Salesmanship and the Enemy

Congress is sneaking out of town without taking full votes on health care reform, so it's finally time to stop obsessing over every kabuki move in Capitol Hill committees and take the battle to where it counts: the public.

That would be you and me and everybody else, 75 percent of whom want drastic health care reform that reins in the private insurers, lowers costs and offers a Medicare/VA-like option to everyone.

The wingnuts are crowing that the latest polls show the public disapproves of President Obama's "handling" of health care reform, but that's pretty obviously disapproval of his failure to ram it down the repug/Blue Dog throats, not disapproval of his public option/regulation plan.

What this needs, besides every single one of us calling/emailing/confronting in person at town halls our representatives and senators to let them know what we want and what they have to do, is two forgotten ingredients:

Salesmanship and an Enemy.

Kevin Drum nails sales:

Everyone has been so hung up on congressional process that they seem to have forgotten that Congress responds to the public. If constituents are mad as hell that their healthcare isn't as good as France's, they'll flood congressional offices with phone calls. But if they think America has the best healthcare in the world, while the rest of the world is a socialist dystopia of ramshackle hospitals, yearlong waits for hip replacements, and harried doctors who can't see you for months and treat you like a postal customer when you finally get in — well, who's going to get pissed off about the occasional scuffle with their insurance company?

And if the public isn't worked up, then Congress won't get worked up either.

This has always been about public opinion. Everything is about public opinion. It's about public opinion being strong enough to overcome the resistance of whatever corporate interests are on the other side. For some reason, though, liberals don't seem to get that anymore, and because of that we don't spend enough time on either side of the basic vox populi equation: (a) hammering home why individuals, personally, should be unhappy with the status quo, and (b) promising them, personally, lots of cool new stuff if they buy into change.

You don't have to lie to accomplish this. But you do have to sell, the same way any salesman anywhere sells stuff. That means understanding your audience, figuring out what they're afraid of, promising them something that will make them better off, overcoming their objections, and then convincing them that they have to call now to take advantage of this one-time offer! Every pitchman on late light TV understands this. Why don't we?

Last week, Steve M. explained that what Obama needs is an Enemy.

Barack Obama is struggling on health care because, while he wants Americans geared up for war, he won't try to get them truly angry at an enemy.

If you want people worked up, they need to envision, and despise, a foe. The filthy Huns. The dirty Japs. The Red menace. The Butcher of Baghdad. The Islamofascists. (Or, coming from the other side's propaganda works: the crusader infidel, or, earlier, the capitalist running dogs.)

As rage-inducing enemies go, "the status quo" ain't gonna cut it.

Obama saves a permanent place at the table for everyone he could possibly define as the enemy of progress, so he's got nothing left with which to rally the public. The public needs to be angry about what we have now. The public needs to be angry at someone. And he offers no one.

Or, as aimai says in the comments to my last post:

I can't believe anyone ever let him ramble on about the fiscal issues or the phrase "unsustainable." they are simply experience distant terms. He should have said up front "The american people are being nickeled and dimed to death by the same large corporations and vested interests that have just looted the treasury to the tune of trillions of dollars--and they now want to turn around and tell you that you and your neighbors can't afford to choose to come together and pay for a real, national, health care plan?" I would have wound up with "the american people are too big to be allowed to fail--and I won't allow it."

There's a way to take all that fiscal language and turn it to your advantage but you have to set yourself and your party as the saviors.

Yes -- and you have to remind people who and what they're being saved from. Not "the devil you know." The devil.

That would be the criminal, murdering, obscenely rich health insurance corporations.

So find out where your congress critters are going to be holding town halls in August, show up, corner them on health care reform, and don't let them go until they swear - while being recorded - to vote for only a strong public option and regulation.

If they're hiding, keep the pressure on. Here's a quick way to get to the contact information for your elected officials. (Scroll down to box on the right labelled "My Elected Officials" and enter your zip code.)

Alternatively, Max at Firedoglake explains how to put recalcitrant congress critters up against the wall - the Facebook wall.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....