Obama's Sunday Talk Show Healthcare Blunder
By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
President Obama is reportedly planning a five-show Sunday sprint this weekend as part of his renewed healthcare push. But that is exactly the wrong thing to do, according to a recent study by a political scientist at the University of Houston. Brandon Rottinghaus looked at the effectiveness of three different presidential communications strategies: traveling around the country making their case, giving nationally-broadcast speeches or having press conferences.
Rottinghaus concludes that "televised interactions with the media always negatively affect leadership success." (h/t pollster.com) He's talking about televised press conferences, but the same principles apply to a one-on-one interview (or five of them) as a controlled mob scene. The reason is that during such press events, the president's message is challenged and probed, whereas in a speech the president's message is unchallenged. (Mostly.)
It turns out that nationally televised speeches are "the most consistently effective strategy" for presidential leadership, though the effect was more pronounced for earlier presidents—Eisenhower through Ford—than for later ones. (And in fact USA Today reported yesterday that Obama's healthcare speech last week had no effect on public opinion, while Rasmussen released a poll yesterday showing that the bump they had seen has dissipated.) Rottinghaus suggests this is because the more recent presidents face "a more crowded message environment," which I think makes sense but I would add that a president being on TV was simply a bigger deal back in the day because it happened less and the medium was still relatively new.
All of this adds to the ongoing debate about whether the president is too overexposed or (as I argue in my column this week) that he is relying too much on his gift of gab to accomplish his political goals. I wonder if any of the Sunday talkers will ask Obama if he's getting out too much?
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Tags: Barack Obama
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Reader Comments
Democrats are chickens and gutless wonders!
They have the votes and they have the supposed seats of power. Go ahead and vote on all the Socialist legislature. The Democrat problem is that they are spineless. Gutless to do anything unless they can blame it on a equally gutless RINO. It is no wonder they are afraid of the 2nd amendment. You have to wonder when they will try to limit who can vote. Oh I forgot. They have ACORN to vote mutiple times for them. Now if they can only get the illegals the right to vote.
"Hank," it's the Immorality Stupid.
Too bad that this Acorn attorney will sit down with Iran (without condition )yet he is too gutless to sit down to be interviewed by Fox News.
Thanks Hank
I was going to put in my 2 cents, but I see you already did it for me.Thank you
"After eight years of giving away the country to the highest bidder, its time to recognize we voted out the schlocks who squandered the country. It damn clear that we can't be turning back the clock to the ridiculous ways of Bush and conservatives."
Amen, Hank!
72-74% of the public consistently polls (CBS, CNN, multiple different polls) in favor of President Obama on Healthcare Reform, and he certainly seems determined to enact the will of the people on this, which is exactly why he won in a landslide. The people elected him and prayed that he would follow through on Healthcare reform, which he is doing now, thank the Lord!!
As a highly seasoned (ahem!) medical professional who cares for patients and reviews charts every day, let me just say that reform is WAY overdue and will literally save at least a billion dollars in its first year.
Just because massive profit is made by many of those who are in the background, agitating the ignorant and uneducated to demonstrate against their own best interests, this doesn't mean that it's right to maintain the status quo so that these schlocks can sell the misery of the sick poor.
This legislation separates sheep from goat in short order: read Matthew 25. It's amazingly clear.
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