"We were a little surprised"
Are the Democrats too nice for a knife fight?
"We were a little surprised"
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "it's deja vu all over again."
This morning, as I scanned a New York Times story about President Obama's "new playbook" for the health care debate, I was stopped by this paragraph:
"And Democratic Party officials enlisted in the fight by the White House acknowledged in interviews that the growing intensity of the opposition to the president’s health care plans — within the last week likened on talk radio to something out of Hitler’s Germany, lampooned by protesters at Congressional town-hall-style meetings and vilified in television commercials — had caught them off guard and forced them to begin an August counteroffensive."
Then, a few paragraphs later, a top Democratic communicator weighed in: "To be fair, I think we were probably a little surprised - just a little - at the use of swastikas and the comparisons to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich that even Rush Limbaugh has fanned the flames on. And we were a little surprised at the mob mentality."
Then, farther down in the piece, an Obama administration deputy added this: "The lesson we’ve learned is you ignore these rumors at your peril, and the right answer is to take them head on in as big a way as possible."
All the italics are mine. All of which prompts me to wonder (for the umpteenth time) whether there is some fundamental flaw in the Democratic gene pool that fuels their perpetually delusional belief that noble intentions are sufficient to prevail in a knife fight.
They were "caught off guard" by the cacophonous conservative assault on health care reform. They were "probably a little surprised." They now insist that they have learned "lessons" about how it's nuts to simply let the nuts peddle their lies.
This is where Yogi's deja vu rule kicks in. Over and over, decade after decade, the Democrats have revealed their naivete.
Back in the 1988 presidential race, it was Mike Dukakis; amidst all the smears being heaped upon him by the Republicans during that long hot summer (polluter! pal of rapist! funny Greek name! crazy wife! flag-hater!), the candidate and his advisers sat back and did nothing, convinced that voters would never swallow such slop. They did, he plummeted in the polls, and he never recovered.
During the 1993-4 health care reform battle, the Clinton White House was outmaneuvered by the Republican right and their corporate allies, who swayed the electorate with all kinds of devious hyperbole. And, more recently, in the 2004 presidential race, John Kerry and his advisers sat back and did nothing for three crucial summer weeks, absolutely convinced that voters would never believe the Swift Boat attacks on his Vietnam record. That strategy worked out pretty well.
And now we have the Obama people, waking up to the idea that maybe it's not politically wise to sit mute and allow themselves to be tarred as fascists who would euthanize granny, ration health care, and slash Medicare benefits. (It's priceless to hear the Republicans portraying themselves as the defenders of Medicare, given the fact that, if they had been in charge back in 1965, they never would have enacted Medicare in the first place. But I digress.)
The Republican right understands the power of the visceral; it knows how to stoke emotions at the expense of civility. This is not exactly a fresh observation, yet it's amazing how flat-footed Democrats seem always to discover it anew. They seem forever convinced that the power of high ideals should be sufficient for victory - that, in the present case, Americans should simply be convinced, on the merits, that health care reform is preferable to the dysfunctional status quo. As Howard Paster, Clinton's health care guy in 1993, told The Times this morning, "The expectation (among the Obama people) was that things have gotten so bad in the last 16 years that there would be a consensus on the need to act this time."
But that's not how the other team plays the game. Indeed, numerous Democratic strategists and commentators have been trying to make this point for a long time. A couple years ago, for instance, radio host and ex-California Democratic chairman Bill Press offered this advise to his brethren: "In politics, if somebody slaps you on the cheek, you punch him in the nose. Then you punch him in the gut. Then you kick him in the groin. Then you crack a chair over his head. Then, just to make sure, you jump up and down on top of him with both feet...The only way to win is to fight back. Hard and tough. If they don't, they don't deserve to win."
Press was characteristically a tad over the top, but his basic point was that Democrats should stop being surprised to learn that politics ain't beanbag. This is not to suggest that Obama should retaliate by retailing lies equal in virulence to those being spewed by his opponents; if he was to conduct himself as his opponents are doing, he would be promptly attacked for failing to change the tone in Washington.
His best option is to do what he probably should have done months ago: find an attractively repeatable health reform pitch that can fit on a bumper sticker, something that can appeal to positive emotions. (Perhaps if Obama had done that during the spring, he could have at least partially preempted the nabobs of negativity.) Indeed, there are reports today that Obama will now pitch his plan as a vehicle for ending unfair insurance practices, for protecting the millions of Americans who have pre-existing health conditions.
Maybe a positive emotional pitch can still work - unless it is too little, too late, and insufficient weaponry for an alley fight.
Dems seem to be afraid to roll in the sewer for fear of getting [spit] on them. Repubs have no problem at all getting down and dirty. Hey, it worked on me! I bought some of those horrible negative tactics in spite of my alleged fealty to rational discussions, fact-checking and higher moral ground. I'm still mad at myself for getting swiftboated into voting for "W" in 2004 out of fear. It's part of why I lean against R's. They cheat, distort and play on fears and then say it's part of the game. Might as well root for the NE Patriots or BoSox. (The real trouble is that Dems cheat, distort and play on fears, too.)— Phrossty
Comment removed.- From that perpetually liberal Washington Post: "The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems."— the stupid does burn
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- no good deed or thought goes unpunished in the land of the spree home of the knave— snarque
- Not sure why liberals are pooh-poohing any of the protest on this issue. Wehn you underestimate the opposition, you do so at your own peril. It seems some on the right have used this:. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. 2. Never go outside the experience of your people. 3. Whenever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. 4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. 5. Ridicule is mans most potent weapon. 6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. 7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. 8. Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose. 9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. 10. The major premise of tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. 11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside. 12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. 13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it. And they have used it to their benefit.— Dopespotter
- "I have no idea. I understand -- and you have to check this out -- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that IS NUTS. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up. "It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you.... And it's a voluntary deal." - Sen. Johnny Isakson (R) of Georgia (ranked the seventh most conservative senator by National Journal)— the stupid does burn
- Well according to Republicans, ACORN should be saving the day right about now. You know ACORN or maybe MOVE-ON, those groups so evil and powerful that their skills will be needed to counter a Facebook entry from a failed Alaskan Governor...— pagoda
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The tables are turned, Conservatives are the new radicals, and the Liberals are the establishment. HELL NO, WE WON'T GO!!!!!— jmc- XI - From the same article "Long-term deficit predictions have proven notoriously fickle _ George W. Bush inherited flawed projections of a 10-year, $5.6 trillion surplus and instead produced record deficits _ and if the economy outperforms CBO's expectations, the deficits could prove significantly smaller."— Ender
- The role models the republicans have that attend these meetings are all self absorbed loud mouths that do not have conversations with their opponets on issues, they have screaming matches, so that is their best example to follow. Everyone has a right to speak out but in a constructive and mature matter. The lies they are spreading are unbelievable but easy to disprove .— hejira33312
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- Of course everyone should be worried about the national deficit. But also realize that sometimes you have to spend money upfront to save over the long term. Anyone who works in business knows this to be true. Health care costs are a long-term threat to are national budget. What do the Republicans suggest we do???— Ender
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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