I've been on DailyKos for a number of years, but this is my first diary. I am moved to finally write because, after years of study, I think I finally have a good handle on ONE of the things that has made the Republicans more successful than the Democrats over the last 12 years. And I'd like to share this with you, in the hopes that I can help to change the way in which we address certain issues.
A little about me. I used to work at washingtonpost.com, for about four years. No, I was not a journalist, I worked with, but not in, the news department. (Yes, I worked very closely with Dan Froomkin and Jim Brady on a daily basis. No, I'm not going to comment at this point on either of the recent contraversies, but if it's relevant in the future I will.) Now I'm in a completely different field, but for many years I was in the heart of how a major news organization digested, processed, and spit out the news. And now I feel like I finally understand how the Republicans have used these organizations to their advantage, and how we can as well.
More on the flip.
My name says it all: OffenseNotDefense. I am convinced that our tendency as liberals to defend every specious right-wing attack against our beliefs and our politicians is not only muddle-headed, but is bad strategy and plays right into the hands of the Republicans.
The typical journalist looks for contraversy. They are trying their hardest to be fair and objective. (Really. I'm not kidding you. Stop laughing.) But they feel they are doing their job best when two sides are arguing against each other. Therefore they seek out instances when two parties are in conflict.
This is nothing new, we've understood this for years. But what we fail to understand is how the narrative from this underlying contraversy is crafted. The typical news cycle of a story is this:
- 10 AM: Republican attacks Democrat. Right wing blogs join.
- 1 PM: Democrat defends self. Left wing blogs join.
- Evening news and morning newspaper: "Democrat defends self against Republican charges"
You see how we've already lost? It doesn't matter that we're right and they're wrong. It doesn't matter that the Republican charges were stupid and clearly baseless. The Republicans have won the narrative, the story, because the contraversy is the focus, not the facts in question. We can complain about this all we want, we can whine and moan about how the journalists aren't doing their job, and we'd be right. But it doesn't matter, because we've lost the war.
We have to stop this. We have to turn this around. (No, I'm not suggesting that we lie about the Republicans the way they lie about us. We must maintain our integrity, which is the most important thing that will always separate us from the other side.) And the way that we change it is to Never Defend, Only Attack. NDOA. You'll see me use that acronym a lot on this blog.
You want concrete examples? I'll give you two. The first comes from the Kerry/Bush campaign of 2004. When the Swift Boat campaign came out against Kerry, at first he just ignored it. Well, in politics, ignored contraversies do not just fade away. They need to be replaced by something else. A journalist will hold on to a contraversy until they have a new story to work on. Then, when Kerry stopped ignoring it, what did he do? He defended himself. And guess what the headlines became? Kerry Defends Self Against Swift Boat Attacks. Karl Rove 1, John Kerry 0. Rove succeeded in sowing doubt where Kerry was strongest. Brilliant strategy!
So how could Kerry have responded instead? NDOA. He could only succeed by attacking Bush, instead of defending himself. For instance, he could have come straight out and said (and I read this somewhere else, I take no credit for the approximate wording): "My friends, there has been a lot said about what did or didn't happen during my honorable service in Vietnam. My only response is, 'At least I was there.' George Bush and Dick Cheney were not, because they dodged the draft in order to remain safe and secure at home. And draft dodgers should never question the service of people who actually put their lives at risk to serve."
BAM! He kicked it up a notch! Now imagine the headlines! "'At Least I Was There' Kerry Tells Bush". Suddenly, the narrative is back where it squarely should be, on the story of Bush's and Cheney's lack of service. This is how we must fight this war. If we want to take control of the narrative, this is how we do it. NDOA.
The second example is more recent. On Feb. 7, a diary was posted on the McCain/Obama contraversy on Feb. 7. The diary began like this:
Incredible. We all read the letters, seen how McCain flipped out based on Obama's tame and very diplomatic letter on ethics reform. Well, Matthews, living in GOP land, can't believe how poorly poor McCain was treated.
The diary proceeded to excerpt much of the Matthews/McCain intervew. Rather than taking the opportunity and the stage to attack McCain and grab hold of the narrative, the diary instead just gave another very public airing to McCain's ridiculous charges against Obama. And the narrative headline becomes, "McCain Continues to Attack Obama for Rejecting Bipartisan Reform Proposal".
So taking the NDOA principle, how could we have wrested the narrative to our advantage? Simple. We know that McCain talks a bipartisan game in public, but he said in his letter to Obama that he "wouldn't make the mistake again" of working with Obama. That's what we use.
"John McCain today rejected any further cooperation with the Senate's most popular member, Barack Obama. Putting personal politics ahead of his professed goal to make the Senate a more bipartisan institution, McCain said in a letter to Obama, and later in an interview with Chris Matthews, that he was no longer interested in closer ties with the Senator. McCain, who is actively courting the far-right wing of the Republican party to get in 2008 what he failed so miserably to get in 2000--the Republican presidential nomination--is clearly worried about Obama. With his staggering 72% approval rating, Obama is clearly a major threat to McCain should Obama choose to seek the presidency in two years."
BAM! We kicked it up a notch! Now, any journalist reading this exchange, especially as it gets passed around the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, has a new headline for the narrative: "Presidential Politics Suspected in McCain's Letter to Obama".
I think you get the point. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave all the standard political blogging to everyone else. I'm not good at it, and there are plenty of diaries more deserving of attention. I plan to post rarely, sporadically. However, I will be assiduously applying my NDOA principle throughout the campaign season. If I see a home-page diary falling into the "defending Democrats" trap, or if a ridiculous GOP lie targets any of our candidates this year, I will post as soon as I can. And maybe, if people like what they read and recommend the diary, we can help to lift ourselves out of this 12-year quagmire we've been stuck in.