A Message The Democrats Should Embrace

Caption: The political party in power should deposit all messages here. Don't forget to flush.

Image credit: Wikipedia/Jeanot

Apparently, a particularly sad portion of the progressive and Democratic Party leadership still think the Democrats got their asses handed to them in November because they couldn't put out the right message:

Others said Democratic leaders need to clearly spell out what they believe are the motivations behind the Republicans' positions: that they are beholden to special interests, who bankroll their campaigns.

If Democrats keep losing the message war, they worry, they will be wiped out in 2012.

“There was a lot of passion in that room,” one senator said. “The reason is because the public is with us on our policies, but they’re not getting the message.”

Senate Democrats vent anger with Barack Obama

As you can see from the title, this particular group of wankers was the Senate Democrats, but it's not the first time I've felt the need to write about this. Clearly, that article was too long for all those folks who worry about messaging, so let me put the problem in simple, messaging terms:

When you’re not in power, messaging matters. When you’re in power, results are what matter.

You see, we got the message. The Democrats were useless at making the things happen that we needed them to make happen. It's that simple. Blaming messaging for their failure to do what needed to be done, because it's just so darned hard, isn't going to fly in this or any century. When sports teams and companies don't perform well, the leadership gets fired. That's why they get the big bucks. That's true even on those rare occasions when the leaders aren't the ones to blame.

Not that I don't blame our leaders, mind you. Did they punish Blanche Lincoln for holding up bank reform? No, they bankrolled her against a moderate challenger. Did they punish Ben Nelson for holding up health care? Not a chance. They punished progressives in the party. They got what they wanted, and in the end, they lost.

The Democrats lost because they were useless. There, that's another message.

(h/t Blue Texan, who also had some interesting things to say about messaging.)