Here's why the Democrats are not winning any messaging wars. No way! No how!
Follow me below and I'll explain. It may seem a bit convoluted, but there's a point there.
On Friday when the Gov. shutdown was looming, I was speaking with my ex-husband who is a Federal Fire Chief in Guam. He was worried about being furloughed because Guam is 14hrs ahead of EST: If there was a shutdown he, even though he is critical and works shifts, would have been considered non-essential (as he's a chief) and would have been furloughed in the middle of his shift as he would have shown up to work and not known anything until his Sat afternoon.
My daughter and I (she's 16 and kind of informed thru osmosis from me) started to talk about it and she asked if the shutdown happened if it would affect her ROTC team competing at Nationals in Pensacola. They had left Friday morning. I told her it very well might because, hey, it's only ROTC and their cadre and probably the cadre doing the judging wouldn't be considered essential personnel.
This morning on the way to school we started talking about how the team did. Here was her answer:
Her: Mom, we only came in 7th
Me: 7th is still good out of a hundred and something
Her: Well we would have gotten better if the real judges for the drill competitions were there, but because of Obama they couldn't get out of Illinois because they were gonna have the shutdown and the judges for the physical activities had to do the drill competitions and they didn't know what they were doing because they weren't real drill judges.
Me: Because of Obama? Didn't we talk about this on Friday? You remember our conversation and your civics class about the 3 branches of government?
Her: Yeah but it was because of Obama. Everyone said.
Me: But you know better and I want you to tell anyone who says it's Obamas fault that they're wrong. And if you want to go further, tell em it was the republicans in Congress that wanted the shut down not Obama.
Then we got to school.
So my synopsis is: No matter what the Dems are saying, they're not saying it clear enough nor loud enough. This is the time for Democrats and Independents to be as loud, stubborn and raucous as the right wingers and the teabaggers in this country. Even our local news casts covering the shutdown were skewed to the right or didn't provide the actual cause of the potential shutdown. And there was no other side covered.
If our high schoolers here in Winter Park, Florida believe that all this turmoil is Obama's fault, what about the rest of the country that unlike us Kossaks actually don't follow every political story? There's a messaging war and we are losing.