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Biden's Boehner Attack Shows White House Hitting Panic Button
Tweet Share on Facebook August 25, 2010 Comment (8)Who would have thought that this month would turn out this way for Democrats? August is usually the time in Washington where Congress goes home and campaigns. People either catch up on work or go on vacations before the post-Labor Day election roller-coaster begins. It is also the time when many of us wonder what the media will cover and drag out to fill up vacant news space. This is one of the periods that the White House and majorities in Congress try to anticipate and plan a message around with the hopes that the media will gravitate towards it.
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5 Bad Democratic Policy Ideas
Tweet Share on Facebook July 28, 2010 Comment (2)Robert Schlesinger argues that the GOP has a few bad policy ideas. I strongly disagree with him and contend that because the Democrats run the White House and Congress, we have witnessed misguided and irresponsible policy proposals that are having a negative impact on our country. Here are five examples:
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5 Reasons to Oppose Elena Kagan's Supreme Court Nomination
Tweet Share on Facebook June 23, 2010 Comment (7)By Ron Bonjean, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week will heat up her confirmation process in the media. Without her lack of judicial experience producing little information about her, there has been a sense among inside-the-beltway pundits that Kagan is on cruise control for Senate confirmation. However, this hearing could gain a lot more attention if she provides any inkling of what her judicial philosophy would be on the Supreme Court.
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Harry Reid's Nuclear Strategy Against Sharron Angle Will Fizzle
Tweet Share on Facebook June 9, 2010 Comment (8)By Ron Bonjean, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
After the Nevada primary, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is still fighting an uphill battle. Democratic strategists are now seeing new signs of life in Reid's campaign based on the Nevada primary GOP selection of Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle. The thought process is that Angle will blow up during the next five months by stumbling rhetorically and that her past statements will give the Democrats ammunition to paint her as extremist to independent voters.
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Sestak Job Offer Questions Underscore Obama's Lack of Transparency
Tweet Share on Facebook May 26, 2010 Comment (10)By Ron Bonjean, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Just like the BP camera has allowed us to watch millions of gallons of oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico after the collapse of the “Deep Horizon” oil rig, President Obama should install an Oval Office camera or “Oval Cam” in the White House after the botched handling of Rep. Joe Sestak’s job offer. [See who contributes to Sestak.]
The American people are starving for transparency. Time and again, they have been lied to or misled by government and private institutions. Politicians who offer it willingly are praised while those that reject it or begrudgingly accept it are scorned. Transparency demonstrates that leaders and companies are on the level. It means as President Ronald Reagan said, “Trust, but verify.” BP quickly learned that once the camera broadcast the oil leak to millions of people in real time, the company can’t turn it off without sparking conspiratorial outrage.
President Obama is now suffering the consequences of breaking his transparency promises. In a memorandum to heads of executive agencies on WhiteHouse.gov, he said, “We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”
But his administration’s actions speak louder than his memos or campaign promises. It refused to allow cameras into daily negotiations on the healthcare bill. Instead, White House officials used a televised staged summit as a mea culpa to the public. The recently held nuclear summit closed to the press corps also comes to mind.
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Why Obama Can't Reignite the Democratic Base
Tweet Share on Facebook April 28, 2010 Comment (12)By Ron Bonjean, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
It seems surreal to hear that the White House is announcing plans, six months before the November elections, to energize its base and appeal to such distinct groups as African-Americans, Latinos, and younger voters. Weren’t they supposed to have been helping these groups all along? After all, these people were a crucial voting bloc for the Democratic Party in 2008.
However, all is not well within the ranks. The Congressional Black Caucus had a meeting with President Obama last month to complain that their constituents were not seeing the positive change promised during the campaign. And a new Washington Post/ABC News poll reports that less than a third of all voters now say they will vote for their Members of Congress in November. Maybe this situation was created because the White House made healthcare reform their singular goal for over a year, ignoring other priorities.
Even with a newly announced goal of passing immigration reform, it may be very difficult to reignite the levels of intensity that propelled the Democratic Party to the White House. Just take a look at a few important facts:
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Healthcare Reform’s Negatives Give Democrats a Tough Sell
Tweet Share on Facebook March 29, 2010 Comment (29)Marketing experts believe that "closing the sale," or helping buyers feel good about their immediate purchase, is even more important than buying the product itself. Reputations can be made or broken over the word of existing customers. Charles Schumer of New York, former chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, attempted to close the sale on the newly enacted healthcare spending bill by predicting on Sunday that, "As people learn about the bill, it's going to be more and more popular. By November, those who voted for healthcare will find it an asset, those who voted against it will find it a liability."
Unfortunately for those who voted for the healthcare spending bill, the loopholes and problems with the fine print are already dominating the news cycle as Americans begin to learn more about it. For Democratic lawmakers who voted to support passage of the legislation, these stories will only make their jobs tougher as they try to win over skeptical voters back home during the two-week Congressional break. Just look at the stories this week:
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Obama Healthcare Reform Bill is a Mammoth Job Killer
Tweet Share on Facebook March 17, 2010 Comment (31)By Ron Bonjean, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
What are the top three priorities of any Democratic or Republican White House if they are faced with skyrocketing unemployment and billions of dollars spent on extended unemployment benefits? The answer of course is creating the right economic conditions to grow jobs, jobs, and more jobs. But the Democratic leadership believes in a very different course of action. Their solution is to spend most of their time on attempting to pass a $1 trillion healthcare bill and claim that it will create more jobs.
Speaker Pelosi says a report by the Center for American Progress estimates that the Democrats’ healthcare bill would create 250,000 to 400,000 jobs per year over 10 years. However, a new study released by Americans for Tax Reform reports the exact opposite will happen. Using the center’s own methodology, it finds that the healthcare bill proposed by Democrats would destroy a total of 120,000 to 700,000 jobs by 2019. And the Heritage Foundation recently released its own analysis that the healthcare bill will lead to an estimated 690,000 lost job opportunities per year.
Ron Bonjean
Ron Bonjean is a partner with Singer Bonjean Strategies and the owner of the The Bonjean Company, both full service public affairs firms. He was chief of staff for the Senate Republican Conference under Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona and the top spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans, and other House members. Contact him at ron@singerbonjean.com and follow him on Twitter @RonBonjean.
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