November 22, 2006
How The Right Sells It

   "If the GOP had a 100 Hours program they'd be selling it like it
was going out of style."

We hear this all the time, "the Republicans" are doing something and
"the Democrats" are not. For example, here Republicans would be selling
a "100 hours" plan, and Democrats aren't.

Yes, but... Let's examine the mechanism of that sell-job "the GOP"
would be doing. First, it is not the Republican Party that does that
sell-job. To me, this is a key point to understand if we're going to
work on countering the conservatives and bringing the public back to
understanding and accepting progressive values and ideas and
candidates. It is not the Republican Party. And when you understand
this point, you understand that it is not the Democratic Party that is
falling down on selling progressive ideas.

It is not the Republican Party, it is the "conservative movement"
infrastructure that does the selling. It is the Heritage Foundation and
the (oh-so-many) other marketing/communications think tanks. It is the
anti-tax and anti-government organizations. It is the Christian Right
organizations. It is the corporate lobbying groups that would be
selling it. It is the right-wing media that would be selling it. Rush
Limbaugh and 100 other radio talk-show hosts would be selling it. Fox
News would be selling it. The Drudge Report would have headlines about
it. The think tanks would be dispatching 100 pundits to the TV news
shows to be selling it. The Ann Coulters and the Cal Thomases and Jerry
Falwells would be selling it. There would be professionally-crafted
op-eds in every newspaper selling it. There would be an organized
letter-to-the-editor campaign selling it. There would be e-mail chain
letters selling it. There would be anonymous posts on internet sports
forums selling it. There would be PR firm-produced-and-placed YouTube
videos selling it. There would be strategically-placed MySpace friends
selling it. They would ALL be selling it, in concert, using the same
polled-and-focus-group-tested talking points, repeating the same
message over and over and over... But they are not the Republican
Party.

So don't blame the Democrats! That doesn't help you think about how
progressives can counter this. When you think about how things like the
first 100 hours (or the Contract for America) are sold and about how
the public is persuaded to accept ideas and policies and candidates in
general, stop blaming "the Democrats" for falling own on the job.
Instead, look at how the conservatives do it and think about the
infrastructure they have that progressive do not have. Conservatives
have these marketing/communication organizations that reach out to the
general public - progressive do not. They have the scores of
media-trained pundits ready to go on TV or radio at a moment's notice -
progressives do not. They have the op-ed writers and direct lines to
the editors who accept them - progressives do not. They have an entire
infrastructure designed around reaching the public and persuading them.
And they fund it. THAT is how you persuade the public.

Progressives do not.