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player ready...by Frank James
It’s a variation of the old proverbial question about whether a tree falling in forest makes a sound if there’s no one to hear it.
Congressional Democrats are struggling to overcome the perception they haven’t accomplished much of anything in their first ten months of controlling Congress.
They say they have, it’s just that voters haven’t heard enough about what they’ve done to give them the deserved credit.
The narrative by this point is pretty well known, at least inside the Beltway. Democrats won narrow legislative majorities in the House and Senate largely because of voter unhappiness with the Iraq War. But they have been unable to end the war because of their lack of enough votes to override President Bush’s veto.
This has made Democrats seem ineffective in the eyes of many voters who generalize that impression onto all the Democratic-led Congress’s efforts even though they have had some significant accomplishments.
Oversight of the executive-branch, which under Republican control had atrophied, has been revived. Congress’s exercise of its oversight authority may not be as popular as a tax cut but it’s how many problems in the federal government come to light.Meanwhile, Democrats have passed a minimum-wage increase, lobbying and ethics reform and student-aid boosts. But voters apparently yawned and have given Congress very little love. In fact, they’ve rewarded Congress with lower approval ratings than those received by the generally unpopular president.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters recently she intends to meet with them a lot more, an effort to make sure that she drives into our brains and through us, the American people’s, the congressional Democrats’ accomplishments.
The Hill newspaper reported yesterday that House Democrats are getting geared up for a major publicity blitz in order to turn around public perceptions in the small window left before anything they say is drowned out by the cacophony of the full-scale presidential campaign once the nominees are chosen.
As the Hill reported:
In a “Dear Colleague” letter sent last week to lawmakers, the six senior House Democratic leaders noted that bipartisan majorities have passed lobbying and ethics reforms, an increase in the minimum wage, a massive increase in student aid, legislation to implement the 9/11 Commission recommendations and other initiatives that President Bush has signed into law.
Democratic leaders want the rank and file to do more to publicize those details, because they are concerned that the public is unaware of those accomplishments and that it will become more difficult to hype their message as the presidential race further dominates the news.
Those leaders expect their members to hold more press conferences and town hall meetings, send out more franked mail and develop better online strategies. Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) is expected to keep tabs on which Democrats are doing their part to play up their record, leadership aides said.
“We’re concerned obviously that the accomplishments of both the House and Senate are overshadowed by failure to change direction in Iraq,” said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “We’re hoping in the next three or four months to make it clear what has been done and make it clear we are upset that more has not been accomplished because of the president’s refusal to change direction.”
So expect to hear in the coming weeks much more from congressional Democrats about all they have accomplished in their first year in power.
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It may not help their poll numbers. But it probably can’t hurt.