http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/health-care-polls-opinion-gap-or.html
This partisan article and analysis by Nate Silver of a non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation article makes it clear that while the "Health Care Reform Bill" isn't popular, just about every aspect of health care reform included in the bill is very popular. However, by and large the components of the bill are poorly understood. This implies the problem with health care reform isn't the popularity of all of the concepts: It's the sale!
I guess anyone who has bought a car knows that some people can sell cancer while others can't sell immortality. There's a substantial difference between sales and product, and once the sale is finished there's nothing but results to effect the opinion. While the Democrats have completely lost control of the issue from a sales point of view, they still control a set of reforms that are incredibly popular. It's essential that they get through these reforms, after which point people aren't going to be affected by the lies perpetrated by the opposition, and lies by and large are what they have. Instead the Democrats will own a solution that means no one in America will ever need to worry that they or their family will ever be denied insurance again.
A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week -- George Patton
Monday, January 25, 2010
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The rhetoric that the republican party uses is incredibly effective at halting public support for just about anything. When the media latches onto those talking points as well then it becomes impossible to sell anything at all. Is there a way to generate a positive narrative for a bill even when the Republican party is spewing out rhetorical nonsense about how bad the bill is? I'm not sure that there is a way to currently do that. What we need is our majorities in congress to step up to the plate and get the work done regardless of what the polls are showing (because obviously the people can be swayed to think a bill is bad when they actually support everything that it is composed of). Once the bill is passed the Republican gibberish will get focused on something else, which will leave space for the Democrats to put a positive spin on the accepted legislation.
ReplyDeleteI hope that the constructive question and answer session that Obama conducted with the Republican caucus in Baltimore the other day will help the Republicans see that there is room for bipartisanship and that Obama has been working hard to compromise and include the Republican ideas into the proposals, such as with the stimulus package and health care that he talked about so much.