Forty-nine years ago, after being exposed as a criminal, then President Richard Nixon uttered the phrase “I am not a crook!” during a press conference in Orlando, Florida. This statement had literally the opposite effect from what Nixon intended. Nobody who heard it believed it because the evidence was so strong that he was, indeed a crook. In fact, all […]

First, you need to be clear on what you stand for. Then you need to make sure everyone knows exactly what that is. While LOLGOP was posting an excellent piece on how Democrats fell short of making the best possible case for voters to elect them (and if you haven’t read it yet, you really should), I was posting along […]

“I can’t hear you with all these facts I don’t believe in in the way…” The following post is by my friend Emma White, a specialist in communications and messaging. In the wake of the epic fail of the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity ad featuring Dexter, Michigan resident Julie Boonstra, Emma’s observations & commentary on the difficulty of using […]

There has been a LOT of complaining about the poor messaging coming out of the White House. It’s hard to find anyone on the anti-Obama left that doesn’t have some negative thing to say about it, in fact. What most people don’t realize is that the White House has pretty fantastic messaging when it comes to the main media sources. […]

Seriously, who are these people and what have you done with my Democrats? These people appear to have a clue about how to effectively deliver their message with a *punch* and succinctly frame the debates of the day. Here’s Congressman Joe Crowley of New York. You won’t want to miss this. Here’s the message in total: LAST FALL THE AMERICAN […]

Much has been made about the epic fail of the Democrats with regard to their messaging. On health insurance reform and nearly every other issue you can name, they always get their asses handed to them by the Republicans. The Frank Luntz right-wing messaging factory has been a far superior operation and has been far more successful at framing the […]

After my diary about the epic Frank Luntz fail spent most of the day at the top of the Rec List yesterday, I emailed Countdown with Keith to bring it to their attention. It seemed to fit in nicely with their segment about Luntz from the day before. Sure enough, they picked it up and it was the subject of […]

Anyone who has read my blog in the past year knows I’m one of those who is out front with in support of the president and his administration. This blog entry doesn’t change that. But I am going to acknowledge this: when it comes to messaging, the president has left it to Congressional Democrats and they don’t know what the […]