Obviously, without a health care bill Congress can’t give voters a guarantee of coverage or nice things like that. The stimulus bill gave people a few bucks more a week in their paychecks, which is easily forgotten. It also led to a politically embarrassing method of calculating “jobs saved” by the stimulus (and really? Nobody thought this through before the numbers were crunched?); however, it did save jobs, and the Obama administration and Congress would do well to trot these police officers, teachers, and other people whose jobs were saved at every opportunity. They are really failing to take advantage of this. Reminding people of their extra four bucks every paycheck won’t cut it. Things like Cash for Clunkers and the home buyers’ credit helped a few people, but even more thought it was bad policy and bad politics, which I happen to agree with.

Financially, Congress did pass some big changes to credit card regulations; unfortunately for Congress, the credit card companies decided to screw over customers before the regulations went into effect. Again, it doesn’t seem like they thought that one through. Instead of giving people who are in danger of losing their homes bankruptcy cramdown, which would actually work, the HAMP program has been a dismal failure, even leading to increases in the amount of money homeowners owe. Not exactly something you can campaign on. TARP, while probably averting a major financial catastrophe, is not exactly seen by the majority of Americans as a good thing, especially since the banks are already going crazy again.

It’s not even all about money. Giving voters something to feel good about can do wonders. Obama voters voted for hope and change, but since the election there has been very little of it. Obama kicking “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” down the road is a bewildering political decision: most people support it, and it would make voters feel good to end a kind of discrimination that is becoming less and less acceptable (although CNN is reporting he will ask Congress to repeal DADT tonight). Obama and Congress have also dropped the ball on increased government transparency, like putting all bills online ahead of time. Again, simple to do, but makes people feel good.

With the relatively skimpy list of substantive accomplishments, it’s little wonder that Obama voters are feeling unmotivated. It’s not like legislation such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act are unimportant; they certainly are. But Obama voters didn’t vote for incremental change. They wanted significant changes in the way government works in their lives, and significant changes in their own financial situations. They gave a lot to Obama, and they understandably want something in return.

In a short while, Obama will give his State of the Union address. From the sound of things, he won’t be making any grand statements on health care. He probably won’t be doing a whole lot to make voters feel better about themselves. He’ll talk about increasing the child care tax credit (probably good politics, although as a tax policy purist I despise it), and accelerated business depreciation (now that’s an exciting topic!). It’s not exactly the transformational address that many people are looking for. Will it give voters a good reason to return Democrats to power?

• Current Mood: Worn out
• Currently Listening To: "Let It Rain", Eric Clapton

Democrats tend to view politics and elections as academic tests: voters vote for the objectively “best” party platform out there, and neither message nor personality matter much. I’m not sure why this is. Maybe it’s because they were all wonky nerds who got beat up in high school, or political science majors who focused more on what how things should be instead of how things are. I’m not convinced by this explanation, because I was one of those people and I have no problem understanding how elections really work: voters do not care much about policy. Liberals rant and rave about how poor people vote against their interests when they vote for Republicans and don’t understand why that happens, but that’s just because they don’t understand that the vast majority of people don’t vote for policies. Wonkery doesn’t win elections in this country.

What does? Values. Several years ago I was involved with a group of people called the Minnesota Values Project, which endeavored to get candidates to stop talking about policy and start talking values. Not values exclusively, of course, because that can be as hollow and pointless as yet another 17-point plan for the economy. Talking to voters about how your values drive your policy, though, is the way to connect to voters and earn their support. We worked mainly before the 2006 elections, which were good for Democrats in general, so we can’t take much credit for anything. I’d like to think we helped a bit, though.

Most of our work was on the local level, however. Nationally, Democrats don’t seem to buy into this framing, despite books by people like George Lakoff. Again, I’m not sure why Democrats are so terrible at this, and Republicans are so good. Sure, getting 200+ Congressional Democrats and more than 50 Senate Democrats to agree to, much less use, a simple values message is difficult, but seeing as how Republicans are much better at message discipline it means it’s not impossible. They need the will to do it, which appears to be lacking.

So what exactly am I talking about? Well, take health care. The current health care plan is opposed by the minority of Americans, despite many of the individual pieces having strong support. Why? Because the messaging on the Democratic side has been all over the map, while Republicans have been united in their attacks, even the stupid and inaccurate ones (how long after the first mention of “Death Panels” did just about every Republican around the country start talking about this?). Since Democrats are pushing this bill, with zero Republican support, its up to them to sell it to the public. They have so far failed.

If I were in charge, I’d stick to no more than a few bullet points about what the bill will do. The rest is details, and the details don’t matter to the average person. But I’d hammer, and I’d have everybody hammer in every speech, every interview, every press release, these few points. Say, for example, this list:

• Insurance companies would be unable to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, thereby treating everybody equally.
• Lifetime limits would be removed, giving people freedom from medical bankruptcy.
• To avoid gaming the system, consumers would have the responsibility to buy coverage in a free and open exchange. At the same time, insurance companies would have the responsibility to promptly pay for coverage consumers have paid for.
• Those who can’t afford health coverage will be given the opportunity for assistance to ensure that health issues will not prevent them from bettering themselves and their economic status.

First of all, you’d be hard-pressed to argue that these four statements are not broadly popular in the general public. More importantly, they speak directly to people’s values. Words like equality, freedom, responsibility, opportunity…these are words that resonate with voters and leave them with a positive feeling. Also, by repeatedly coming back to these statements, you can deflect attacks. Of course, for such a message to work, the bill has to actually do these things, but I’m assuming for right now it can.

Had Democrats battered a message like this into the public for the past year, the health care debate would have been much, much different. Had President Obama repeated these over and over, with every public appearance, the dialog would be much changed. But there never was a coherent message about the bill, ever.

One would think that, at the very least, Obama would understand this. What is “Hope” but an emotion? That’s what he ran on. Now, his messaging has gotten completely away from the shared values Americans have. As for people like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, I don’t think they ever thought in terms of values.

Republicans have a simple, tightly scripted message. You can argue, as I do, that their message is completely wrong in parts, but that doesn’t change the public perception of them. Democrats, on the other hand, don’t. Without a message, it’s hard to win much of anything. It’s not too late, though, to get it right.

Later, I’ll have a post about the other ways in which Democrats aren’t delivering, this time in tangible benefits for voters.

• Current Mood: Goodbye CoCo!
• Currently Listening To: "Free Bird", Lynyrd Skynyrd