Why can't elected Democrats be more "on message"?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

I'm not advocating that Democrats should ape all the tactics that have worked for the Republicans recently, as many of those involve cheating or lies/slander. However some of the tactics used by the Republicans make sense from a message/propaganda point of view and don't require dishonesty, and unity of message is one of the biggies.

It's true that the Democrats don't have the whole talk radio/FOX News apparatus that the Republicans have, nor do they have the same degree of cooperation from the "regular" media that the Republicans get. Despite all this, they could still do a much better job as a party by framing the message. This does not require cheating or lying, but it does require discipline and coordination.


Example of the way the Republicans do it: The current Moveon.org brouhaha. Some genius in Republican Message Central decided that a good way to attack the antiwar movement (and, indirectly, the Democrats), would be to have basically every single Republican, every time they were in front of a microphone, attack Moveon.org and demand that the Democrats denounce them for the "Betray-us" ad. Essentially every Republican officeholder including all the major candidates have dutifully carried out this directive. Whether or not this resonates with the average American voter, who has likely never heard of Moveon.org before this, is questionable, but one thing is NOT in question: the move was a smashing success in focusing media coverage and attention on "why won't Hillary denounce Moveon.org?" (which is a no-win proposition for her, it's at best neutral) instead of "why are the President and his Party so adamant in keeping the U.S. mired in Iraq when the majority of the country wants out?" It helps having a compliant media which will ask the Hilary question instead of asking, "Hmm, why is it of any importance for Democrats to denounce Moveon.org and not for Republicans to disavow everything Ann Coulte or Rush Limbagh say"?

Potential Democratic Example: The congressional session is notable for the Republicans blocking virtually every measure from the Democrats related to the Iraq War through threatened filibuster. Even without assistance from regular news and FOX-like outfits, the party could be "on message" by having every Democratic officeholder utter certain phrases when interviewed on any of the blocked bills or amendments. "Roadblock Republicans", "obstructionist", "filibuster" etc. When you read news coverage about the failures to pass Webb amendment (troop rotation time in the U.S. equal to deployed time), the Leahy Habeas Corpus restoration act, the timeline for withdrawal tied to funding etc., you rarely see any of these words used. At minimum, if Democratic officeholders are interviewed on the subject, they should always use some or all of these words. You hear Webb saying something like he's "disappointed" by the failure to pass the amendment, but instead there should be a universal comment to the effect of "The record shows that this Democratic Congress is trying to pass bills to move us in the right direction towards ending our involvement in Iraq and treating our troops fairly, but we are being repeatedly blocked by the obstructionists in the Roadblock Republican Party, who are abusing their ability to filibuster by filibustering every bill we create to move us in the right direction. We hope that the American people will hold the Republicans accountable in 2008 for these abuses." But instead, you hardly ever see the word "Republican" even used at all, even by the Democrats who are being obstructed.

If the Democrats, when being interviewed about these votes, answered in a few simple sentences that always contained these phrases, it would HAVE to be reported that way.

If the Democratic Party members followed a strategy like this, by November 2008 the idea that the Republicans are ACTIVELY blocking the way out of Iraq as a unified party couldn't help but be drilled into the heads of most people, even without a thousand FOX News and Rush Limbaughs parroting the party line. It's not even dishonest. It's the truth. The only party TRYING to find a way out of Iraq is the Democrats, and they are being obstructed at every turn by a unified Republican front. What's wrong with EVERY Democratic officeholder repeating this important and true message, easily borne out by inspection of the voting records, when the Republicans are making at least a little hay out of unified message on a stupid point like the attack on Moveon.org? :shrug:

These Democratic Congressmen, Congresswomen and Senators have gotten elected to high office. They are intelligent, understand politics, and have highly paid consultants who presumably understand about message. Even if they were naive before, they've had 20 years or so to witness Republican use of these tactics, from the Reagan era onwards, to learn their lesson and apply at least some of the most successful tactics, which are not even necessarily unethical. I find it puzzling and frustrating the apparent failure to use the most obvious methods, which seem clear enough to me as someone who is not a political professional. I don't think they are ignorant at all about these methods, it makes me feel that they lack the courage to attack their opponents, preferring instead to wait it out until 2008 and get more electoral victories like in 2006, by default, due to voter disgust with the results of 8 years of Bush. I don't personally think much of that strategy.