Following up on Ian’s frustration with the Democratic Party’s failure to sell the stimulus, I would like to direct your attention to Barack Obama’s op-ed in the Washington Post. This op-ed piece, which will drive at least one news cycle, is a core example of bad messaging and the problems Democrats have with selling their economic message to the American people.
The editorial seems to begin well enough, defining the problem Americans face in a clear, intuitively appealing, and memorable way:
[W]e have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.
What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives — action that’s swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.
Every American who is even partially paying attention to the news — or their own future prospects — will understand that the economic crisis we face is huge, a genuine hundred-year sort of crisis. This description of the origins and nature of the crisis is a little bit vague, but Obama doesn’t need to be too specific, right?
After all, jobs are being lost, period. Does it matter why the jobs are being lost or what caused the crisis in the first place? Well, actually it does, because as a form of messaging this opening gambit is very weak, failing to frame the debate: does any Republican deny that we are facing a deep and dire crisis? Does any Republican deny that we need swift, bold, and wise action? Who doesn’t in the abstract desire a strong economy?
What Obama needed to have done is specify the causes of the problem and why his particular approach to the crisis is the best approach. The failure of this op-ed to achieve this necessary framing comes fully into view in this passage:
In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.
I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We’ve seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.
This passage answers “misguided” critics of the plan without accurately referring to the specific content of their criticisms and without reframing the debate to cast those criticisms as petty and ridiculous and fundamentally unserous. Yes, there is mention of “the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems,” but even Rush Limbaugh wrote in the WSJ about how he is generously willing to allow for 54% of the stimulus to be for spending in the Obama-Limbaugh stimulus plan. To contradict Republican memes about the Democratic stimulus plan, Obama at the very least needs to show he knows what position he’s arguing against.
The problems grow more serious when Obama declares that he rejects the “failed theories” of Republicans — as, apparently, did the American people, except of course the very publication of the op-ed shows that Obama thinks he’s losing the debate on the stimulus. The problem with Obama’s assertion is that Obama did not run a campaign that was about “theories.” His mandate is not the validation of one theory or another, but a mandate for “post-partisan change,” which includes a few big-ticket economic items like health care, yes, but which strongly deemphasized liberal “theory” in favor of a broad promise to be the anti-Bush.
In short, Obama and the Democrats have done a terrible job at using their bully pulpits to educate Americans about the precise content of the theories they’re rejecting — and they theories they believe to be true reflections of the world. If politics is fundamentally about convincing people that your picture of reality is more accurate, as I believe it is, then Democrats are doing a terrible job of explaining themselves, although to be fair to Congressional Democrats: Obama is the leader of the party now, and Americans look to him for the Democratic line on questions of policy. This WaPo op-ed provided Obama with an opportunity to correct course, to give specifics, to frame the debate.
Did it succeed?
If you read this op-ed as a stimulus skeptic, you did not learn anything new or have your beliefs meaningfully challenged. If you are already in favor of the stimulus, you still support it. Most importantly, if you’re an American who is trying to figure out what this debate is all about, you’ve just been told that the “failed theories” Obama is rejecting are that taxes alone can solve our problems and that we can handle our problems in a piecemeal fashion and that we should ignore health care and energy independence. But when you listen to Republican framing of the debate, you’re not being told that taxes can solve all our problems or that we should make the stimulus less comprehensive or that we should ignore this that or the other thing.
I am forced to conclude that this op-ed is a failure to communicate with the American people. And that Obama’s consistent failure — during the campaign, and now — to explain the logic and theories behind his economic agenda is his core domestic problem so far. Obama has in the past proven very adaptable to changing circumstances; one hopes he recovers in time — and realizes his errors — for the coming battle over health care.
First of all, I don’t think this particular Washington Post op-ed will drive an entire news cycle. The President has been doing major interviews with all the news networks, and they are more likely to refer to their own interviews before they draw from a Washington Post op-ed to cover the news.
Also, you write, “The problems grow more serious when Obama declares that he rejects the “failed theories” of Republicans — as, apparently, did the American people, except of course the very publication of the op-ed shows that Obama thinks he’s losing the debate on the stimulus.” I reject the idea that Obama can’t try to sell his plan, because the very act of trying to sell a plan is a sign of weakness. It’s no secret that getting this bill passed is a top priority, and to interpret this op-ed as evidence that Obama thinks he’s losing is unfair.
That aside, if your point is that the message in the op-ed is the message Obama is selling elsewhere also — I agree that this message is driving a news cycle. I certainly agree with you that the Democrats are failing to sell their stimulus bill, but I’m not sure I agree with your diagnosis of the problem.
You write, “What Obama needed to have done is specify the causes of the problem and why his particular approach to the crisis is the best approach.”
The causes of the problem are complex. They involve complex financial instruments, overleveraged banks, the absence of necessary regulation, etc. How is it helpful to point out these things as a way to explain spending billions on renovations of new schools? It seems like what you want Obama to do is not to explain why this particular financial crisis happened, but to explain the economic theory that justifies random government spending as a solution. Is this what you mean?
Also, you write, “This passage answers “misguided” critics of the plan without accurately referring to the specific content of their criticisms and without reframing the debate to cast those criticisms as petty and ridiculous and fundamentally unserous.”
You’re right — to the extent that critics of this legislation are calling simply for more tax cuts, their arguments are falling flat, so it isn’t that effective for Obama to try to fight the Republicans on that basis. The reason the Republicans are winning this fight is because they are making the argument that this bill is chock full of spending proposals that are more about implementing the Democrats agenda than specifically stimulating the economy.
Obama has tried to reframe those criticisms as “petty and ridiculous and fundamentally unserous” in his interviews, when he has argued that if you took all the spending items Republicans complain about and added them up, it would still only amount to 1% of the bill. But that’s not good enough for this reason: If Republicans were basing their opposition to the bill on these items in and of themselves, Democrats could simply remove them and move forward; but the point Republicans are trying to make is that the inclusion of these silly items calls into question the process that drove the writing of this bill. Republicans use these items as examples of an overall problem with this bill, which is that the bill seems to spend money on various programs instead of on things that will provide efficient, short-term stimulus. In making this argument, Republicans are winning support from the media, which is basically saying the same thing, as I mentioned in my blog.
To reframe the debate as you suggest, Obama needs to either defend each and every item in the bill, or else defend the overall theories that caused these marginal items to be included. So why doesn’t he?
I would argue that on these grounds, the current bill may be indefensible. There is no economic theory that calls for increased spending on contraception, or benefits for Filipino veterans. The inclusion of these items makes it impossible — or at least highly problematic — for Obama to persuade people that this bill isn’t just what Chris Matthews recently called a “grab bag” of legislative goodies.
It would be fair to lay the blame at Obama’s feet for this if Obama had drafted this bill — but this bill was drafted by House Democrats. Obama is forced to defend a bill that draws negative attention to itself because House Democrats are MORONS!
So what op-ed would you write? How would you do a better job than Obama did?
Comment by Ian — February 5, 2009 @ 3:48 pm