|
|
|
Become a
Paid Mullings Subscriber!
(To join the FREE mailing list or to unsubscribe Click Here)
Wrong Messages; Wrong Messengers
Rich Galen Wednesday February 2, 2005
From Houston, Texas
Public Relations Society of America
A reporter called on Monday and asked me what I thought about Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid holding a session at the National Press Club to conduct what they called a "prebuttal" to the President's State of the Union Address tonight.
Prebutting is a new idea whose time should never have come. According to the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary the word "prebuttal" doesn't even exist.
Take this down: "prebuttal" will not be joining "blog" or "google" or "geek" as words which must be added to the next edition of the M-W Unabridged.
It was obviously designed to get the national press corps singing the Democrats' tune in the run-up to the SOTU, but their presentation clanged a discordant tune in the face of the election results from Iraq less than 24 hours before.
Pelosi and Reid are trying - desperately trying - to make themselves relevant to a process on which, because the GOP controls the executive branch and has large majorities in both chambers of the national legislature, they have very little impact.
Nancy Pelosi is the minority leader in the House. Pelosi's Congressional district encompasses a huge portion of the City of San Francisco, so her constituents do not see the world through exactly the same prism as Democrats in, say, Kansas. Or anywhere else in the solar system.
Harry Reid has the same title in the Senate. Reid became minority leader, remember, because the previous minority leader, Tom Daschle, got defeated when he ran for re-election. Not re-election for minority leader. Re-election to the Senate.
Harry Reid is so boring he makes Rosalyn Carter look like Auntie Mame.
On top of that, the members of Democratic National Committee, next week, will likely elect Gov. Howard Dean to be their chairman. Dean is most assuredly not the choice of national Democrats like Pelosi and Reid. Dean knows they don't like him, which is reciprocal. He has not forgotten how the national D's ganged up against him in Iowa in their successful attempt to stop him from gaining the nomination.
When he is elected DNC chairman, he will crank up the Mean Dean Publicity Machine which will permit the political spotlight to leak out onto Pelosi or Reid.
Another reporter asked me about John Kerry's appearance on Meet the Press. the day before, on which Tim Russert had given Kerry the entire hour.
I said that, first of all, Kerry looked like he had just come from the clown make-up class at Barnum & Bailey. Second, Meet the Press is live at 9:00 am which is 5:00 pm in Iraq - exactly when the polls were closing.
Kerry had probably been in make-up for a good two, two-and-a-half hours and his crack staff obviously hadn't gotten him information about the turnout. Reuters reports that turnout even in Mosul and Fallujah had exceeded expectations didn't cross the wires until late morning, Eastern time. Well after Kerry had finished.
"So," I said, "Kerry has finally settled on a coherent message. Unfortunately the message is wrong."
The thing about Kerry is: No one cared what he thought about important issues of the day before he became the Democratic nominee. And no one cares now. Fifteen minutes, baby. Fifteen minutes of fame.
The national Democrats are so single-minded in their loathing of George W. Bush, that they are ignoring their political instincts and are, paradoxically, playing right into President Bush's hands.
It would have made much more sense for Pelosi and Reid to have cancelled their appearance at the Press Club as a salute - not to President Bush or his Iraq policy - but to the Iraqi people for their bravery in the face of great personal danger.
But they didn't because they couldn't help themselves. So they attacked a Presidential speech which had not yet been delivered, at a time when the rest of the country was applauding the election in Iraq.
Pelosi. Reid. Kerry. Dean.
Wrong messages. Wrong messengers.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the prebuttal remarks of Reid and Pelosi and a link to the status of the DNC campaign for chairman. Also, a Mullfoto which proves I am, indeed, in Texas and a Catchy Caption of the Day.
--END --
Copyright © 2005 Richard A. Galen
Current Issue |
Secret Decoder
Ring | Past
Issues | Email
Rich | Rich
Who?
Copyright �2002 Richard
A. Galen | Site design by Campaign
Solutions. | |
|
� 
