“What they’re really worried about is the country slipping. They’re not sure their family is going to reach the heights they expected. They’re relatively sure China will have the world’s leading economy in 15 years. They’re looking for someone to answer that.” – President Obama leads among ‘swing independents’, via Politico
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama host a Passover Seder Dinner for family, staff and friends, in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House, April 6, 2012. (White House Photo by Pete Souza)
The centrist obsessed organization comes up with some numbers on independents, but what’s most interest is the message they’re computing that gets through to independents, which is different than what moves Democrats, a group Obama already has locked down.
Fairness doesn’t move battleground independents. What moves them is the issue of opportunity. So, according to Third Way advice, Pres. Obama would be helped by stressing the issue of opportunity, rather than fairness.
The Politico analysis includes Lanae Erickson, the deputy director of Third Way’s social policy and politics program, who wrote the memo titled “Soccer Moms. Reagan Democrats. Rockefeller Republicans.” The framing and title grouping itself is an issue.
However, it’s interesting to see how a group of swing independents responded to “fairness” via “opportunity.” It goes to the Ronald Reagan adage of “are you better off today than you were four years ago?” and the partisan reaction to non-partisan voters who believe when Democrats talk about “fairness” they’re making a Democratic message, instead of an inclusive message of opportunity for all.
As you’ll see below, what’s confounding is that by a 62% margin, these battleground independents see themselves doing better than others, but they don’t perceive that advantage as unfairness to the “have nots,” shall we call them.
If Third Way polling and analysis is correct, however muddled their messaging and intent of the group itself, Mitt Romney has a decent opportunity to approach battleground independents with a message about opportunity, which is where he’s been drilling anyway.
“The worldview of independents differs from a lot of people in the Democratic establishment. They really don’t think the system is stacked against them,” said [Lanae] Erickson. “Messages that are aimed at people who feel like victims in a rigged system or are struggling day by day just to get by don’t resonate. Independents don’t think you’re talking about them.”
Independents strongly reject the idea that they are victims. About 60 percent of swing independents say America is divided between haves and have-nots, but a nearly identical number believe the American system is basically fair and that the deck is not stacked against them. Sixty-two percent say they’re “doing better than the average American.”
“A fairness message may appeal to the base, but independents think it’s strange to hear a fairness message coming out of Washington, which they perceive as the reason that things are unfair,” said Third Way co-founder Jim Kessler, who oversees the policy division.
In typical fashion, the Democrats are so out of touch with normal American citizens they fail to effectively communicate why fairness is so important to the nation and it’s future: it is because the more fair our nation is the stronger it is! Giving a fair shake or shall we say a “Fair Deal” to the common people makes America mighty and makes America’s future and that of our children secure.
Sadly though, the Democrats, as corrupt in every way as the Republicans and beholden to the very same corporate interests, are incapable of understanding why their rote chant of fairness is important and thus they are incapable of transmitting it to the public. Yes, the corruption of the Democratic Party and it’s leaders in Washington is of a slightly different character than that of the corrupt Republicans but only slightly. Because of the corruption and sell out of the DC Democrats, this year, the American voter has less choice than perhaps at any time in our lifetimes.
“because the more fair our nation is the stronger it is!”
While I am certainly no fan of Obama, I think he pushes this theme quite a bit…..and the Dems probably have no better orator than Obama at the moment.
What the liberals seem to have a cognitive block over is failing to comprehend that just because they say something, everyone else ought to believe it.
I suspect a thinking independent would say, if redistributing income makes this nation stronger, why has the US generally been on a decline measured against other nations over a very broad array of statistics since about the same time The Great Society was rolled out.
I am not pushing correlation equals causation per se, but correlation is a million times more persuasive than sermonizing.
It is only when we are discussion social services for the needy (food, education, health care) that it is framed as re-distribution of income. When the 1% buy government officials to destroy unions (after spending decades demonizing them) they are re-distributing income, the wealth that the rank and file worker brings into a business, by cutting pay and sucking all that wealth up to themselves. This is re-distributing income on a massive scale.
Since the 1970′s where you are looking for the great society caused decline of our country, you might take a look at the numerous statistics that have been reported and published all year, including on this site. The wealth of the 1% has skyrocketed and of the bottom has plummeted. Is this your evidence of re-distribution of wealth to the poor?
Alice, the point of the post is what independents define as fairness, not what you happen to define it as.
You may think that CEO salaries and not enough union labor piss off the middle class moreso than welfare payments, but do you really know that?
People who are getting ahead on their own (as these people would seem to believe they are) are typically not fertile soil for altering the system that they feel they are advancing in.
“I suspect a thinking independent would say, if redistributing income makes this nation stronger, why has the US generally been on a decline measured against other nations over a very broad array of statistics since about the same time The Great Society was rolled out.”
Only if that “thinking independent” never thought of checking actual things like…oh…FACTS. Because your statement is either ignorant of them or an out right lie.
IMO, without the help of the other 38%, they would be in the same situation. It’s as though they believe that when ‘the chaff’ is crushed out of the economic pyramid; they move upwards instead of dropping down to replace those drained of capital on the bottom.