U.S. Senate | Messaging Matters

Four life hacks to help Joe Biden into the White House

Democratic voters celebrating victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris

Right now, America is suffering a kind of dual political reality. One the one hand, Joe Biden has won the 2020 presidential election and is now considered the President-elect. On the other hand, Donald Trump and many leading Republicans are denying Biden’s victory, instead supporting Trump’s frivolous court challenges to the results in a number of states. In the meantime, Trump has instructed his Executive Branch officials not to cooperate with President-elect Biden’s transition team, which is dangerous for U.S. national security and our health, given the worsening COVID pandemic. Therefore, we have a strong interest in resolving this latest Trump-created Constitutional crisis quickly, and letting Biden get his team in place to receive briefing and other crucial information. Here are four ways, from a messaging perspective, that we can help President-elect Biden become President Biden smoothly, thoroughly and on time:

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Tags: 2020 Elections, AP, Associated Press, Boris Johnson, climate change, Coronavirus, COVID, COVID-19, Donald Trump, Georgia, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, New York Times, President-elect, Rupert Murdoch, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Senate, Wall Street Journal

Five things the Democrats need to do after the election

Written on November 5, 2020 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Democratic vs. Republican Presidents

Simple concept that GOP now opposes

While the 2020 presidential election and various other election races are still being fought, there are already some lessons to be learned. In particular, based on the Republicans’ behavior thus far, Democrats need to do some things differently to match and defeat their opponents going forward. Assuming that Joe Biden, currently well ahead in both electoral and popular votes, defeats Donald Trump for the presidency and/or Democrats at least tie the Republicans for control of the U.S. Senate, here are five things the Democrats should do as soon as they take power:

Get ready for Republican Supreme Court bizarro land

Written on September 23, 2020 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Democratic vs. Republican Presidents, Republican Messaging

Vigil for late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at U.S. Supreme Court

With the death of U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week, attention is rightfully being paid to what happens next on the Court. It appears that Donald Trump, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and just about all Republican Senators are ready to jam another justice onto the Court this year, even though doing so just weeks before the 2020 elections is antithetical to their 2016 blocking of President Barack Obama‘s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland.

Perhaps surprisingly, however, the Democrats may be the ones capitalizing on the Republicans’ Supreme Court plans. First, the Democrats are racking up crazy donations since Ginsburg’s death. Second, the latest polls continue to have plenty of good news for Joe Biden and bad news for Trump. Indeed, in a new poll asking whether Justice Ginsburg should be replaced before the presidential election on November 3, 62 percent of respondents said that the winner of the election (meaning quite possibly Biden) should make that nomination afterward, versus only 23 percent who think Trump should get the choice now.

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Tags: 2020 Elections, Barack Obama, Democrats, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Mitch McConnell, Republicans, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, U.S. Senate

The coming Trump-Biden election horse race

Written on August 5, 2020 by Messaging Matters in Democratic vs. Republican Presidents, Media Watch

How the media would like to portray the election

If the 2020 presidential election were held today, based on current polls, Joe Biden would beat Donald Trump in a landslide. In particular, Biden is ahead of Trump in crucial “battleground” states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida, and is even with (and in some polls ahead of) Trump in states like Arizona, Georgia and the big prize, Texas, all of which Trump won in 2016.

But our mainstream media will not let Joe Biden run away with the election if they can help it. The media want a “horse race,” and you can bet that, with barely over 90 days to go until the election, you will soon be hearing about how “the race is tightening.” Here are some ways that can happen:

2020, meet 1968

Written on June 2, 2020 by Messaging Matters in Democratic vs. Republican Presidents, Good Government

President Lyndon Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, 1968

America torn apart by unrest. An overarching issue that has caused the deaths of many thousands of Americans. Separate protests and riots over the death of a black man. It’s a good description of 2020, right? Actually, this also describes the year 1968. There are some striking parallels between these two years, and they do not bode well for Donald Trump or the Republican Party.

In 1968, Lyndon Johnson, who had become president after John F. Kennedy‘s assassination in November 1963, faced the twin issues of the Vietnam War and racial unrest. The war so mired President Johnson and tore apart the country that, in March 1968, Johnson announced that he would not run for reelection. And then, just four days later, as if to ensure that America would remain in strife through the election, black civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. Coming after years of bloody civil rights battles and documented police brutality, King’s murder led to protests and riots around the country. Johnson’s decision not to run for another term was already based in part in the reality that his approval rating throughout 1968 mostly hovered in the low forties range, having declined steadily from the highs of nearly 80 percent in his first few months after taking office, and was largely attributable to the Vietnam War.

On impeachment and governing, Democrats show they can walk and chew gum

Written on December 11, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Republican Messaging

Impeachment message in timely Christmas colors

By now, many people realize that the impeachment of Donald Trump involves a public relations war. On one side, we have Trump and the Republicans claiming that the Democrats are “obsessed with impeaching” Trump, to the exclusion of all else. So what have the Democrats done effectively to counter that charge? Quite a bit, as it turns out.

First, House Democrats unveiled their Articles of Impeachment against Trump while simultaneously announcing that they had reached an agreement with Trump on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on trade. This is a reminder by Democrats (and they are sure to remind us further) that, not only can they govern and impeach Trump at the same time, they have passed nearly 400 bills, all of which are sitting idly on Mitch McConnell‘s U.S. Senate desk.

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Tags: 2020 Elections, Canada, Congress, Democrats, Donald Trump, impeachment, Mexico, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Republicans, Russia, trade agreement, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, Ukraine, USMCA

DCCC releases 2019 Thanksgiving dinner talking points

Written on November 27, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Republican Messaging

Thanksgiving dinner table, before the political food fight

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has released a humorous, menu-style set of talking points for Democrats to respond to that Republican blowhard who seems to spout off at everyone’s Thanksgiving dinner. The talking points, which can be found in this .pdf, are entitled “Know Your Stuffing.” Each subject has a cute Thanksgiving dinner theme, complete with food graphics, and is designed as a response to a Republican rant, since they always seem to be the ones who bring up these political subjects at the holiday table. For example, there is “Aunt Mary’s ‘There Was No Quid-Pie-Quo,'” described as “a crust so flaky, it falls apart the moment you present it with evidence.” Responses to this talking point are listed under “What to Bring,” and include:

Multiple members of the Trump administration have testified before Congress there was a quid pro quo agreement with Ukraine.

Trump himself—in a memo he released—admitted he withheld aid from Ukraine until they dug up dirt on his political opponents.

Both of these responses even include footnotes to reputable sources for this information.

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Tags: climate change, DACA, Democrats, Donald Trump, impeachment, Mitch McConnell, Republicans, Thanksgiving, U.S. House, U.S. Senate

After election defeats, will Republicans finally abandon Trump?

Written on November 6, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Republican Messaging

Virginia Beach voting sticker

Yesterday, Republicans suffered stunning election losses in Kentucky and Virginia. In Kentucky, Democratic state Attorney General Andy Beshear defeated incumbent Republican Governor Matt Bevin to become the new Governor-elect (Bevin thus far has refused to concede the election). Bevin’s defeat is a major embarrassment for Donald Trump, who, on Monday night, held a rally in Kentucky’s second-largest city, Lexington, and pleaded with the audience to prevent a Democratic win in the state, saying, “You can’t let that happen to me!”

In Virginia, Democrats won the majority in the State House of Delegates and the State Senate, to go along with their Democratic Governor. This marks the first time in 26 years that Virginia has had a unified Democratic state government, which may well be a continuation of the “Blue Wave” that swept Democrats into the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. One of the issues for Virginia voters yesterday was gun violence, after 12 people were killed in a mass shooting in Virginia Beach last May. Republican lawmakers in Virginia, as well as nationally, have dragged their feet on or even blocked taking common-sense steps proposed by Democrats to reduce gun violence. The voters may have signaled that they have had enough.

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Tags: 2018 Elections, 2020 Elections, Blue Wave, Congress, David Jolly, Democrats, Donald Trump, gun control, guns, Kentucky, Lindsey Graham, mass shooting, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Susan Collins, U.S. House, U.S. Senate, Virginia, Virginia Beach

Is the tide finally turning on gun violence?

Written on September 20, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging

Vigil for shooting victims (Dayton, OH)

Colt Firearms recently announced that it will suspend production and civilian sales of its AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle. Due to their design enabling shooters to kill so many people in so little time, the AR-15 (the most popular rifle in America) and similar assault weapons, such as the AK-47, are the top choices in a large number of America’s deadliest mass shootings, and the vast majority of mass shooting deaths, including:

Aurora, CO; Sandy Hook Elementary School (CT); Poway, California synagogue; New Zealand mosques; El Paso, TX; Dayton, OH (9 people killed in 30 seconds); Las Vegas, NV concert; Sutherland Springs, TX church; Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland, FL); Santa Monica, CA; San Bernardino, CA; Albuquerque, NM; Geneva County, AL; Chattanooga, TN; Carson City, NV; and more.

In addition to Colt’s discontinuation of the AR-15, moreover, several other actions might be considered early signals that the tide of public opinion, and legislative action, may be starting to turn against gun violence. These actions include:

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Tags: AR-15, assault weapons, Beto O'Rourke, Congress, Democrats, El Paso, gun control, gun safety, gun violence, guns, mass shootings, National Rifle Association, NRA, Republicans, U.S. House, U.S. Senate

Democratic leadership and base talk Trump impeachment differently

Written on March 13, 2019 by Messaging Matters in Democratic Messaging, Democratic vs. Republican Presidents

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Much hay was made this week from Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s answer to a Washington Post interviewer’s question about impeaching Donald Trump. Here’s the question and Pelosi’s response:

There have been increasing calls, including from some of your members, for impeachment of the president.

I’m not for impeachment. This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I’ve been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.

Many Democrats took to blogs and social media to express their disappointment with Speaker Pelosi’s answer. For example, here’s author and MSNBC contributor Malcolm Nance:

Wrong! What the hell is wrong with the @SpeakerPelosi Congress that they absolve themselves of their duty! Nothing is criminal anymore?! Trump can do and say like a dictator as he pleases? All of his crimes are OK even if you see them? This requires a public outcry. #Disgraceful. https://t.co/7m3lElzP5n

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) March 11, 2019

However, what this episode really shows is that the Democratic Party’s base (including a few House members) and its leadership have different considerations that allow them differing degrees of freedom in what they can say publicly at this time.

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Tags: Bill Clinton, Congress, Democrats, Donald Trump, impeachment, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, Richard Nixon, Robert Mueller, Russia, Starr Report, U.S. House, U.S. Senate

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