Drew Weston (Huffpo): "What Created the Populist Explosion..."

[OneGrassRoot]

"What Created the Populist Explosion and How Democrats Can Avoid the Shrapnel in November"

To say that the American people are angry is an understatement. The political brain of Americans today reflects a volatile mixture of fear and fury, and when you mix those together, you get an explosion. The only question at this point is how to mitigate the damage when the bomb detonates in November.

The bad news is that it's too late for Democrats to do what would have been both good policy and good politics (and what the House actually did do), namely to pass a major jobs bill when it was clear that the private sector couldn't keep Americans employed. The "Obama Doctrine" should have been that Americans who want to work and have the ability to contribute to our productivity as a nation should have the right to work, and that if the private sector can't meet the demand for jobs, we have plenty of roads and bridges to fix, new energy sources to develop and manufacture, and schools to build and renovate so our kids and workers returning for training can compete in the 21st century global economy. From having spent much of the last four years testing messages on a range of issues, from immigration to taxes and deficits, I can say with some certainty that nothing John Boehner or Eric Cantor could say could come within 30 points of generating the enthusiasm -- particularly among swing voters -- of a message that began, "We don't have a shortage of work ethic in this country, we have a shortage of work." That message resonates across the political spectrum. And it isn't even the strongest message we've tested in the last weeks or months that beats back the toughest deficit-cutting language the other side can muster.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/what-created-the-populist_b_699960.html

[Bonhomme Richard]

1. "But Democrats need to play offense." Now there's the rub. n/t

[yurbud]

2. ''We don't have a shortage of work ethic in this country, we have a shortage of work.''

That would end the election right there in the Democrats favor.

The GOP's favorite claim is that if someone is unemployed it is because they are too lazy to find a job, not that their job has been outsourced to Bangladesh or cut to make a corporation look more profitable on paper for a quarter.

[yurbud]

3. great paragraph on how to win swing voters (and it aint by being half of this and half of that)

]The underlying psychological assumption of these moves is that if you mix policies from the right and left in equal parts, you win the center.In fact, no one has ever won the center that way. It appears weak, opportunistic, and incoherent to the average swing voter, which is particularly problematic at a time when people in the center desperately want to know that their leaders have a vision and a coherent plan for what to do (which is why both FDR and Ronald Reagan were so effective in moving voters in the center). It doesn't win any votes on the right. But it does have one predictable effect: It sucks the motivation out of your base, who feel demoralized and betrayed (if they're part of the "professional left") or less likely to vote (if they're average voters who don't follow politics carefully but just don't feel very enthusiastic anymore, even if they don't really know why).

[yurbud]

4. the only thing that can be said in defense of Dems mush-mouthed messaging:

if they said anything that was too on point, the mainstream media would simply ignore.

For example, I was mystified that more in Congress hadn't spoken out sharply about the oil motive before the Iraq War, digging around in the Congressional Record, I was able to find some very lengthy statements on the floor asking all the right questions. But I never saw any coverage of it on TV or in a newspaper.