{"id":841,"date":"2005-02-10T12:08:48","date_gmt":"2005-02-10T17:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2005\/02\/10\/wonder_why_the_\/"},"modified":"2005-02-10T12:08:48","modified_gmt":"2005-02-10T17:08:48","slug":"wonder_why_the_","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2005\/02\/10\/wonder_why_the_\/","title":{"rendered":"Wonder Why the Dems Lose?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, there are three stories that would make any PR person proud. \u201cProductivity High In The House This Year, Howell Says\u201d is the headline for the Richmond Times-Dispatch story<\/a>. \u201cHowell: GOP Agenda Is Succeeding\u201d blares the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star<\/a>. \u201cHouse Pleased So Far\u201d says the Lynchburg News & Advance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These stories were generated by the daily news conferences held by the House GOP. The GOP must have taken Public Relations 101. The first rule of PR is make it easy for reporters to get the story. Press conferences can do that. All the necessary quotables attend. Reporters can get the gist of how their competitors are slanting the story. (Most reporters hate to be outside the mainstream. They don\u2019t want to run with an angle that no one else does and be considered na\u00efve or goofy.) Press conferences are usually held early enough in the day that reporters have time to get other quotes if need be and a little more time to write. In fact, press conferences are the salvation of lazy reporters, though that I\u2019m not suggesting the reporters of these stories are lazy. They carry the bylines of some of the state\u2019s best <\/em>journalists. [Italics<\/em> indicates edit from original post.]<\/p>\n

My point is: What\u2019s the House Democratic agenda. How is it succeeding? How about the Senate Dems? Are they advancing an agenda and a vision?<\/p>\n

Granted, you can argue that with a Democratic governor presenting his agenda, the Assembly Dems don\u2019t want to appear at odds with the lame duck, not that that has stopped Congressional Republicans from opposing the president on some of his legislative plans.<\/p>\n

Without a coordinated plan to promote the Democratic vision and agenda, Democratic House candidates are left with selling the success of the lame duck Governor while giving voters no reason to think they should vote for House Dems. The GOP appears vital, with an agenda and ideas. The Dems are missing in action.<\/p>\n

PR Rule 2 is grab the headlines. That\u2019s all a lot of people read. And today they will read \u201cProductivity High,\u201d \u201cGOP Agenda is Succeeding,\u201d and \u201cHouse Pleased.\u201d Only one of the stories even mentions a Democrat and none of them has a Democratic view of whether the \u2018House GOP Agenda is Succeeding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s the rapid response team for the Dems, let alone the PR machine to promote Democratic ideals and agenda?<\/p>\n

The Dems are a long way from regaining control of the House or Senate. Barring discovery that the GOP caucus is a gay sex club, the Dems will be in the minority next year. If Lt. Gov. Kaine wins, and perhaps even if he doesn\u2019t, the Dems may pick up a few seats. But it will be due to individual candidates running tough, smart campaigns because they get little help from the state PR machine, which must be in the shop for repair. Now is the time, with the session written about almost daily in the papers, that the Dems could be articulating their values, their success, their plans for the future. <\/p>\n

Granted, it\u2019s not easy when you have a Governor with high popularity ratings and a Lt. Governor whose running a campaign of his own, to promote what the Dems in the Assembly are accomplishing. But it\u2019s not an unnavigable path. After all, calling a press conference is so easy, even Bill Howell can do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, there are three stories that would make any PR person proud. \u201cProductivity High In The House This Year, Howell Says\u201d is the headline for the Richmond Times-Dispatch story. \u201cHowell: GOP Agenda Is Succeeding\u201d blares the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star. \u201cHouse Pleased So Far\u201d says the Lynchburg News & Advance. These stories were generated by the… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}