Most Americans think incoming Congressmen who campaigned against the health care bill should put their money where their mouth is and decline government provided health care now that they’re in office. Only 33% think they should accept the health care they get for being a member of Congress while 53% think they should decline it and 15% have no opinion.
But Republicans and independents- who put these folks in office in the first place- strongly think they should refuse their government provided health care. GOP voters hold that sentiment by a 58/28 margin and indys do 56/27.
Hypocrisy arguments really resonate with conservative voters. I’m not crazy about relying on HYPOCRISY, I think that approach can easily enter the realm of the deeply stupid and irrelevant (Al Gore took an airplane to a conference, so take that, liberal!) but conservatives are madly in love with this approach.
I have only to look at their perennial favorite-Obama sends his children to private schools!- to see that, and this issue is beautiful, because liberals can simply demand that conservatives purchase health insurance on the current private market. That’s the conservative policy position, so the public versus private schools comparison doesn’t hold up.
Obama believes there should be both public and private schools. He’s not advocating outlawing private schools, and he doesn’t denigrate public schools. Conservatives, on the other hand, ran on overturning the Affordable Care Act, and demonize any public program or federal scheme as a path to tyranny.
Conservatives are more vulnerable to hypocrisy charges, because their positions are so deeply dogmatic and rule-bound. The “free market” solution is ALWAYS better, no matter the facts or circumstances. Liberals are okay with Social Security alongside a private retirement account, while conservatives are dogma-bound to trash Social Security-it’s a PONZI SCHEME, after all, and who in their right mind defends a Ponzi scheme?
They fed their rabid supporters a steady diet of raw meat, and I suspect they’ll have trouble introducing nuance or facts into any discussion of, well, anything, at this point.
Too, in the 6 or so years I’ve sporadically attended political events for Sherrod Brown, this was always a huge applause line, even with a liberal audience:
Brown has refused to participate in the government’s array of health insurance plans for 17 years, saying they are more generous than the coverage choices that many other Americans get. Why should Congress get such sweet coverage? he asks
Brown must recognize that it’s effective, because he used it again, with the public option, in 2009:
Whenever Democrats talk about their proposed federally backed insurance plan, or public option, in the ongoing health-care debate, critics pipe up. If you think this public option is so great, they say, why don’t you demand that all members of Congress go on it, too? Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown says that’s a fine idea. And this morning, he forced his way onto a Republican amendment saying as much, becoming a co-sponsor of a Republican protest measure that would require Congress to go on the public option if it passes.
Democrats should pursue this, if only because it’s a favored tactic of conservative leaders. It’d be fun to throw it back at them.
Brachiator
Republican members of Congress should reject government health care and government pensions. And any who refuse to do so should be challenged on it non-stop.
Sadly, they won’t be, at least not by what remains of the ever-shrinking media.
And yeah, given rules about ex post facto laws, the Congress could pass a law saying that all future members would have to self-insure and self-fund their own pensions, even if current members continued to claim these benefits.
Mike Kay
you can frame it in terms of ear marks-plus.
if you think government spending on ear marks are bad and promise a self moratorium,
then you should add government spending on congressional healthcare to the self moratorium.
FoxinSocks
I think this is a great idea. My rep and Senators are all Democrats, but after the new Congress is sworn in, I plan on calling freshmen Republican members and seeing who’s willing to give up their loathsome government-run health care.
I do know two GOP reps have already pledged to do so: Rep.-elect Mike Kelly (PA) and Rep.-elect Bobby Schilling (IL).
Rick Massimo
This hits it on the head: Sure, a “HYPOCRISY!” chant is silly and can easily go off the deep end into ridiculousness. But it works on conservatives; anecdotal outrage is all they know and all they want to know. Playing this up wouldn’t do anything more than get conservatives to play defense against their own base, but that’s a thing worth doing.
Kay
@Brachiator:
Political media require a poll. Have you noticed that? Now they have a poll. I’m not entirely confident these “issue polls” are valid, and I know advocates spin them to push a favored position, but members of the press treat them as the gold standard.
The People Have Spoken.
Suck It Up!
Speaking of hypocrites:
via: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/11/three_ways_democrats_are_going.html
Bob
There really no hypocrisy here. Republicans didn’t run on a “no government health care” platform, they ran on a “no government health care as the default position.” They explicitly support employer provided health care. As a Senator or Representative is employed by the federal government, employer provided health care will be provided by the federal government.
Kay
@FoxinSocks:
Ask him why he wants to retain the “Ponzi Scheme” that is Social Security. If it’s in fact a ponzi scheme, it should be repealed, pronto, right?
Surely conservatives can’t sit idly by and allow this to continue. It’s an OUTRAGE!
Kay
@Bob:
Sadly for them, their voters don’t agree. It’s tough to introduce factual distinctions when you’ve been peddling hyperbole and lies for two years.
gnomedad
Excellent point, and it’s going in my tool kit. Liberals generally favor a mixed public/private approach, while the right thinks sidewalks are ZOMG SOSHULIST!
Nora Carrington
This is a stupid argument, sorry. Conservatives suggest the open market for insurance for those persons who don’t get insurance as a benefit of employment, not for every single person.
Congressional health care is provided as a benefit of employment, which is the way the majority of other Americans under 65 get theirs, too, so there’s nothing hypocritical about their taking it. The unspoken objection of the conservative objection to HCR is that it provides access to insurance for people who don’t/aren’t working, and people who are doing the jobs that don’t provide that benefit.
But since they also believe conservatives are above average, and therefore get the good jobs that come with the good bennies, they’re ok with screwing everybody else.
That the folks who voted for this latest crop of Know Nothings think it’s a fine argument gives low information a whole new meaning.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Brachiator:
This gets right to the nuts of what’s wrong with the progressive strategy, relying on the damn media. No, they won’t do it. The media makes a living off the simple-mindedness of the American people, does it not?
But the fucking CANDIDATES can go that route, can’t they? You can’t control the media narrative, but damn if you can’t control a 30-second commercial you paid for.
This is a winner not just on HCR, but on just about everything – all of the so-called “class warfare” issues. Try and name one Republican Senator or Representative (or presumptive Presidential candidate) who cannot be called out on charges of gross hypocrisy on any number of things. I can’t think of one.
This is a winning strategy. Almost as good as that old story about LBJ contemplating accusing an opponent an opponent of being a pigfucker in a close Texas race. It may not be true, but listen to the comedy ensue when they try and deny it.
In this case, it’s a winner because it’s true.
Bob
@Kay
I’m not taking the right wing position. I dislike the health care bill because I support single payer – government all the way. It’s just that I believe it important to be factually accurate. The right is NOT opposed to health care for federal workers, the military, etc. I work for the army – in a very conservative environment. I hear right wing arguments every day. And I am constantly told what Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and all the rest of the echo chamber have to say about this. And they don’t say strip federal employees of their health insurance.
And please, don’t bother digging up some quote from a lone blogger or fringe politician saying federal employees should lose their health insurance. That is not a standard position on the right.
JD Rhoades
No they’re not, because the lazy corporate media rarely calls them on it. The only one who does on a regular basis is a comedian, and that’s just sad.
J
@Bob: Bob is right. The Republican position is a disgrace–the lies, the slanders, the willingness to see people go without vital health care, the abject devotion to corporate profit over human well-being and so on–but it’s not, so far as regards this point, hypocritical.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Kay: Kay provides a great case in point.
Social Security. Earmarks. Taxes. Defense spending. Medicare. Hell, watch the closet freaks who jump up and down on “values issues” close enough, and you’ve got hypocrisy there, too.
It’s a winner. The Democrats should beat it like a damn drum from now until 2012.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@JD Rhoades: Again, the reliance on the damn media.
The Democrats can wish, in one hand, for the media to fight their damn battles, and shit in the other hand.
See which fills up first.
corwin
I get the sentiment, but if republicans went out to the private market to get their own insurance, they’d wind up with platinum level coverage at no cost to themselves. They provide a very valuable service to the insurance companies, and the insurance companies would have no problem covering a few hundred representatives and senators for just about nothing so long as those representatives and senators continue to block any substantive change to our health care coverage. And in the end, that would be one less hold we would have over our government, tenuous as it already is. The surprising thing is that the republicans haven’t figured this out.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Best God damn advice the Democrats have ever received was posted here, on July 24 of this year, by a poster named Jennifer:
This is the question: Why the fuck DON’T we do this?
Linkmeister
If hypocrisy worked as a strategy David Vitter wouldn’t have been re-elected. Orrin Hatch, whose behavior on the Judiciary Committee flips depending on which party is in power, would have been tossed out four years ago. Innumerable other Republican Congressmen (and it is all men, I think) would have been tossed when their affairs and adulterous behavior became public knowledge.
Doesn’t happen very often.
MaximusNYC
I wish this were true. Actually, contemporary conservatives are the greatest moral relativists I’ve ever seen, because they seem, in general, to be unable to even SEE the hypocrisy of which so many in their movement are guilty.
This blindness to hypocrisy seems to be a combination of lack of information, lack of intelligence, and lack of fair-mindedness.
Thus the phrase “It’s OK if you’re a Republican”.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bob: The problem with this analysis is that they are also down on people riding the government job gravy train. They can be the change they want to see in others.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Linkmeister: David Vitter’s kinks had such a * *shudder* * factor about them that I don’t think any party or candidate wanted to touch it for fear of seeming too … I don’t know the word I’m looking for.
But this shit about “keeping it classy” or “rising above the tawdry” or whatever you want to call it is a damn loser. It is a fraternal twin to “bipartisanship,” and we’ve seen how far that shit gets you.
The Democrats need to learn how to fight to win or they need to go the hell home.
Class warfare is a winner because everybody’s a soldier in that war whether they want to be or not.
The Democrats/progressives need to start now. Where is it written in stone that political ads can only be run in the weeks and months before an election? I’m not saying to saturate the airwaves with them, but I am saying to plant the seeds now, strategically. Hell, run them on Fox. They’ll run them just as long as the checks clear the bank. And if Fox’s viewers complain, well, that’s Fox’s audience to answer.
The “Fair and Balanced” network can refuse to run them – hypocrisy – or tell their viewers to pound sand – hypocrisy.
Brachiator
@Kay: RE: Sadly, they won’t be, at least not by what remains of the ever-shrinking media.
Oh yes, the political media are poll dancers. They love to work the poll.
The only problem is that once they have tied everything up neatly into a poll, they move on to the next story. No follow up is needed because you’ve got that poll that tells you everything and nothing.
I also agree that many “issue polls” are meaningless. But more important, the GOP create their own reality. They follow or ignore anything in a poll and stick to their own script. So, for example, Dubya was supported by the Republicans in part because he ignored the fickle polls, while Obama is expected to bend to the will of the people, as interpreted by the Republican Oracles at Fox.
Judas Escargot
Hypocrisy only works when it shames the target in front of a neutral audience.
The GOP has no shame, and the rest of us have no audience.
In fact, they just might double down on your dare and push a Bill to cut or kill health insurance for Federal workers. Especially if their dim brains figured out that would make Congress even more plutocratic (who would be able to run for office, or accept a Cabinet position, if that meant losing your health insurance for 2-6 years?).
suzula
This is not quite true:
Obama believes there should be both public and private schools. He’s not advocating outlawing private schools, and he doesn’t denigrate public schools.
He is in favor of charter schools, which in spite of all the hype, are not really public schools.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Judas Escargot:
God damn, what a bunch of defeatists. The GOP hasn’t won a damn thing. The progressives have just given up.
Yutsano
@Evolved Deep Southerner: This. When the Republican majority in the House finds it can’t do bupkess because of two big roadblocks standing in the way, they’ll howl and hoot and holler…and things don’t get better. I still say they have the onus to perform now, and folks want solutions NAOW!! so the more they keep getting blocked or intentionally blocking the more it’s going to cost them. Plus they are in a purity dilution cycle that will result in even more teabagger challenges. I haz my popcorn stocked up and the butter waiting to be melted.
Gordon Guano
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Well, when MoveOn had money to pay for an ad during the 2004 Super Bowl, the networks declined to take it. Getting the message through the corporate filter isn’t just a matter of having the will and the money.
Mnemosyne
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Assuming that the outlet you try to buy time on lets you buy that time, of course. Commercials are turned down all of the time.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Mnemosyne: Easy answer to that. Fox turns you down, run it on CBS with a one-sentence preamble:
“We tried to post this message on the Fox News Channel, but they were afraid their viewers couldn’t handle the truth.”
(Edited for a gratuitous nod to Jack Nicholson.)
Mnemosyne
@Bob:
Actually, the Republicans have tried to cut VA benefits several times. John McCain tried to severely limit how many people could benefit from the GI Bill.
Republicans absolutely love to cut veterans’ benefits while they blather on about how much they love war.
WereBear
@Evolved Deep Southerner: That would be awesome!
I wish.
Mnemosyne
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
And if CBS, ABC and NBC all turn you down — which is not at all unusual for a controversial ad — what’s the plan then?
boatboy_srq
@Bob:
As I’ve said elsewhere this isn’t exactly correct. In fact it’s one of the chief criticisms of the Tea Party mindset: the folks who rail that “government hasn’t created a single job” view their election to Congress as just that. Andy Harris summed up the misconception nicely, while complaining about not being on the health plan immediately:
First, they weren’t hired – they were elected. Furthermore, they weren’t hired to work for the government, they were elected to represent their states or districts and legislate for the benefit of the citizens therein.
Public office isn’t a job, it’s a civic duty. Yet these yahoos continue to view it as a job. A job with really nice benefits, but a job nonetheless.
There’s a serious disconnect between their views on their position and responsibility and their views on government employment. Either government doesn’t employ people – in which case they’re sponging off the public sphere – or it does – in which case they have no business killing off public sector employment since they’re part of it. Letting them have it both ways – where they are “employees” but the folks whose programs are being cut somehow are not – is dishonest.
Also, if “employer-subsidized healthcare” is part of the package incoming Congresspeople receive, then there is a very sound argument that, in this age of fascination with government overspending, benefits like that should be scaled back, and done so drastically. Huffington Post ran an article recently that suggests that if the GOP caucus alone swore off just the healthcare coverage for only one year, it would save the federal government $2.4 million. That’s chump change for the deficit hawks, but it’s chump change that they seem to think is responsible cost-cutting for the private sector. As Congress’ “employers” the public has every right to ask for such cutbacks, and suggesting that we do not further undermines the Congress-as-employment meme since Congress works for us.
@corwin:
A program such as you describe would fall under campaign contributions, and possibly bribery. It might make them more comfortable in the short-term, but it would make for one hell of an attack campaign in the following cycle: fat-cat Republicans are taking free healthcare from the same guys who want to keep denying care to the rest of us for profit. It’s not as if the Congressional healthcare coverage isn’t private already (Blue Cross is the primary provider), so opting for an individual plan from the same set of providers won’t move the money around much, but making them swear off the group coverage that Teh Gubmint negotiated and take out individual coverage would be in keeping with their stated principles. If they pay, they prove they’re suckers at the corporate teat: if they don’t then the nature of their complaints becomes far more clear – and possibly worthy of prosecution as well as dismissal from office for the conflict of interest.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Gordon Guano: Well, more money for the outlets who deserve it, then.
Gordon, if it caught on, the “corporate filter” would get a shitload more porous right quick-like.
Let those fuckers refuse our money. And call them out on it in every other commercial you run.
And keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it, and doing it.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Mnemosyne: See my response to Gordon.
Why do you all view the playing field as something over which you have no control? Why look for excuses not to take what is obviously the most effective action and quit before you try?
The “corporate filters” are in this thing to make money, and they don’t want to leave a damn dime on the table. Success begets success. They’ll run the damn things eventually.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@WereBear: See “Wish in one hand and …” comment above.
This is doable, folks. The Super Bowl – hell, all of the big networks – aren’t the only place to advertise, are they? Their relevance is waning, and they will be even less relevant in 2012 than they are right now.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Mnemosyne: And what the hell is so “controversial” about Jennifer’s prototype ad above?
God damn, it’s not like it’s a spot where someone’s waving a bloody fetus around.
Mnemosyne
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
A Lane Bryant ad was banned because it showed an attractive plus-sized woman in her underwear. CBS refused an ad from the United Church of Christ touting themselves as gay-friendly as “too controversial” but ran a Focus on the Family anti-abortion ad.
When your opponent is playing with a stacked deck, it’s foolish to keep insisting on playing the game straight. “The media” isn’t just the news shows — it’s the whole network, including the ads — and they play the exact same games that they play on the political shows themselves.
ETA: 30 or 60 second ad buys are foolish, because it’s easy for the networks to refuse them. But a half-hour infomercial wouldn’t run into the same problems. You need to turn your attention away from what used to work and look at different approaches.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Mnemosyne: Ah, well. when you put it that way, you’re right. We don’t have a fucking chance in hell of getting our message out there anywhere. We may as well eat the gruel we’re served and not even attempt to answer the nonsense.
Svensker
@boatboy_srq:
And yet they object to the benefits that Federal union employees get. Wonder what the difference is?
Mnemosyne
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
No, I’m saying that a 30 or 60 second ad buy is a stupid way to go. It’s a waste of money, because the networks won’t show it, or will only show it at 2 am.
Infomerical. It worked for Obama during the campaign. But you’re so blindly focused on your Perfect Solution that you can’t see the flaws with it and refuse to look at alternative ideas.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Mnemosyne: And for the record, I’m not talking about “playing the game straight.” That’s what I’m arguing AGAINST.
When a media outlet turns you down, call those fuckers out on their cowardice everywhere else. If the outcry gets loud enough, they’ll have to answer it – and then your message is getting out through them for free.
Let Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck get on their shows and “finally dispel all the nonsensical hoopla about [name of “Jennifer ad” organization], and let me tell you why Fox refuses to run them.”
Some percentage of people will go wherever your message IS available and see what the hell all the uproar is about.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Mnemosyne: Mnemosyne, look, I’m really not trying to argue with you, promise, and I’m not saying I’ve got the Perfect Solution, but to wage an effective campaign for change, you’ve got to have a) a winning message, and b) channels for that message.
Would you not agree we’re halfway there, that we have a winning message that would resonate with a good portion of the American public?
Who gives up when you’re halfway there? Just saying “Oh, they’ll never run it!” before you’ve tried … I mean, the lack of fight there!
And when you pay good money for 30- or 60-second spots, believe me, you have some control over the time slots. I never said this was something that could be done COMPLETELY on the cheap.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Mnemosyne: And I am completely DOWN with the infomercial idea. You will have absolutely no argument from me on that. That, in fact, is exactly the same kind of alternative channel I’m talking about.
Mnemosyne
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Again, you are much, much more optimistic than I am. It’s the entire media complex that’s against us, not just the news divisions. You can waste your money on that if you want, but, really, how many people heard about the UCC controversy except as “oh, those liberals are whining again”?
Only if the network accepts the ad. They have control over what runs on their network, and they can turn any ad down that they feel like turning down. There is no First Amendment right that requires the network to take your money and run your ad.
I just don’t have your optimism that (1) the ad would be accepted at all or (2) that it would run someplace where the people you would want to see it would see it. It seems like a waste of money to me that could be more usefully spent elsewhere.
Bob
Mnemosyne @ 32
Why should VA benefits be frozen at some arbitrary level? Cutting, or adding to them, is not an inherently bad thing. The terms of my health insurance contract change every year, as do most peoples. Cutting benefits is not the same as eliminating benefits.
Bob
boatboy @ 35:
That would sound insightful in an 8th graders paper on “America’s Constitution” but it really is quite meaningless. Being a Senator or Representative by any meaningful definition IS a job. A job which includes pay, retirement package, health care, etc.
There is no dishonesty involved. If you gained power today are there any federal jobs you would cut? Would you reduce defense spending, the intel agencies budgets, slash TSA? Of course there are jobs you would cut, just as Republicans want to cut some. They aren’t arguing that they are eliminating some ethereal black hole sucking up money: they argue they are cutting department budgets and eliminating government jobs. You really need to stop parsing this thing. Serving in congress is a fucking job. It’s really not complicated. There are so many legitimate attacks available on Republican thinking I have no clue why you are so desperately trying to make something of this dog of an argument.
Evolved Deep Southerner
If you can’t win on “class warfare” in this economic climate, when the disparity between the winners and losers of that ongoing war is so stark and simply point-at-able, what other argument is a winner?
Yeah, they’ll try to make “class warfare” into the same kind of dirty word as “liberal” or, now, “progressive.” They’ve already succeeded on that to some extent. We need to take it back.
That, in a nutshell, is the story of the Democrats’ haplessness.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Mnemosyne:
OK, NOW we’re getting somewhere.
Where would it be better spent? I’m not sold on network television, for sure. I watch very little of it myself, but I’m not the kind of voter we need to get onboard, either.
I still think you underestimate how reluctant even a mighty network would be to refuse money, I don’t care if it were from Satan himself on a recruitment ad.
But let’s assume you’re right, they’d never run it, or the price for running it would be so high that it would be wasteful.
Where?
Nick
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
The Democrats don’t need the media to fight their battles for them, they need the media to at least broadcast the battle.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Nick: Two words to that: Bitch louder.
It works for the Teabaggers. And God knows, if we don’t represent a more attractive demographic than that crowd …
Mike in NC
After the election was over I learned that the shitbird the teabaggers were backing for a House seat had promised them he’d do everything in his power (ha!) to have Congressional salaries cut by 25%. The assholes actually fell for such a cynical bit of pandering, too, as he got nearly 40% of the vote.
Nick
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
No, it doesn’t. Teabaggers have the luxury of already been paid attention to.
President Obama probably tweets more than Sarah Palin does, but that doesn’t stop the media from ignoring him and paying attention to every word she tweets.
boatboy_srq
@Bob:
If calling out TPers over taking benefits they want to deny others getting paychecks from the government, or asking them why they have “jobs” in the public sector but the guys whose paychecks are coming from stimulus-finded projects don’t, is somehow unrelated to the original blogpost, then perhaps you should say that.
Actually, they are attempting to argue against black holes sucking up money. The GOP has made a great deal out of how the various efforts to spur the economy through public projects aren’t “providing jobs.” Cantor, McConnell, Kyl, McCain, Issa and a host of others have used this rhetoric endlessly to condemn such efforts. They’ve also gone after additional spending as somehow worse than budgetary discipline, and have railed incessantly at unemployment benefits as enabling some nebulous slacker druggie subclass. By their logic there IS no such thing as public sector employment, only public sector largesse. So their whining about the conditions of their own “employment” is disingenuous.
Certainly there are public functions that have less merit than others: the difference is in making policy decisions based on whether a program is having the desired effects versus advocating elimination of whole cabinet-level departments because government employees don’t actually work. The rhetoric from the right has sounded less like that of small-government adherents and more that of like corporate raiders: it wasn’t long ago that people who bought companies to break them up and sell the pieces for a quick buck ranked among society’s villains. I don’t think this is the sort of responsible government we should expect.
I’m not suggesting that anyone elected to public office shouldn’t be compensated for the work done while in office. But too much of the undertone from the TP sounds like the language of people who think that bouncing between public office – replete with private sector perks – and cushy K Street lobbying gigs is what honorable careers are made of. And too much of their talk condemns the workers in programs that are improving the commons for the same things they are expecting when they are sworn in, or in Harris’ case two months early.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nick: Yes, we’ve heard it Nick. Nothing can be done. Obama is the most amazing President ever but Jews control the media and won’t give him a break.
Serious question: do you get paid to say the same shit over and over in here or are you brain damaged?
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Nick: You remember those late-in-the-death-cycle-of-the-Flintstone-spinoff cartoons, the “Teen Flintstones?”
That sounds like Schleprock: “Wowzy-wowzy-woo-woo … the media won’t pay attention to me.”
Either make your voice heard with the Old Media or give up on them and get on the vanguard of the New. But if you do neither, then don’t complain about the results.
DFer
@Just Some Fuckhead: Really dude, what’s your problem with Nick. He’s not wrong about the media being in the tank for Republicans. Why is it so hard to admit it that you need to mock him for it?
Nick
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
What if you do both and neither works? Because that’s pretty much what’s going on right now.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Nick: Or Eeyore, from Pooh, if you never watched throwaway Hanna-Barbera stuff from the late 70s.
Same difference. The archetype keeps getting repeated from pop culture franchise to franchise for a reason.
And that Democratic attitude is the reason why the “Woe is me, a dark cloud follows me everywhere!” shit epitomizes them.
Fight the fucking stupid with whatever you have to hand or let the stupid wash you away. It’s that simple.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Nick: Wowzy-wowzy-woo-woo … nothing works …”
Just Some Fuckhead
@DFer: No one on Balloon Juice is awarding “The Media” any blue ribbons here. But no matter the conversation, Nick spouts the same helpless hopeless crap over and over. We’ve all heard it a million times now. The point is made. Now go the fuck away.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@DFer: Schleprock, Eeyore, Norm from “Cheers” … charicatures, all of you.
I think Just Some Fuckhead is right. If you’re not plants, they OUGHT to be paying you to sow the land with pessimism. It’d be money well spent by someone.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Yep.
Nick
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
you mean on Facebook, Twitter, and everywhere else they HAVE BEEN FUCKING DOING IT?
Look, what you’re not getting is that people have TRIED and it hasn’t worked. We’re not saying “don’t try” we’re saying “ok, we tried and failed, what’s next?”
Multiple networks have turned down airing commercials, progressive have called them out on blogs, on Facebook, on Twitter…and despite that, it hasn’t done a damn thing. What’s your next suggestion smartass? We’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing, and it will continue not to work and when it doesn’t, will you continue to pretend it does and mock us when we prove it doesn’t?
You’re telling us Democrats need to do what they’ve already been doing. Are you purposely ignoring the fact that none of this has worked?
DFer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
No, doesn’t look like it is.
Merkin
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
do you work in advertising?
I do and I’ve never seen a political operation, even from the right wing, pay as much as a corporation to run ads. The price a group like MoveOn would have to pay to run an ad during a key time slot would price them out much of the time.
Assuming the networks run the ad at all, they turn them down all the time, even corporate ads.
Mike
The problem is that a sizable chunk of the right wing base only cares about hypocrisy and lying insofar as charges can be leveled against Democrats. The veracity of the claims in these cases is 100% irrelevant to them. As long as they can repeat the claim, that’s all they need. Refudiation of the charges only serves to ‘prove’ their case.
On the flip side, actual chronic, habitual cases of hypocrisy and deceit are judged positively by the right wing, as it is a demonstration of ‘by any means necessary’ devotion to the cause. The egregiousness of the behavior is invariably eclipsed by the mendacity of liberal msm witchhunters seeking to destroy a good public servant who is guilty merely of being a Republican (besides, BILL CLINTON). The poor man just needs to work out some issues between his family and his God, so back off. Try to make a list of Republican officials who suffered electorally for non-homosexual duplicity in the past, oh, 20 years. I can’t even think of one, even though they manage to outdo themselves in this arena every other week.
Fox News and the Republican Party understand and exploit this dynamic. Which isn’t to say that they shouldn’t be called out, but don’t expect it have any measurable effect.
Merkin
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
That are going to run where?
If networks won’t take our money to run commercials, do you really think they’ll take our money to run commercials criticizing them for not taking our money to run commercials?
This is a really stupid. I admire your optimism, but…wow.
NR
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Progressives haven’t given up. Over the last two years, we repeated, over and over and over again, that the voters had given Obama and the Democrats a historic mandate for big, sweeping change from the Bush years, change that had been THE central theme of Obama’s wildly successful campaign. But after winning the White House and overwhelming majorities in Congress, Obama and the Democrats decided that they didn’t want to deliver that change after all.
Progressives protested. We begged the Dems to use their majorities to deliver the change that Obama had promised and that the voters expected. We screamed, we yelled, we wrote letters.
Nope, sorry. Bipartisanship and keeping the Republicans happy is more important than enacting good policy, we were told.
Well, you saw what happened as a result of that.
Progressives didn’t give up on anything. The Democratic party gave up on us.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Nick: Tried it with WHAT? Nuanced policy statements? That shit doesn’t play in 160 characters.
I hate to say “dumb it down,” but is what we’re talking about here so hard to put into little bites that even the Fox crowd can’t understand it? Or that it won’t resonate with them?
“The working person is getting fucked. YOU are getting fucked.”
The Fox crowd knows that as well as we do. This timidity about “class warfare” is bullshit. If a Democratic candidate refuses to capitalize on that theme, you must start asking why.
Above, Jennifer’s proposed ad. Have you ever seen anything like it from a Democratic candidate?
Just tell me why it wouldn’t work.
Merkin
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
a lot of Democrats are really good a striking the GOP on Twitter, especially Pelosi.
Actually, yeah. Alan Grayson had an ad that sounded just like that. Tom Periello said something similar to that at a debate. Do you watch Rachel Maddow? She highlighted a hardhidding ad on Social Security by Illinois Rep. Debbie Halvorson. Said “this is how Democrats should fight.” Was a really good ad. Definitely one that called out Republicans and defended a key Democratic principle.
She lost by 15 points.
Corner Stone
@DFer: It’s clear you’re a Nick sockpuppet.
This sound familiar?
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/09/04/shut-em-down-open-up-shop/#comment-2012686
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/11/07/ive-seen-the-future-i-cant-afford-it/#comment-2179971
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/11/23/that-is-the-only-lesson-you-could-learn/#comment-2226265
Corner Stone
I love the three link moderation rule.
Nick
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Alan Grayson had an ad like that. DailyKos made a big deal about it. I’ve seen a couple of ads like that from safe Democrats. Here in New York, Anthony Weiner said something very similar to that. He won, but his margin was more than halved from his last competitive election.
Because it hasn’t. I don’t know why it doesn’t work. I just haven’t seen it work. You can pretend all you want that it isn’t happening, but it is, and it doesn’t work. The only explanation I can give you, based on my own experience, is that half the country is taught to automatically discredit whatever a Democrat says, so even if they’re saying what they want to hear, they’re not listening.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Merkin: Maybe it’s just a losing argument, then. You think it is?
NR
@Merkin: The strong message and policies of a party as a whole is the key. When a majority of the Democratic party acts in a cowardly way, refuses to fight for policies sufficient to help the economy, and does a horrible job of defending Democratic principles, the general climate against Democrats becomes so bad that even good candidates like Grayson and Halvorson are going to lose, even if individually they say the right things.
bluemeanies
Buy a cable rate ad that has nothing directly to do with Sarah Palin and run it on Sarah Palin’s Alaska. It’s cable, so its less likely to be refused, and its likely cheaper. If the right wing was smart, they’d ignore it, but it would still reach people who follow Sarah. Because they aren’t smart it will become the new Sarah controversy dejour and go way viral.
It might be too late now, though, all the ad buys for the show might be spoken for.
superdestroyer
@Suck It Up!:
The ACA does not cover “dependents” up to the age of26 because a 26 y/o adult cannot be a dependent on your income taxes.
What the law says is that people aged 26 and under can becovered by their parents insurance so long as the adult child is not working at a job that offers health coverage.
The extended health care was a huge give away to upper class whites whose children are professional graduate students and living an extended adolescence.
Nick
@NR:
On this, I just want to say. My mother is a member of a Democratic Club on Long Island. The Democrats there are basically teabaggers. Some of them left the club because they could no longer support the party, it was too liberal. One member of her club started a “Tea Party Democrat” club that took about 1/3 of the club’s members away. They endorsed Randy Altschuler, who, though looking like he’ll lose, it will only be by a few hundred votes.
I live in Brooklyn, there are two Democratic Clubs in my neighborhood, the positions for one, that endorsed Carl Paladino for Governor this year, is completely different than the positions of the other, who found Andrew Cuomo too conservative.
How does this type of party enforce a strong united message?
Nick
@NR:
On this, I just want to say. My mother is a member of a Democratic Club on Long Island. The Democrats there are basically teabaggers. Some of them left the club because they could no longer support the party, it was too liberal. One member of her club started a “Tea Party Democrat” club that took about 1/3 of the club’s members away. They endorsed Randy Altschuler, who, though looking like he’ll lose, it will only be by a few hundred votes.
I live in Brooklyn, there are two Democratic Clubs in my neighborhood, the positions for one, that endorsed Carl Paladino for Governor this year, is completely different than the positions of the other, who found Andrew Cuomo too conservative.
How does this type of party enforce a strong united message?
Evolved Deep Southerner
@NR: I think NR has a point. Pelosi, She-Devil of the Right Wing? Grayson, the Left-Wing Madman? Weiner the … Weiner?
Not dogging any of those people at all. I like all of them.
But once again, this isn’t about winning ME over. Hell, I’m won over.
Present a unified front – where “sensible” people all get behind the same memes – as the GOP does – and let’s see if “working class” themes don’t get a little more broad-based traction.
It won’t work everywhere – write the South off, for instance, I live down here, I can tell you that, I’m looking for more intelligent parts of the country to save our sorry asses from ourselves down here – but it will work enough places to keep control of the country.
That is, if everybody gets behind it.
kdaug
Why do you think defense contractors GE and Westinghouse, or Disney, would be willing to run ads that are counter to their self-interest?
Yutsano
@superdestroyer:
The fact that it is also good health policy that benefits a large number of Americans of all racial make-ups just flies under your ideological radar. But hey who am I to stand in front of the great steamroller of
stupidconservatism?Merkin
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
If we lost the argument on cutting Social Security, then no amount of message discipline is going to help the Democratic party.
More likely, people are just idiots and are voting against their own interests.
Nick
@superdestroyer:
Yeah, it doesn’t help the children of the working class who can’t find a job after graduation or are forced to take entry-level positions with no benefits.
Oh wait…
Tell me again why the Democratic Party can’t do message discipline?
NR
@Nick: About the Tea Party. Yes, a lot of the Tea Partiers are racists, and yes, a lot of them are just rebranded corporate Republicans, but the Tea Party has also tapped into a lot of populist anger out there in this country. Lots of people were genuinely angry about TARP, the bank bailouts, and the general Wall Street-friendly climate in Washington. Obama and the Democrats could have tapped into that anger and used it to make major change if they’d wanted to. Instead, they cozied up to Wall Street, with Obama appointing corporate flacks to set his economic policy. Financial “reform” was watered down again and again, and in the end we got a bill that confirms and entrenches “too big to fail.” With the Democrats embracing Wall Street, where was that populist anger to go?
Ceding the populist ground to the Tea Party is a large part of what led to the recent electoral disaster for the Dems, and it’s going to have repercussions far into the future. And the Dems have only themselves to blame for it.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Nick:
Um, because it’s a lost cause? You’ve tried everything and it doesn’t work. Nobody wants to listen.
I don’t believe that. But you, Merkin, kdaug, DFer …
Woe is us. Nobody will listen to us. My mom even tried and the “Democrat Teabaggers” walked out on her …
Damn. Just damn. I’m done trying. Y’all keep fighting the good fight. I’ve learned more about Democratic/progressive perpetual-loserhood talking to you guys this afternoon than I could have figured out in a year watching on my own. So I thank you for that.
When someone gets a little fired up, you feel it’s your duty to throw cold water on that shit. The Democrats’ official motto should be “Don’t get your hopes up.”
Corner Stone
@Evolved Deep Southerner: DFer is a Nick sockpuppet. kdaug is not. Don’t know anything about Merkin.
kdaug
@Evolved Deep Southerner: Don’t point your “boo-hoo” finger at me, bitch. Answer the damn question.
Why would multinational corporations (primarily military) who have a vested interest in the status quo want to agitate against their interests?
(Hint: work around them)
kdaug
@Corner Stone:
I’m kdaug, and I approve of this message.
Nick
@NR:
I guess you don’t really understand the tea party, which was founded after a tirade by a CNBC analysts angry that the administration was considering SCREWING the banks on mortgages.
Brother Maynard
This is a great sounding soundbite and all. But it’s all kind of moot. Starting in 2014, all members of the House and Senate (and their staff) will loose their Federal health benefits and have to purchase their insurance on the open market/exchanges anyway.
(edited to fix typos)
Yutsano
@Nick: A little revisionist there Nick. The seeds of the Tea Party were already laid by the resentment politics of Sarah Palin added to white shock that one of THOSE actually made it to the White House. Suggesting Santelli was anything but a showboater catching a wave is giving him way too much damn credit. After his CNBC rant, what the hell else did he do for the Teabaggers?
DFer
@Corner Stone: I’m nobody’s “sockpuppet” bitch. I’m just sick and tired of people jumping down the throats of those who point out the obvious, because the obvious isn’t what you want to hear.
Corner Stone
@DFer: I’ve got a comment in moderation that’s pretty funny then.
This sound familiar?
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/09/04/shut-em-down-open-up-shop/#comment-2012686
Nick
@Yutsano:
Then how the hell would being tougher on Wall Street make these guys disappear? they’d just bitch that every bad thing that’s happening was because Obama was too tough on Wall Street?
Ever seen a tea party rally? They don’t hate Wall Street. In some cases, they actually say the President has been too hard on them. They opposed FinReg because it was “socialism”
If the tea party tapped into some populist outrage, it isn’t over Wall Street, it’s over the role of government. The tea party first appeared after Santilli’s rant. It developed into a force during HCR.
Corner Stone
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/11/07/ive-seen-the-future-i-cant-afford-it/#comment-2179971
Corner Stone
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/11/23/that-is-the-only-lesson-you-could-learn/#comment-2226265
Corner Stone
IOW, you’ve commented on 4 threads now. All of which indicate you and Nick mutually reinforcing each other.
If it’s not sockpuppetry then it’s a pretty damned pathetic mutual admiration society.
DFer
@Corner Stone:
LOL, your great revelation is that I defended Nick in four threads and that makes me a sockpuppet? wow…fail
I’ve commented in a lot more than four threads sweetiepie, but it’s nice of you to point out the only four where I defended Nick as if me admitting that I was defending him didn’t already make the case that I agree with him.
BTW, the next time, you should probably use links that don’t end up with an error message.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Who you callin’ a bitch, PUMA?
Corner Stone
@DFer: The google disagrees
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Dfer%22+site%3Awww.balloon-juice.com&hl=en&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images
And the links got truncated in moderation but are fixed now.
kdaug
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Oh, shit, really? PUMA? I mean, seriously? Me?
I know you’re new around here, so take some time to get your bearings.
But I want a plaque with “Honorary PUMA” on it for my office wall. I can’t wait for my friend’s looks of bewilderment and horror. Fucking priceless.
superdestroyer
@Yutsano:
Do you really think that the adult children (how I hate the term) of blue collar families who do not attend college will benefit from the program. Do you really think all of the single black mothers have good insurance through their employer and will document their adult children’s eligibility.
The age of 26 was picked so that the children of the rich who are in law school and B-school can let their parents pay for the health insurance.
One of the odd byproducts of ACA is that universities will stop offering student insurance so that students who are paying their own way will lose coverage.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@kdaug: PUMA is as PUMA does. Bitch.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@superdestroyer:
Do you really think none of them will?
Yutsano
@superdestroyer:
Umm…yes. And they already are.
I don’t even know what the fuck this is supposed to mean. But since I work with several single black women in this EXACT situation taking complete advantage of this, then yeah. You really need to try harder dude.
Umm…so what? Law students don’t need coverage too? And not all law school attendees are from wealthy families, but please keep digging your hole deeper, this is kinda fun.
And will be eligible for low-cost coverage under the exchanges. Nice way of deflecting to what may or may not happen also.
kdaug
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Apologies if I offended by my off-hand pejorative. I didn’t intend to deflect from my original point:
Why would any corporation work against their self-interest?
alwhite
I’ll be honest, I have not read the previous comments because this comment angers me quite a bit. Sorry if this is a duplicate of someone elses comment
Do you really think a congressman, any congressman, would have a hard time getting insurance or that it wouldn’t be very cheap compared to what you and I get with better coverage & no bullshit about deductible or preexisting condition?
If Boner and company do not immediately agree to buy their own coverage on the open market they are dumber than they look. Insurance companies will knock each other down to french kiss their assholes so they know how great the American model is.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@kdaug: Apology accepted, daug. I’ve been known to throw some off-hand pejoratives around here from time to time as well (and I’ve been around here longer than you realize, incidentally), but only over college football usually.
If the amount of money going into outlets other than the networks reaches a critical mass, then they will prima facie be working against their own self interest.
In the meantime, try and let them refuse it. And then use their refusal against them. “Why are they afraid of their viewers hearing this simple message?”
Evolved Deep Southerner
@kdaug: And as far the PUMA thing, hell, I don’t know who you are or how freaked out your coworkers would be with a “PUMA plaque” or whatever.
My understanding is that means Party Unity My Ass. And as a couple of commenters noted upthread, unity of message is what the Democrats lack. If the Democrats could just HALFWAY push in the same direction, there’s a lot of weight they could observe. Say what you will for the Republicans, the vast majority push in the same direction. It’s a demented, sad direction – they’re pushing everyone under the second percentile, income-wise, off the damn cliff – but it’s all in the same direction.
I’d love to see an equal push back, just briefly, just once, just to see what it would look like.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Evolved Deep Southerner: I’m pretty sure you’ve been commenting a lot longer than they have. But that’s the beauty of blog commenting. You show up and say something someone else agrees with and ya got yerself a clique. Then ya pull a late nite or two and experience the joys of drunken flirting and suddenly ya got an ingroup. Then a few short weeks later, yer calling people “n00b”.
Nick
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Which other network, all the networks are owned by corporations who have a vested interest in seeing the progressive agenda stopped, and even rolled back.
we’re already doing this.
kdaug
@Evolved Deep Southerner: The compartmentalization of media sources is the issue here – your idea seems to assume a cross-pollination of media exposure that I don’t see evidence of. If Fox won’t show a commercial, how are you going to reach the Fox/Limbaugh/Palin/Beck audience to tell them that their information is being censored?
I agree that if you target the lesser channels (Discovery, TBS, AMC, et. al) then eventually you may be able to push the message through. But, pragmatically, what’s the timeframe? The ROI? And, of course, the obvious – who pays?
I think a more top-down structure of media control for the Dems could work, but that’s not the way they roll. It’s one thing when you’re pushing old white Christians in one direction.
It’s a different ballgame when you’re pushing everyone else.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Nick: “Outlets other than the networks” doesn’t necessarily mean another network, Nick.
But even if it did, give me an example of a progressive television ad that no one, nowhere would air. I’m not talking about during the Super Bowl. I’m talking about an ad that the progressives have produced, for no amount of money, no one would broadcast. For all the talk about it being “banned in X countries,” I can find “Faces of Death” at the video store down on the corner right now.
I suspect you’re exaggerating.
As for the “we’re already doing this” on pointing out the networks’ non-compliance, just as I suspect the networks’ refusal to run progressive ads is wildly exaggerated, so do I suspect is this “calling out on it.” If either thing has happened, I’ve not seen it.
But, of course, I know your comeback to that will be “See? We’ve done it and you’ve not heard about it! Woe is us! Oh, WOE is us!”
Evolved Deep Southerner
@kdaug:
People don’t watch CBS. They watch C.S.I.
In other words, you imagine this army of people who say “I’m just gonna watch Fox and Fox only ’cause they’re the only network fer MURKINS!”
That shit goes out the window when any of the other networks have a show that appeals to the dimwit demographic. And believe me, that is the meat of ALL their programming.
I see absolutely no evidence of this monolithic “Fox audience” you assume.
So, again, what’s the last progressive political ad that was refused by every major network?
Suck It Up!
@superdestroyer:
you reply to wrong person, maybe?
Nick
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Darfur ad in, I think it was 2005. I Googled it, couldn’t find it. But no one would air it.
I like how you basically conceded here that I’m right and tried to preemptively attack me. Out of options I guess
JoyfulA
@Merkin:
When the networks refused the United Church of Christ’s ads—which were “we welcome everybody!” rather than simply pro-gay; the multicolored, poor-rich, disabled-athletic, etc., people shown included two young women who could be lesbians—we had no problem running the ads on local network affiliates. The head of the local CBS affiliate even apologized to me after I complained about the network.
So running ads on local network affiliates is a viable alternative. I don’t know much about the ad business, but it seems to me that doing so would be time-consuming and complicated but cheaper. Anybody know?
Merkin
@JoyfulA:
Local affiliates can’t override a national network. If CBS corporate says no, all affiliates have to follow suit, unless the commercial is tailored locally. So say if the UCC creates an ad specific for a church in Pittsburgh, it can run it in Pittsburgh and national can’t say shit. Though usually in that situation, the affiliate won’t risk a war with national.
It’s cheaper, yes, but it could also be harder because national only gives so much allotted time to affiliates for local ads, and unless its election season, they tend to reserve that time for local businesses.
and the problem with political ads is that it wouldn’t make any sense unless they go national. In order to run the same ad in multiple markets, national has to give the ok.
Yutsano
@JoyfulA:
I’m amazed it took this fucking long for an idea I had awhile back to show up. If the nationals won’t play ball, you go to the big media markets like New York, Los Angeles, et cetera, and pitch it to them. Most of the time you put up the cash they’ll run the ad. It’s harder to coordinate, but they all have marketers and advertising staff that will take on these requests. Plus they have a better feel for local demographics that will show better targeting and effectiveness. How to make an ad national without being national Alex?
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Nick: You’re right. I think I’m most definitely out of options, yes. But not in the way you mean. Just with the folks I’m talking with now.
So this Darfur ad you can’t find on Google right now. Why was it refused? Otherwise, do you have anything since then? Say, the 2006, 2008, 2010 election cycles? Some political ad that was refused?
The only ad in recent memory I can remember being refused in any high-profile way was some pro-life thing with Tim Tebow. I don’t agree with the message, but I don’t agree with the suppression of that message.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: No wonder the progressives lose anything they try. It’s not a failure of ideas. It’s a failure of attitude.
Bernard
with 40 years of portraying the D’s as elitist, un-American and all that, just getting heard is definitely a big step. The media is for the R’s. the R’s own the media.
i think it will take some big event/crash of R’s policies/ for the average joe to even want to listen. if the D’s play it right, otherwise the D’s will be blamed for the crash. as always… Things have been going really well for the R’s since St. Ronnie’s coronation.
and of course, we have the Great Turncoat Obama sucking up to the R’s in every which way but loose, further proving what losers D’s can be/are.
another sad part is the Democratic party Rulers are just as elitist as the R Elite. The D Elite just started sucking up to the Elite/Owners later than the R Elite did. so the R’s have the home field advantage. no way the R’s are going to f themselves over. or share. lol.
the R’s own the game, they know what and how to play better.
Obama is trying to play the R’s game. and it won’t work for the D’s. this is Alpha R’s territory. for Obama to attempt to play the R’s game is so traitorously stupid/evil, i can not even begin to describe the enmity of being a Manchurian Republican, in my book that is.
the fix is on and has been for a long time. The D’s have to play smarter and they simply aint!!! the D’ say, Can we just get along? With the Big O’ helping the R’s game plan from the get-go, how can the R’s lose?
that i think is how i see the situation.
Judas Escargot
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
God damn, what a bunch of defeatists. The GOP hasn’t won a damn thing.
Pragmatist, thanks.
They’ve won the House: This means that, for the next two years, there is effectively no government. And they will not be held accountable, no matter how bad the damage they cause.
The progressives have just given up.
I’ve given up ever winning the message war, because the GOP always wins the message war. Because the game is rigged. Hell, the fact that it’s framed as a ‘war’ instead of a ‘discussion’ is a de facto victory for them.
Shit, we lost the message war when we were reduced to having genteel little discussions about the legality of torture back in 2004.
You want war? Run on the banks. Go on strike. Don’t pay your credit cards for three months in a row. But these things only work if people do them all at once, in great numbers… and you and I both know that that’s not about to happen anytime soon.
Nice of them to leave us these little blogs to vent on, though.
Nick
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Plenty of ads were refused by one, two, or three networks, or all and ran on cable. But that’s just great if our ads are only seen on a few channels while theirs on them all. You suggest that when we do find a network that will air them, we call out the other networks, but often in contracts, it’s explicitly stated that you cannot name a competing station by name. So we’re left to call them on out subtly, or on blogs and social networking sites. Which we do, it does nothing.
There may be other options that I’m not thinking of right now, but you’re suggesting we do things we’ve already done. And the fact that you’re not seeing it is exactly why the media is a problem.
Nick
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Plenty of ads were refused by one, two, or three networks, or all and ran on cable. But that’s just great if our ads are only seen on a few channels while theirs on them all. You suggest that when we do find a network that will air them, we call out the other networks, but often in contracts, it’s explicitly stated that you cannot name a competing station by name. So we’re left to call them on out subtly, or on blogs and social networking sites. Which we do, it does nothing.
There may be other options that I’m not thinking of right now, but you’re suggesting we do things we’ve already done. And the fact that you’re not seeing it is exactly why the media is a problem.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Bernard: Bernard, thank you, thank you, thank you.
You have are the poster child for the point I’ve been trying to prove all afternoon.
Cue “… I’m a loser, baby, so why don’t you kill me …”
kdaug
@Evolved Deep Southerner: @Evolved Deep Southerner:
That’s the crux of the matter. Where’s the money going to come from?
JoyfulA
@Merkin:
But all the local affiliates did run the same “national” United Church of Christ ads for the denomination that the networks rejected. There can’t be some rule that affiliates aren’t allowed to run ads the national network refused.
To produce an ad for a local church would require the size and funding of a nondenominational evangelical megachurch, which isn’t us, except for a very few like the famous Trinity in Chicago.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Nick: @Judas Escargot: Y’all need to get together with Bernard and drink some beers.
Chuck Butcher
This argument seemed to start over why a suggested ad or its equivelant wasn’t run. You don’t have to look any farther than the commentary here, it is class warfare and lefty socialism in operation. That is the reaction it will play to and how it will be labeled and a majority of the folks will agree with that.
I don’t give a damn if you can show the absolute truth of such a thing, it will be lefty bullshit.
Chuck Butcher
FYWP
This argument seemed to start over why a suggested ad or its equivelant wasn’t run. You don’t have to look any farther than the commentary here, it is class warfare and lefty soshalizm in operation. That is the reaction it will play to and how it will be labeled and a majority of the folks will agree with that.
I don’t give a damn if you can show the absolute truth of such a thing, it will be lefty bullshit.
Nick
@Judas Escargot:
One of the biggest mistakes I think we ever made was not having national strikes during the early Reagan years when he tried to dismantle the unions, but he intimidated the unions after what he did with the air traffic controllers and the country turned against them. Reagan’s firing of the ATCs was the turning point where unions lost their relevancy. There was nothing they could do about it, and the public wasn’t willing to stand with the ATCs and sacrifice convenience for fair pay.
and so it goes. When Walter Mondale ran on one of the most progressive agendas in history, he got thumped. A significant portion of Democrats, the part of the “working class,” voted for Reagan because, despite his antagonism for labor, he sounded tough to the Soviets, blamed economic problems on welfare moms in the projects and loved Baby Jesus, and there the country decided that bravado, white privilege and religion matters more to them than economic fairness.
Little has changed with the exception that the outnumbered young generation doesn’t feel the same way in the same numbers. Maybe in another 20 years…
JoyfulA
@Yutsano:
Great! So all we need is an ad! And a big pile of money, I guess, although supposedly secretly donated haystacks of money are being amassed for Democrats for 2012, like those the Republicans had this year.
Merkin
@JoyfulA:
which networks? the ones that refused to air it, or the ones that accepted it? Did it include addresses or info or even names of local UCC churches in it?
Usually, it’s in the contract with affiliates that they must take their advertising rules from national, but they have leeway locally.
affiliates also have more leeway during local programming. Did it only air during local programs? they could probably get away with it, but I’d be shocked if any affiliate would risk angering national by doing that.
Merkin
@Yutsano:
Except the big media markets, except maybe for the ones in Texas, are already Democratic.
We need to be in Kansas City, Phoenix, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Norfolk, Omaha, etc.
Bernard
lol, i gather that is a stab. not a good sign, if read sarcasm correctly. hard to do online.
PS i don’t like Beer, try something else. lol
Merkin
@Yutsano:
Except the big media markets, except maybe for the ones in Texas, are already Democratic.
We need to be in Kansas City, Phoenix, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Norfolk, Omaha, etc.
Yutsano
@JoyfulA: Paging Uncle George…
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Bernard:
Whine?
Judas Escargot
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
The Beaujolais Nouveau is actually pretty damned good this year.
Odie Hugh Manatee
The problem for the Democratic party is that what we view as a positive about the party is really a big negative in winning elections. Democratic politicians represent a diverse group of people who have widely varied opinions as to what the most (and least) important issues are that we have to deal with. Democrats have many groups who fight for their ideals, many who try to position themselves as THE constituency who needs to be satisfied RIGHT NOW (or else!). When they think they are being ignored, they, much like the teabaggers, draw an inordinate amount of attention from the M$M by raising hell. For the same reasons too, because it drives a media narrative and feeds controversy.
Republicans have it easier with a constituency who are easily led by the nose to the voting booth. Oh they do fight and argue like hell but when it comes to heading to the polls they usually get out and vote. Why? Because when it comes down to it, they want to beat the Democrats. To keep the commiefascistwhateverelsethatscaresthem at bay. The dissatisfied Repub voters now have their ‘revolt’ with the teabaggers, which has been turned into a great diversion by the Repubs, allowing them a chance to regain power. Why? Because their voters will fall for any Repub pol who praises the teabaggers as patriots. Even if that Repub pol was one of the ones who helped drive this country off the cliff, they will still vote for the newly-minted image of their teabagger pol. It’s win-win for them.
Both parties are weakened by their more extreme and unyielding elements but I believe that the Dems are weakened more by theirs. The Repubs are able to channel that anger back into votes because their voters are that stupid, Democrats don’t have that kind of ‘luck’ going for them. What I find interesting is that the ‘intelligent party’ (being elitist, I am!) is being ripped apart by the ‘stupid party’ and they can’t figure out why that is. It’s because no matter how good something is, stupid people will come along and fuck it up while the smart people are fighting and arguing amongst themselves about how to fix it.
The power of stupid is not to be underestimated, even smart people can be stupid.
Navigator
It really is amazing.
I frequent a medium-sized Southern city’s comment board, which is a nest of snake-flag-ism.
They have no answer to this when I bring it up.
They immediately resort to name-calling. Then crickets.
They’re absolutely seething, and as Rush and Glenn haven’t explained it to them, bewildered.
Naturally, I’m keeping the topic front and center on that board. :D
JoyfulA
@Merkin:
ABC, CBS, and NBC networks all refused our money. IIRC, it was ABC that said something politically scuzzy along the lines that the ad did not follow presidential (GWB) policies on the topic.
I believe that all three network affiliates showed it locally; I know CBS did for sure, because of the correspondence I had with the affiliate. The ad had nothing in it naming local churches (which are thick on the ground in these parts and would have made for a very long ad). One of the Sunday morning national shows ran an interview with a denominational affiliate on the topic.
I can’t tell you when the ads ran. I didn’t see much TV then (and none now, except waiting rooms). I saw the ads by somebody telling me when to watch!
There were subsequently radio ads that did include names of individual churches, I understand. If I ever heard one, it would have been online at the UCC website because I didn’t own a radio.
Bernard
Evolved Southerner, lol, funny. shame the truth is so dismal for the D’s. they just about fucked themselves up like no Republican could ever hope for. With a little help from my friends, as it goes. lol.
all the right sounding D’s PR won’t change reality if you are a Republican. Democrats still fuck themselves over with this pretense. Do i see any effort to counter the BS, self serving apathy, no not at all. Obama is so my hero!!
there is this illusion the D’s can play the same game.
we simply, as not being R’s, have to find some other way. cause as long as we use “their” Conversational mode, we are screwed.
this means not just a change in tactics, but also a change in the whole shebang. and no, i have no clue other than to say, “the way we, the D’s, are going, is suicide. assisted suicide from our R cohorts, who are glad we bought into their “game.”
if that is admitting defeat, well, i can only say, beating myself over and over does get tiring and all bloody and all that.
walking into the same hole on the same street over and over again does get a bit boring and the scars don’t heal when i fall in the same hole continuously.
i respect your initiative and desire. there has to be new and different avenues than what hasn’t worked in the present and past.
this is Frank Luntz’s and Karl Rove’s game plan. and we are losing when we choose their “rules of war.” getting a new and unfamiliar battleground/a new basis for attack is the only option we have. the present methods, responses. only works for them. self re-enforcing R’ messages, by default.
and that will take continually looking and poking for cracks and avenues to get the attention of those who buy the R bs sight unseen. like what you are doing, never give up.
and my siblings are lawyers who bought/buy the R’s lies sight unseen. so it has to be good to get what is left of the “thinking” right. lol. not sure they think anymore either. so when i say the PLAN has to be good, it has to reach supposedly educated people like them. and it ain’t right now.
Basically, everything the D’s do now, just reinforces the PR that Reagan embedded in their subconscious years ago.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Judas Escargot: Well you guys need to get you some and have at it. If you’re not all the same person. I think Just Some Fuckhead was right about the lot of you.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Bernard: Bernard, you use so many abbreviations, I could swear you’re a Teabagger plant.
Judas Escargot
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m sorry.
Yutsano
@Judas Escargot: Thanks for the rec, heading to the store later, you got a vintner you liked?
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Judas Escargot: Sip up, big boy.
I can see you all in 2012.
“Those nasty networks,” * *swirl, sniff, sip* * “Those nasty R’s.”
Bernard
Evolved Southerner.
just get tired of the old R and D spelling thing. we have to get shorter names for our political parties. less typos that way. lol
whine, why, preferably white, though. thanks
but mostly i like coffee and tea. ooops, i don’t tea bag though. throw them away. have no use for tea bags. or tea baggers, lol. got me there. ouch!
just not any fun to be a tea bagger, they can’t even abbreviate correctly, much less spell. lol. can you imagine hanging around with people who can’t even spell moron. lol. or is it moran. lol. and we wonder why the Tea bagger call D’s elitist, lol
i mean if i can’t trash these ignorami correctly, how much of an elitist would i be?
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Bernard: Basic literacy – and I’m talking about taking-a-few-keystrokes-for-the-team-and-spelling-shit-out-type literacy – is one of the only strengths the “good guys” have going for them, as far as I can see. I try to at least hold up my end of the bargain in that respect.
With regard to any messaging advantages, we have none, even though our message is a winner. But there’s no sense in even trying to actually, you know, get that message out. Because that’s not in the cards no matter what we do. That’s what I’m hearing from you all.
Those nasty, nasty, awful R’s.
Just grab a case of Beaujolais Nouveau and wait for 2012. Everybody needs something to look forward to, because conceding the whole of the mainstream media to the “R’s” is a loser if I’ve ever heard one. But you all have appeared to have weathered the last ass-beating with your spirits, such as they are, intact.
Don’t beat yourself over and over. The progressives will clearly do just as well without you as they will with you.
Merkin
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Nobody said give up, what we’re saying is what we’re doing isn’t working, and what we’re doing is what you’re suggesting.
We need a new plan. I don’t know what the new plan is, but I don’t see any brainstorming. All I see is a regurgitation of the same plan that we’ve been using, pretending that this time, I swear, it’ll work. If I had to guess, that’s because you want it to work really bad.
Gromit
@Nora Carrington:
These Tea Partiers will also be the first to insist that the government never created a single job. It follows then that, despite appearances, they are actually unemployed and should therefore seek health insurance on the private individual market.
More seriously, the overwhelming majority of these folks didn’t campaign on the kind of nuance you are describing. They campaigned on the idea that the ACA was “government takeover of health care”. If any of them did in fact offer the kind of subtle argument you describe, then how about they get an exemption?
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Merkin: OK. Y’all are clearly way ahead of me here. What’s the new plan? “Plan B?” Tell me, and I’m all over it. Tell me how I can help.
Bernard
Evolved Southerner
Gosh, i said to give up? lol. hell i can’t apparently even communicate to a fellow Progressive! now i understand how the nasty awful Republicans won!
thanks
Merkin
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
I don’t know, I really don’t. I’m bordering on “split the country up into pieces and let everyone fend for themselves”
I honestly thought utilizing social networking sites would work, but it didn’t.
so I really don’t know at the moment.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Bernard:
I’ll be quite candid with you, Brother, you aren’t doing worth a fuck. This is the problem. And I consider myself a little at least a little bit quicker on the uptake than the average potential progressive.
Once again: It’s not me that you’re reaching out to. You’re preaching to the choir – and I am one of the many, many choristers who thinks the preacher is a condescending asshole.
I’m trying to help you figure out a way to get beyond your choir. But you and your colleagues clearly don’t want to hear it. You’d rather lose with the choir than win with at least something close to half the congregation with you.
I know it’s frustrating that the congregation is a rather dull and easily-led lot. But you don’t fight with the congregation you want. You fight with the congregation you have. :)
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Merkin: Take another run at “Plan A.” And all of this stuff about there not being enough money for it? Bullshit. They can find it. Advertise in “the political offseason.” When people aren’t so damn tired of it. Lay the groundwork for 2012.
Bernard
most interesting reply. i gather we are really talking bout different things. too bad words used are not the semantically correct ones to minimize any misunderstanding or convey the exact intent.
that’s one difference i can see between us as so called Democrats and Republicans. following a leader. Democrats usually don’t follow as easily like Republicans do, behind leaders.
great point.
NovShmozKaPop
This is a great issue because:
As you say it hits ’em right in the hypocrisy…no way for them to justify taking gummint health care…
Chances are that they won’t really suffer much buying their own policies, but…
There are two different types of human being: the big-picture folks who are fairly casual about nickles and dimes and who understand scale, and the variety who will fight you right down the line for every single penny on principle. The Republicans generally self-select (or are genetically engineered) into the second group. This will practically cause them physical pain.
kay
Sorry it took me so long to respond. You’re missing the point. The health benefits members of Congress and civilian federal employees receive aren’t like Tricare (single payer) or VA benefits (government-owned). That’s not an apt comparison.
They’re a lot like the federal subsidy + state exchanges that are in the ACA.
Which is the point. Conservatives in Congress are denying regular people a plan like they have (a plan that will work like what they have, if the creek don’t rise, etc.)
Obama compared ACA to Congressional health plans 50,000 times. That’s because (again, if it works as planned) it will be very much like the system that conservative members of Congress enjoy.
I apologize for not laying it out more clearly.