The Price of Bad Communication

By most accounts, the Democrats can expect to loose a lot of seats in the House next Tuesday, almost certainly putting the Republicans in the majority. Control of the Senate is still up for grabs although it seems that the Dems may hold onto it thanks perhaps to the Tea Party in Delaware.

In most election years, over 90% of House members are safe, leaving only 40 or so to scurry around campaigning for their jobs. This election cycle that number has at least doubled. While there are probably individual cases of (unusually) poor performance by a sitting House member, most in danger are not the cause of their problems. The country, by and large, is fed up with those in charge and most specifically, the Obama Administration.

So, I ask why? Why all the disdain? Why all the concern over the deficit now and not 2 years ago (or 4 or 6 or 8...). Why all these complaints on rising taxes when federal taxes have actually dropped over the last 2 years and are at their lowest level in many years? With unemployment hovering just under 10%, many are concerned about losing their job and with it their health insurance. So why are so many people angry that Health Care Reform just guaranteed that even if they lose their job, they will still be able to get health insurance, and for many at discounted rates? For those on the Far Left, didn't you just get more legislation passed that met your hopes and desires than at any time since the Johnson administration? For everyone else, what were you expecting?

53% of those voting in the 2008 Presidential Election selected Barack Obama over John McCain to lead the country for the next 4 years. His policies and opinions were pretty clear at that time. Here is the shocker...Obama has done pretty much what he said he was going to do. So where is the surprise? Granted, he didn't get as much through in the health Care Reform bill as he advocated, but that was the political sausage making and frankly that should only potentially upset the far left. The Stimulus Package wasn't as big as he wanted it and although many economists have complained that is why we are still mired with unemployment at this level, the general public isn't complaining that it wasn't big enough.

So what gives? It turns out that although the Obama team was historic in getting out their message in the 2008 election, they are pretty miserable in selling their story once in power. A lot of really good things have happened in this Administration:

We were at the precipice of an economic disaster that could have made the Great Depression look like a bad hair day. I was trained as an Economist and for the first time in my life, I was actually scared about the financial future of this country. If 9.6% unemployment sounds bad, put a "1" in front of it, because that is about what we would have seen. The auto industry would have collapsed as well as every company supporting them, dealers, parts manufacturers, etc. As bad as Detroit is now, it would have been apocalyptic. But few people understand what 'could' have happened, only what they see. "You stopped me from running into the oncoming car, but I scraped my knee." But Christine Romer kept harping that unemployment would stay below 8%. Bad, bad, bad move. I understand not wanted fear to set in, but you never win by setting high expectations. If statements had been made that untouched, unemployment would reach 14%, but we believe we can take actions that will keep it under 10%, the Obama Administration might be considered heroes now, because that is exactly what they have done.

The Health Care Reform Bill provides health coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans, enables those under age 26 to stay on their parents plan, prevents discrimination against "pre-existing conditions", eliminates the annual and lifetime benefit cap and according to the CBO will actually SAVE $143 Billion over the next 10 years. It is tough to be against any of these things. Those opposed usually site the cost of $1 Trillion dollars, and don't acknowledge that the cost reductions exceed the cost creating a net savings. Several previous presidents have tried unsuccessfully to accomplish this and failed. By not harping over and over again on the benefits and the cost savings rather than the cost and explaining it in terms that people could understand and cling to, this monumental social change program will be vastly underappreciated for a very long time.

Tax Reduction - Not a term associated with the Obama Administration and yet, that is what they have done. The Making Work Pay provision provided almost half of the $240 Million in tax cuts created by the Obama Administration providing a $400 per year credit for individuals and $800 for married couples. This benefit accrued to individual filers with taxable income under $75,000 and couples filing jointly under $150,000. Don't think you got it? Pull out your 2009 return and look at line 63 or look here for the IRS information. The actual calculation was done on Schedule M.

Handling 2 Wars - All combat troops have been removed from Iraq with about 50,000 peacekeeping troops still there, that number declining over time. There was a large buildup in Afghanistan with a scheduled pullout next year in an attempt to stabilize that country. Obama came through on his promise on Iraq. He went against the wishes of many of his supporters on Afghanistan, but it may very well have been the right choice. A very difficult and unpopular one, but perhaps the best for long-term considerations.

There are a few other items covered quite well in this article in Rolling Stone. Not a place I normally recommend for even handed political coverage (and it does have its rah-rah moments), but overall a pretty decent characterization of where we are.

This recent poll by Bloomberg shows that "...by a two-to-one margin, likely voters in the Nov. 2 midterm elections think taxes have gone up, the economy has shrunk, and the billions lent to banks as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program won’t be recovered." All of which is wrong. Americans are generally not very educated in history, but these are current events. Granted there has been a concerted effort by the President's detractors to accentuate the problems and misdirect or outright lie about current issues, but the facts are on the side of the Democrats and yet they run away from them.

If the Obama Administration were as good at telling their story as the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, the Democrats might have still held on to the House and Senate. But split government isn't the worst thing. Everybody has their neck on the line. If nothing gets done, everyone is to blame, so they have to find a way to play nice at least long enough to have something to claim during the run-up to the 2012 election. If not, then Obama gets to run his 2012 campaign against a "Do Nothing" Republican-led House and history tells us that has worked pretty well.

O'Donnell, SNL and Elvira

Although Christine O'Donnell is the train wreck gift that the Delaware Tea party gave to Democrats across the country this year, she really isn't as bad as she is being made up to be. That being said, she does make for some great political humor, which means she gets a blog post all to herself.

Here are 3 videos. First, the original O'Donnell "I Am Not a Witch" ad, followed by the SNL spoof and then a new take-off by our favorite Halloween mistress, Elvira. Enjoy.

The Economy, the Future and Communication

The title of this post is filled with the 3 biggest things that have shaped the looming 2010 midterm elections.

The war cry of the 1992 Clinton Presidential bid as blasted by James Carville was "It's the Economy, Stupid". Eighteen years later, the story is still the same. The economy is still is very bad shape. Slowly growing, far from where it was and where it could have fallen to, but still very bad. We as Americans are not very good at nuance. We rarely acknowledge that this bad reality is a whole lot better than the disaster of a few years ago. It stinks now, so everything else is irrelevant. We are impatient and there is no good reason why the economy can't be good now. We are tired of suffering. Relatively better is irrelevant.

The Obama Administration could certainly have taken different steps that would have made some improvements on the current state of the economy. However, I doubt it would have nudged the unemployment level far from its current level of 9.6%. This is an enormous structural problem, was a long time in the works and will not change quickly regardless of what measures are taken. However, I am pretty sure of one thing that will drop the mark another tick or two (more later).

A president has two possible roads they can travel...they can deal only with current issues and leave the big, hairy, long-term issues for a future president to deal with or while juggling the realities of the present they can take a stab at trying to resolve issues that will rear their head in the future. There is rarely any current popularity benefit to dealing with long-term issues. Solving them involves pain in the present and our country is not very good at giving up something now for a long-term benefit (or pain avoidance). The Obama Administration has tried to tackle a few long-term issues such as health care, energy, education, civil rights (Lily Ledbetter and DADT), etc. People can agree or disagree with the way they have tried to change things, but nobody will really know the outcomes for certain until years from now. It is impressive that they have tried to deal with them, rather than push them to the next administration as has been happening for quite some time. Again, very little public acclaim for any of this, only angst and hatred for money spent, perception of freedom lost, etc.

Which brings us to the third and most important part of this post. Communication, or rather the true failing point of this administration. By many accounts including those listed at Politifact.com, the Obama Administration has performed very well in doing pretty much exactly what they said they were going to do. You may not agree with it, but if so, you probably didn't agree with it in 2008 when Obama was campaigning on it. But a majority of Americans did support Barack Obama in the 2008 elections, so what gives? He has done most of the things he said he would do but public opinion has dropped from the 53% of 2008 voters to early job approval polls cresting over 60% to the current level of 44% (with a low in August of 41%) The long and short of it is that Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton. Obama and his team are really quite poor at making people aware of and feel good about the good things they have done. They have also let the Republican opposition hammer them time and time again both with legitimate claims as well as farcical ones. For example, time and time again, polls asking about people's opinion on the passed Health Care Reform bill show at best an even split. However, when asking about specific items in the HCR bill, overwhelming support is shown. That is messaging or rather a horrific lack of it.

The Mid-term election outcome on November 2nd will be much more determined by the Obama team's inability to get out their message than the public's actual opinion on the specifics of what they have done.