Obama To Circumvent Media By Selling Stim Package Directly To Public Via Video
Here it is: President Obama’s first major effort to use his massive campaign email list and communications apparatus to get around the filter of the big news orgs in order to personally sell his agenda directly to the American people.
As noted below, Obama gave five interviews to the major networks yesterday, and tried to use them to sell his stimulus package. But the withdrawal of Tom Dashle dominated the coverage and blotted out his economic message.
Obama’s solution: Later this morning, David Plouffe and Obama’s reconfigured campaign apparatus, Organizing for America, will blast out an email to his 13-million-strong list with a new video featuring selected footage from the five interviews in which he pushed for his stim package.
A Dem operative sends me an advance copy of the email and the vid:
The email, which you can read here, invites readers to watch the vid at Economic Recovery house parties this weekend and asks them to send the vid to everyone they know.
Critics have been pushing Obama to work harder to sell his stim package. Here’s one way he intends to do that — by speaking directly to the American people via videos to his list.
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this is nothing more than preaching to the choir in an effort to rile them up about campaign 2012. “if we don’t get this right I won’t be reelected, so please help me!”
what kind of message is that 2 weeks into a presidency?
dunno, it seems heavily focused on selling the stim package to me…
Fantastic idea. And frankly, it cuts through the chattering class and their often incorrect interpretations of what Obama means. At the same time though, I’d like to see the Democrats in Congress step up and start selling the package as well. I’m tired of forward the analysis showing the government spending gives you way more bang for your stimulus buck than tax cuts do.
We’re always at risk of focusing on a little window of time (today, this week) and presuming that the future will now inevitably unfold in line with the pattern we perceive in that little window. We politica junkies and activists can be a tad panicky.
Which isn’t to say that yesterday was calming. And the boys and girls over at The Weekly Standard and National Review this morning sound like they’ve just emerged from a zesty dip in the Fountain of Cialis.
It’s difficult not to agree with many here that the Obama team has perhaps been taken by surprise by the breadth and depth (and apparent effectiveness) of the propaganda campaign waged against them – while we are only TWO WEEKS INTO OBAMA’S TERM and while the economic crisis is pounding on everyone’s front door like a gang of Mongol thugs. But we knew it was coming, or we should have. Likewise, Obama’s people.
But to be fair, PR is only one part of what a functioning administration needs to concern itself with if they are to be truly functional in this governance gig. It’s a necessary concern, no question, but it isn’t sufficient. And the problems of ethical, responsible governance now are complex (a serious understatement). Some significant percentage of Americans polled over the last few days hold the opinion that the stimulus bill is flawed. What percentage of that percentage is truly informed regarding these matters? I’m half-decently smart and I’m so far out of my depth in this sphere that I don’t express opinions even to my wife (who I can snowjob with little effort). Paulson and Bernake are out of their depth, for goodness sakes.
Folks like us, discussing these issues here on Greg’s blog and elsewhere, can get caught up in these day-to-day skirmishes in really much the same manner as the media people do (after all, that’s where many of us turn our attention immediately upon waking up…what’s this or that person saying?) But I think that in doing so, we can become part of problem.
When we decry “incompetence” in the Obama PR game or where we forward the notion that “the other side is winning”, we ourselves become instances of precisely that most fundamental propaganda meme which the Republicans are now trying to overwhelm other narratives with…”Obama is a wimp and an ineffective loser”.
Rant terminates.
bernie—I totally agree. I spent the morning calling senators and making sure they know my mind. Also–just read Victor David Hanson at NRO he is already declaring the end of Obama. Two weeks in. The total end of his presidency and also, the worst in history. Can you guys believe it?
lfo you have link to Hanson thing?
Ifo
Hanson is rather a goblin, isn’t he? He’s one of the fellas who ought to be standing in that line Moe slaps.
This is the one:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDA1MTkzYTc4NjA5MWQxOGNjMzU3YmZiYTJhZDQ5YTY=
here you go Greg the link to VDH.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDA1MTkzYTc4NjA5MWQxOGNjMzU3YmZiYTJhZDQ5YTY
ha Bernie, we posted more or less at the same time. As for Hanson–don’t get me started or Greg will have to censor me.
This is good. More Claire McCaskill on the tee-vee was good last night as well. I’d still like a few more advocates to be out there besides Barney Frank, McCaskill, and Obama himself. But this is an excellent start.
Perhaps, Bob Casey and others who were effective advocates for Obama on the trail could get out there and sell this as well.
so much for the vaunted 5th Estate… When the President of the United States has to circumnavigate our own media to get a message out to the public, it is simply appalling.
I signed up to host one of these meetings, and so far, it is by no means “the choir” signing up, it is a cross section of concerned citizens. It really seems as if some sore losers(R) are still convinced their mystery majority has been ignored. Wake up, right wingers, you need to stop complaining and obstructing and join the rest of the country in making a future we can proudly hand off to our children.
Stop whimpering like lost children and grow up.
PS Gregg, I think you’ve got a pro-troll hanging around. If they get the first comment on every post, they might be “assigned” to you by the creeps behind the lemmings.
Remember our old pal JakeD?
Like I said, if one commenter consistently gets the first word and that word is consistently trashy, you may have been “tagged” with a pro-troll.
And never forget, as a well-known blogger, “when they tell you you’re paranoid they’re probably out to get you!”