terms of our shared values, you have a very good chance to get them away from the Dark Side. You will at least have made them think about it.

And that's a start.

How to Talk to the Main Stream Media - Part 2

Authors' Note: This is the fourth in a series of "How to Talk to..." diaries.

Last week in "How to Talk to the Main Street Media" we laid out some general parameters about the media as a whole. We then proceeded to apply them only to the daily print media. This week we are going to apply these general parameters to two extreme ends of the news media.

Periodicals and Television are polar opposites in terms of the length of the news cycle and the immediacy of impact.However, the one that is more important just might surprise you...

Defining the Overarching Strategy

Last week we revealed a slightly different goal than is usual for this series. We are not trying to persuade an individual of the rightness of our position on an issue, or the worthiness of a candidate. In talking to the MSM, our goal is to use them to help us achieve those objectives.

According to Zap2it.com the top rated TV show on broadcast television drew in 23 million viewers last week. 60Minutes, the top rated TV news magazine attracted 15.8 million viewers. These are still very sizable portions of the American populace.On cable, top rated (non sports) shows and movies draw over 6 million viewers. Still nothing to sneeze at. Queen of syndicated talk shows, Oprah Winfrey, draws over 8 million viewers per day. With those kinds of audiences, television is not going away any time soon either.

The draw of television is its immediacy of impact. The proverbial gathering around the water cooler discussions of last night's TV shows do in fact occur. High impact TV events are reported on in the print media and on the internet. Television reports on print media happenings. It's all a very symbiotic relationship. Still, the key to television is its immediacy of impact.

On the other side of the coin are print periodicals. These include everything from obscure quarterly technical journals to weekly alternative magazines. They are about as far removed from immediacy of impact as you can imagine. That does not mean they do not have a very important role to play in molding public opinion. In fact, one could argue that print periodicals are both the most important media for influencing public opinion, and the easiest to influence. A perfect opportunity to influence change, if you have a mind to do so.

Define the Terminology

In college, lo so many years ago, I took a course on identifying change and tracking emerging trends. I just spent a fruitless hour searching for useful links on the subject without any luck. So, here's what is still floating around in my old and graying brain cells. If you want to spot emerging trends and changes, there is a method to do it. If you have a long term view about influencing change, you can use the change identification methods to actually influence that change.

So, what does all this have to do with print periodicals, you ask? Here's what. One of the first places you see new ideas discussed is in trade and academic journals and technical publications. You can get the ball rolling about changes you would like to see happen by suggesting a topic, or writing an article for one of these publications; or seeking out and building relationships with the editors of these publications. The next places that change is talked about is in the back pages of general circulation periodicals, or in alternative magazines. Then they will show up as featured articles in general circulation periodicals. Finally, they will make their way into the newspapers and television news reports. By then, the change has arrived. And you may have started it by a purposeful conversation with the editor of a trade or academic journal.That is why I believe that print periodicals are both the easiest to influence and the most important ways to introduce change into society, or in political thought, or whatever it is you want to influence. However, this requires patience and persistence.

On the other end of the spectrum is television news. If you want to get something out in the Main Stream Media right now, the place to go is television. Local television news is also much easier to influence than you might think possible. Most of the same methodology that applies to daily print media also applies to television. There are some important differences to consider.

Remember that TV is both an audio and a visual medium. If you are planning an event that you want to have covered by the local TV news, don't forget to think about the visuals. Visuals are a powerful tool to reinforce the message of your event. Just think about those hokey backdrops the Gopers use for their events. Even if you have the sound off, the backdrop tells you what their message of the day is.

Go to your local TV stations web sites. They all provide you with contact information to get word of your events to them. Get them in your address book and tag them press or something else so you can readily get at your list of press contacts.

TV news generally runs on a 24 hour cycle. Local news casts usually have their editorial / scheduling meetings in the mornings for the next 24 hour cycle. So, if you are having an event today, you should have had your press release to the TV station yesterday at the latest.

TV stations like email more and more as the preferred method of receiving press releases. It makes it that much easier for the gatekeeper at the TV station to distribute your press release to the right people.

Like daily print, nothing works better than developing a personal relationship with the reporters and producers at the station. TV people are even easier to spot at events than print media types. They actually appreciate folks who can help them with their story. If you develop a good relationship with a TV reporter, and you get them to care about an issue you are supporting, they can be your ally in those editorial meetings. They will actually fight to get your issue on their air.

It is all about relationships. Nowhere is this more true than dealing with periodicals. This is actually the area that is the easiest to influence, if you are patient and persistent. You must also be aware of the deadlines that apply to this sector of the media. The major difference here is that these deadlines come up much earlier for weekly and monthly or even quarterly publications. Most of these publications will provide contact information, and perhaps even submission deadlines. Plan accordingly. Study these periodicals and get a feel for what types of stories appeal particularly to them. Use this to your advantage by providing them story ideas or events that fit the bill for them.

The most intriguing aspect of periodicals to me is that you can actually plant seeds of change here and watch them grow. Of course, like any other thing that grows, it needs care and feeding. I can kill anything live that grows, but I have been able to use my ink stained thumb (no green thumb here) to plant seeds of change and I can actually see the physical results. That's a pretty cool feeling!

Mangling the Memes

The same themes apply here as with the print media. Avoid the "spin" and "talking points" traps. Be ready to defend your "spin" or "talking points", and be wiling to concede their weak points. Credibility is a bankable asset. Being known as only a spinner or a talking points spouter causes considerable withdrawals from the credibility bank account. Your influence with the media is directly proportional to the credibility in your account. Don't just parrot what the official line of your candidate or your cause. Be creative.

One of the most useful things you can provide to the MSM is background and context. This is particularly important in this age of budget constraints at the MSM. In the bad old days, MSM types developed some level of expertise in the subject matter they covered. They either came in with that background, or they stayed on that beat long enough to gain an understanding of the subject matter. These days, almost everyone is a generalist, particularly at newspapers and TV stations. They probably don't know jack about the subject matter. If you can become their trusted "expert" for background information, you will become incredibly more effective in getting your message out through the MSM.

Relationship building with MSM types can not be over emphasized. Remember, these are mostly just folks trying to do their jobs. Like any other group of individuals, some do it well, others not so well. The other major thing to remember is to work with the MSM types on the deadline pressures they are under. Get your news releases to them in a timely manner. Do your relationship building when they are not bumping up against their deadlines. Get them to think of you as an asset to them, not as an insufferable pain in the ass.

Go out there and make the story better.

Gatordem On Talking to the Media

Gatordem has a post on how activists should talk to the media. (Note: I don't use MSM.) I have no major points to add. Except that it's harder then it sounds. Just getting bloggers to discuss my David Caton Challenge was frustrating enough. Shakes and Mustang Bobby helped greatly by linking to it. It still didn't go nowhere. I don't have the resources and blogging clout to take on Caton. It was a good lesson in how online activism works.

The truth is you are not going to win every fight. The lefty bloggers fought against the bankruptcy bill and lost. Badly. Democrats in both houses caved. But if you believe in what you are doing is right then you should continue to try and make improvements in this country. It's the right thing to do. That sounds cheesy, but many people are too apathetic to care.

That kind of disregard helps the self-serving and callous. Imagine if the Left didn't fight to regain both Houses. We would have Speaker Hastert again. Or perhaps Speaker Delay. Ponder that last sentence for a moment.

How to Talk to Fear Mongers

Authors Note: This is planned to be the first of a series of "How To Talk To" diaries.

A lot has been written lately about Newt Gingrich. He has been making a lot of news with his speech in New Hampshire where he suggested that in order to be free, we would have to give up some of our freedom. But KO raised an interesting question the other night. He was asking whether what Newt was really doing was getting ready to recycle the fear card. The fear card didn't really work for the Gopers this cycle. That's because it was overwhelmed by the fiasco that is Iraq and the corruption of Congressional Gopers.

That doesn't mean that the fear card is dead. It isn't. Whoever the Goper nominee is, he will attempt to play the fear card yet again. If we are going to get our guy or gal into the White House in 2008, we are going to have to learn how to trump the fear card.

Defining the Overarching Strategy

In talking to fear mongers, our goal is to show that our party and our nominees are better suited and have better ideas to deal with the challenges posed by the current state of affairs vis a vis terrorism. Our strategy will be shaped by this goal and the basic value of Community. It is incumbent upon us to provide security for our Community, to protect it from those who would do us harm, and thus harm our Community.

The perception on the part of Community members that this security is being provided enhances the well being of the community. Conversely, the perception that this security is deficient detracts from the well being of the community. To restate our goal, it is our goal is for the Community to perceive that the level of security that our party can provide is an acceptable level.


The ideas we will use to develop the message used to achieve our goal must be delivered in a way that the community can relate to. The community must receive our message in a way that resonates with them on a personal level. This can best by done by research and real world examples. First, some research.

Democracy Corps conducted a poll October 29 through November 1, 2006 that fairly predicted that the Democrats were going to win control of the House of Representatives in a big way. The poll was conducted in the 50 most competitive Republican held districts. This poll confirmed the work of DKos poll analyst supreme Steve Singiser in his diary HOUSE ANALYSIS--Why Red Districts May Matter More published on September 16, 2006. The most telling quote from this superb analysis is this:

In this case, I am starting to wonder if the numbers are trying to tell us something. The blue-purple districts matter, because they are on our natural terrain, and we have some awesome candidates there.

I think it would be prudent for the DCCC and the DNC, however, to give some serious love to the "flyover states."

Ironically, if an electoral tsunami develops in this election year, it might come from regions that are nowhere near an ocean
.

Who would have believed that the Democrats would pick up three seats in Indiana?

That's what first Steve Singiser and then Democracy Corps told us through research. Some key points relative to this discussion from the Democracy Corps poll:

• Terrorism and National Security was the third highest ranked issue, coming in behind only the War in Iraq and the Economy and Jobs . Defeating the fear card still matters.

• Democrats trailed Republicans by 18 points on the question of who would do a better job on National Security.

This underscores the importance of being able to deal with the fear card. It is a very important issue, and the perception is that Republicans can do a better job at it then Democrats. The Iraq War was the number one issue this election cycle. I think we all hope and pray that it will not be the number one issue in the 2008 election cycle. However, with Iraq and Republican corruption out of the way, we must close the National Security gap on the Republicans. We must learn how to trump the fear card.

Define the Terminology

Defining the terminology in a war of wards is synonymous with choosing the battlefield. The first key tactic in trumping the fear card is refusing to play on the fear mongers’ battlefield. Their battlefield is littered with such discredited terms as “stay the course” and “cut and run”. Fear mongers are stubborn folks though, and they think the voters have short memories. Even if they abandon these terms temporarily, they will come back to them and their ideological cousins. Do not get trapped on the fear mongers’ battlefield. Our discussion on defeating the fear mongers’ is going to take place on the terms that we define.

The first term to define is the very conflict itself. We are always going to talk about the Conflict with Islamic Extremists. We should also refer to this as the Long Term Conflict with Islamic Extremists.

We are going to define the Main Battlefront in the Long Term Conflict with Islamic Extremists as the Battle of Ideas. Ultimately, this conflict will not be won on any physical battlefield, but on the metaphysical battlefield. This is going to be accomplished by working with the Moderate Elements in the Islamic World. In order to win the Conflict with Islamic Extremists, and the Battle of Ideas, our plans have to be Tough and Smart.

We have already seen the Bush Administrations’ ideas on how to fight this conflict. The voters have already, at least in their own minds, named this Tough and Stupid, and rejected that idea. The war in Iraq is a perfect example of this administrations’ pursuit of the Tough and Stupid battle plan. Cutting and Running in Afghanistan is another example of actually Not so Tough and Stupid.

The Bushies have also abandoned the Powell Doctrine. The Powell Doctrine speaks to the use of Overwhelming Force. What good is having the Finest Military in the World if we do not use our Conventional Superiority with Overwhelming Force? A perfect example of the Powell Doctrine is the 1991 Gulf War. There we took our time, built up our forces, engaged in a prolonged bombing campaign to debilitate the enemy, and proceeded to invade with Overwhelming Force and won the war in 96 hours. A perfect example of the abandonment of the Powell Doctrine in favor of the Tough and Stupid battle plan is the current Fiasco in Iraq.

In summary, the base of our terminology in describing the Long Term Conflict with Islamic Extremists is talking about the Conflict with Islamic Extremists as the Battle of Ideas. Our battle plan is to be Tough and Smart, and we will work with the Moderate Elements in the Islamic World. We are going to avoid the Failed Policy of Tough and Stupid that the Bushies have followed. We are not going to Cut and Run as the Bush Administration did in Afghanistan, leaving Osama bin Laden as Osama Been Forgotten.

Mangle the Memes

The final weapon in our inventory for Trumping the Fear Card is to Mangle the Memes. What this refers to is our Counter Attack Strategy. This Counter Attack Strategy is for us to reject every meme that the Bushies and their ideological successors lob at us.

We have already alluded to one such meme above, Cut and Run. Never let Cut and Run go unchallenged. Here are some counter attack lines to mangle this meme:

• The only cutting and running we have seen is this administrations cutting and running in Afghanistan.

• When the Bush Administration Cut and Ran in Afghanistan, they let Osama bin laden become Osama Been Forgotten.

• If the Bush Administration hadn’t Cut and Run in Afghanistan, they would not still be quoting Osama bin Laden. (This is actually a two-fer because it combines mangling Cut and Run with Bushies quoting Osama bin Laden.

Newt Gingrich was warming up the fear card with talk about Losing a City. Never let Losing a City go unchallenged. Here are some counter attack lines to mangle this meme:

• We have already lost a city under this Administration, its’ name is New Orleans.

• Condoleeza Rice talked about the Mushroom Cloud over a city to scare us into Iraq. I’m a lot more concerned about the Mushrooms they are eating.

• While the Bush administration had us Bogged Down in Iraq, the Real Mushroom Cloud Danger has been developing unhindered in Iran and North Korea.

The basic rule in mangling the meme is to never let a meme go unchallenged. The other side can only get away with this if you let them. So don’t let them.

In order to Trump the Fear Card, we determined which of our values applied to this problem. We defined our overarching strategy. We chose the battlefield by defining the terminology. And we counter attacked by mangling the memes.

Happy Hunting.