TDS Co-editor Ruy Teixeira’s latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages demonstrates why opponents of health care reform spread lies and distortions about progressive reform proposals. Teixeira says that the lynchpin of their strategy is to insure that “the public can remain confused about what is actually in these plans.” Teixeira explains:

This strategy, as appalling as it is, makes sense from their avowed goal of stopping health care reform. As poll after poll has documented, the public strongly supports the basic reforms that the health care bills would deliver. The latest example of this comes from an end of August CBS News poll. In that poll, 79 percent support “requiring health insurance companies to cover anyone who applies,” 72 percent support “the government setting limits on the amount that health insurance companies can charge people for insurance premiums, co-pays, and out-of-pocket expenses” and 71 percent support “the government providing subsidies to help low-income people buy their own health insurance from private insurance companies.”
These are items that are sure to be in any health care reform bill that Obama signs. But does the public know that? Very doubtful. In the same poll, respondents were asked “Do you think you understand the health care reforms under consideration in Congress, or are they confusing to you?” By an overwhelming 67 percent to 31 percent, the public confessed they are confused by the health care reforms before Congress. This is the confusion the conservatives are so assiduously trying to cultivate.

Teixeira notes further that 60 percent of the public agrees that President Obama “has not clearly explained his plans for health care reform,” nearly double the percentage of those who feel he has done so. If the President meets the challenge of clarity in his speech on health care reform tonight, he could do a lot toward eradicating much of the confusion and lies about the Democratic plan — and lead America toward a new era of health security for all.

Alex Koppleman of Salon.com‘s ‘War Room’ flags an interesting YouTube video (10 mins) showing how Al Franken adroitly handled a group of tea party constituents. Franken respectfully considers their concerns and calmly explains why the Democratic health care reform package is economically-feasible, without getting too wonky. It’s a good training clip for dealing with concerned constituents. What is interesting here is that initially-skeptical constituents appear to be somewhat reassured by Franken’s command of the details.
Another audio-visual resource for messaging on health care is the new film, “Money-Driven Medicine,” which aired on Bill Moyers Journal a week ago. The film is based on Maggie Mahar’s book, “Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much.” Alternet’s report on the book and film features an interview and transcript of a segment.

We’ve posted before on the phenomenon of peaceful town hall meetings on health care reform, where calm, intelligent and informative dialogue takes place being largely ignored by traditional media, while the few meetings dominated by screaming wingnuts get all the coverage (See here and here). E. J. Dionne, Jr. has a column today, which sheds fresh light on the problem, noting:

…What if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? What if the highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion? What if most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt?
There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television’s point of view “boring”) encounters between elected representatives and their constituents.
It’s also clear that the anger that got so much attention largely reflects a fringe right-wing view opposed to all sorts of government programs most Americans support. Much as the far left of the antiwar movement commanded wide coverage during the Vietnam years, so now are extremists on the right hogging the media stage — with the media’s complicity.

In some cases the media distortion is deliberate. In others it’s more about their gullibility, as Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH) suggests, quoted by Dionne:

I think the media coverage has done a disservice by falling for a trick that you’d think experienced media hands wouldn’t fall for: of allowing loud voices to distort the debate

Dionne adds,

The most disturbing account came from Rep. David Price of North Carolina, who spoke with a stringer for one of the television networks at a large town-hall meeting he held in Durham. ..The stringer said he was one of 10 people around the country assigned to watch such encounters. Price said he was told flatly: “Your meeting doesn’t get covered unless it blows up.” As it happens, the Durham audience was broadly sympathetic to reform efforts. No “news” there.

As Dionne concludes, “…The only citizens who commanded widespread media coverage last month were the right-wingers. And I bet you thought the media were “liberal.”

Kos flags an invaluable resource for explaining the benefits of the House version of the Democratic health care reform bill — for every congressional district. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce provides the link, “H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, District by District Impact,” which should be of interest to local activists, candidates and journalists. Each of the 435 links has localized statistics measuring the health and economic effects of the bill including: the number of uninsured who get covered; the number of small businesses that get tax credits and the percentage of households that will pay a surtax, among other pertinent district-wide statistics.
For those who want to get up to speed on the legislation, The Examiner provides a summary of the bill’s key provisions here.

Alan I. Abramowitz’s “The Myth of the Independent Voter Revisited” in Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball makes a strong case for minimizing the importance of Independents in formulating electoral strategy.

Independents are hot. If you’ve been reading the opinion columns in the newspaper or watching the talking heads on television, you probably know that political independents are the largest and fastest growing segment of the American electorate. You also know that independents don’t care about party labels, vote for the person instead of the party, and hew toward the center rather than the poles of the ideological spectrum. And you know that appealing to this growing bloc of independent voters is the major goal of modern political campaigns.
Unfortunately, almost everything that you’ve read or heard about independent voters recently is wrong.

The reason, Abramowitz says:

True independents actually make up a small segment of the American public and an even smaller segment of the electorate; the large majority of those who call themselves independents actually have a party preference…

Abramowitz cites the evidence from the 2008 American National Election Study, and pinpoints the reason for the mistaken belief in the power of Independents as an electoral demographic :

…The 2008 NES appears to show that independents make up the largest segment of the American electorate. About 40 percent of respondents identified themselves as independents, which was considerably more than the 34 percent who identified with the Democratic Party or the 26 percent who identified with the Republican Party. However, when these independent identifiers were asked a follow-up question, nearly three-fourths of them indicated that they usually felt closer to one of the two major parties. Only 11 percent of the respondents were “pure independents” with no party preference. And because these pure independents turned out at a much lower rate than either regular or independent partisans, that number shrank down to 7 percent among those who actually voted.

The study showed that party preferences of many self-described Independents was strongly reflected in their votes, and “these independent partisans think and act almost exactly like regular partisans”:

Not only did the large majority of independent identifiers readily acknowledge having a party preference, but the evidence…shows that independent partisans behaved almost identically to regular partisans when it came to choosing candidates for President, House of Representatives, and Senate: independent Democrats voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates and independent Republicans voted overwhelmingly for Republican candidates.

And the pattern holds for opinions on issues — particularly on health care:

Independent Democrats were generally quite liberal while independent Republicans were generally quite conservative. For example, 76 percent of independent Democrats supported a government-sponsored universal health insurance plan as did 74 percent of regular Democrats. On the other hand, 60 percent of independent Republicans opposed such a plan as did 70 percent of regular Republicans.

And interestingly,

On social issues, independent Democrats were sometimes even more liberal than regular Democrat. For example, 59 percent of independent Democrats supported same-sex marriage compared with 48 percent of regular Democrats, and 63 percent of independent Democrats took the most pro-choice position on the issue of abortion compared with 53 percent of regular Democrats.

The pattern persists for presidential approval polls, notes Abramowitz, who concludes:

…It therefore makes no sense to view independents as a homogenous bloc of floating voters. Independents are sharply divided along party lines just like the rest of the American electorate….The major goal of modern political campaigns is not appealing to a mythical bloc of independent voters, but unifying and mobilizing partisans.

Abramowitz presents a couple of tables that lay out the data nicely, with categories like “weak Democrats” and “pure independents.” The implications of Abramowitz’s analysis for allocating campaign resources should be considerable and his article is a keeper for those interested in electoral campaign strategy.

Hopefully, most TDS readers saw at least a news clip or two of President Obama’s successful town hall meeting in Montana on Friday. For those who didn’t, the next best thing is to read Mike Lupica’s column in today’s Daily News. Lupica leads with the view of a woman who watched the town hall in an airplane hangar in Belgrade, Montana:

“Yes, there were a few protesters en route. But the Montanans who were excited to hear the President far outnumbered the fringe groups.”…Then she said this about Obama: “He was smart, fair, funny.”

Lupica adds,

…This wasn’t an occasion when people with legitimate concerns and legitimate points to make were overwhelmed by the wing nuts and screamers who take their marching orders from right-wing radio and television and the Internet…Those idiots come to these town hall meetings more to be seen than heard, and think creating chaos makes them great Americans.

Lupica, known to most of his readers as a tell-it-straight sports writer, doesn’t mince words:

Those people have been convinced by the current culture that we are dying to hear from them, and the louder the better. People who think that all they need to star in their own reality series is a couple of TV crews…We hear that all of this is democracy in action. It’s not. It’s boom-box democracy, people thinking that if they somehow make enough noise on this subject, they can make Obama into a one-term President…The most violent opposition isn’t directed at his ideas about health care reform. It is directed at him. It is about him. They couldn’t make enough of a majority to beat the Harvard-educated black guy out of the White House, so they will beat him on an issue where they see him as being most vulnerable.
…With that kind of zealotry, screaming about government programs as if Medicare isn’t one. It is why so many of them, all these wild-eyed red faces in the crowd, look completely certifiable, screaming about how Obama wants to kill Grandma, as if he’s suddenly turned into Jack Kevorkian.
…They couldn’t win the fight last November, when he laid out John McCain and Palin and a whole party with one election, so they try to do it now, with lies and rather amazing distortions. They want everybody to believe that if Obama gets his way, he’ll eventually be in charge of insurance and doctors and whether you use CVS or Duane Reade. He’s a Socialist selling socialized medicine. He’ll kill Grandma. Come on. The notion that this is all honest dissent is just one more lie.
Even in Montana, the Swift Boaters who would line up against any health care plan endorsed by Barack Obama ran one television ad 115 times over a day and a half before the President arrived.

The President himself, quoted by Lupica, summed it up well:

“Every time we are in sight of health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they’ve got,” the President said outside Bozeman. “They use their influence and run their ads. They use their political allies to scare the American people.”

Yes, we know, some protestors are sincere and fair-minded, even when not well-informed. But the health care swiftboaters being mobilized to preserve the status quo need to be called out, and this morning Mike Lupica did just that. You can watch President Obama’s Saturday town hall meeting on health care reform in Grand Junction, CO on Saturday, on C-SPAN right here.

UPCATEGORY: Democratic Strategist

Don’t be shocked. But apparently not all of the Town Hall Meetings being held across the country can be likened to episodes of the Jerry Springer Show, as John Stanton reports in his Roll Call article “Democrats Orchestrate Town-Hall Counterpunch.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Thursday argued that despite extensive media coverage of the protests at some lawmakers’ town halls, “I hate to break it to you: I don’t think all the town halls are as you’re seeing them on TV. … While I appreciate that you all have decided that every town-hall meeting ends in pushing, shoving and yelling, I don’t think many, well, I don’t know how many town halls you all have been to. They’re not completely indicative of what’s going on in America.”
The DNC released a statement arguing that “outside the echo chamber of 24-hour cable news, Americans all across the country are attending town halls, holding coffee shop conversations and engaging in respectful, honest debates about the best way to achieve health insurance reform.”
The DNC release pointed to events in North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, Indiana, Ohio, Washington state and other areas that have not featured the kind of ugly protests that have been the focus on national news reports…Similarly, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (Calif.) office Thursday afternoon released a similar “fact sheet” detailing events where no protests occurred.

At The Atlantic‘s ‘Politics Blog’, Chris Good adds:

…Freshman Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), who unseated a Republican in typically conservative upstate New York to enter Congress this year, held a town-hall with 200 constituents that “felt Lincoln-esque in its nature,” according to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle; Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) thought the audience members were “respectful” at a recent event, despite sometimes contentious debate; opponents of health care reform filled up “about half the seats” at a town-hall hosted by Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), according to a post on Daily Kos, but no disruptions occurred; “this is democracy,” Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) said after an event in her district that drew opponents and supporters of reform alike.
The liberal group Americans United for Change (part of the liberal interest-group coalition backing the Democratic/Obama health care reform initiative), likewise blasted out a similar list of peaceful town-halls via e-mail, including a video link to local news coverage of one in Charlottesville, Virginia, where freshman Rep. Tom Perriello (D) was backed up by a predominantly pro-reform crowd…The group forwarded a Philadelphia Inquirer story, highlighting how a health care town-hall hosted by Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) had gone similarly well.
“About 650 people – diverse in age, race, and occupation, but nearly all supporters of a health-care overhaul – last night crowded into a Center City church for a town meeting with U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) that, in sharp contrast to recent gatherings across the country, was overwhelmingly civil.,” the Inquirer reporters wrote.
Some of these examples are taken from strong Democratic districts; some are taken from swing districts and states recently represented by Republicans. The message is less that everyone is behind President Obama’s plan, and more that town-halls aren’t all messy, ugly disruptions–that while the media loves to talk about the frenzied unpleasantness, that’s not what’s going on everywhere, and August isn’t really just a big anti-health-care-reform bloodbath.
The new Democratic message is: civil discourse is happening around health care, and in that regard the White House is making progress on reform, with a healthy, national discussion. It’s not as sensational as a roomful of screamers, but if you read the papers, you’ll see it.

Stanton’s article cites polls indicating sympathy with the town hall protesters, after respondents viewed protests, and that is a concern. Wonder how they would have responded after watching the more numerous town hall meetings, like the one in Charlottesville, which were conducted with civility. Guess they weren’t deemed poll-worthy.

Andrea Fuller reports at The New York Times blog, ‘The Caucus’ on “tele-town halls,” a creative alternative to allowing town hall meetings on health insurance reform to devolve into shouting matches with shrill reactionaries. Fuller explains:

The conference-call style of town halls is nothing new, nor has its use been restricted to Democrats. But for some lawmakers back in their districts this month to talk about health care, the tele-town hall is shaping up as a refreshing option to forums that make possible confrontations with protesters….
…Thousands of participants can join tele-town halls. Representatives provide call-in numbers and access codes to their constituents through robo-calls, Web sites and newsletters. Members of Congress say the phone sessions are a more convenient way to reach constituents, especially elderly and disabled constituents who might not attend an in-person event.
“You can talk to thousands of people all over the state all at once in a format that allows everyone to be heard,” said Jon Summers, a spokesman for the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid. “What we’ve seen with other town halls is the dialogue that people are used to isn’t being allowed to occur.”

Fuller reports that Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC) has scheduled two tele-town hall meetings for August. Shuler aide Douglas Abrahms said he expects the tele-town halls to “catch on quickly.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who conducted a tele-town hall meeting in July with 30,000 participants (OK, mostly listeners), is setting up another one. “You can talk to thousands of people all over the state all at once in a format that allows everyone to be heard,” explains Reid aide Jon Summers.
The tele-town hall meeting strategy allows progressives to manage the environment in a way that encourages civil discussion of concerns, instead of discordant yelling contests. Predictably, the Republicans are attacking the tele-town halls as anti-democratic, primarily because there is no way to disrupt them. But tele-town hall advocates could respond that the comparison between the live and tele-town hall meetings as educational forums is like the difference between ‘shock jock’ radio and NPR.
Some Democratic members of congress may be able to handle the live town hall meetings to their advantage, assuming they can have some control over the environment, by demonstrating their maturity and sobriety in comparison to the screaming GOP shills. And it may be that the astroturfers’ protests will peak too soon, or even better, start to turn off increasing numbers of people. For many Dems, however, the tele-town hall meeting approach is a creative alternative to the Republicans’ obstruction campaign.

Matthew Ygelsias has a ‘Think Progress‘ post, “What’s the Point of These Health Care Town Halls?,” which can be read as a continuation of the topic Ed raised earlier today in his TDS post “Should Town Hall Meetings Matter?”
Yglesias riffs on Michael Crowley’s post commending Sen. Claire McCaskill’s handling of a town hall meeting earlier today. Yglesias agrees with Crowley about McCaskill:

She was pitch-perfect: polite and responsive without being a pushover, armed with clear and compelling facts (emphasis on things any health reform bill will *not* do) and firm when necessary. She shamed one of the loudest hecklers by reminding him that “we have good manners in Missouri,” but without losing her own temper. I know the mid-day MSNBC audience is small, but I feel like almost any open-minded person who saw this performance would come away trusting McCaskill over the protesters.

Sounds like it might make a good training video on how to handle the GOP goon squads that have been showing up at some of these forums, but Yglesias provides no link. Looking at the big picture, Yglesias wonders whether the town hall meetings are worth the trouble:

…Watching McCaskill on TV what I mostly thought of was that I don’t understand why members of congress are holding these town halls. There’s been so much focus on the spectacle of the whole thing that nobody’s really stepped back and explained what the purpose of these events are other than to give us pundits something to chat about. Obviously this is not a good way of acquiring statistically valid information about your constituents’ opinions. And it doesn’t seem like a mode of endeavor likely to increase the popularity of the politician holding the town hall. The upside is extremely limited, and you’re mostly just exposing yourself to the chance that something could go wrong.

Yglesias gets an earful of answers in the comments. Nothing earth-shaking, but some thoughtful insights, such as ‘Dan’s take:

The point is to establish anti-Washington credentials. Remember when McCain was begging for Obama to do a series of town halls together last summer? Something about the format seems to jive well with the angry-white-guy populist shtick.

Adds ‘Henry B.’:

I think the reason for doing them is primarily custom and secondarily the need to generate favorable local media coverage. If you’re a member of Congress and you do a couple town-halls and don’t screw up too badly, you can count on some nice pictures on the front of the local papers. It gives people back home proof that you’re making an effort to stay in touch with your constituents.
There is, of course, an unusually large downside risk this year, and I think that’s why a lot of members of Congress have canceled their town-halls this year. Obviously the members who are going forward with their town-halls are getting more attention, but I work on the Hill and have heard of several members who aren’t doing any town-halls.

‘Ted’ shares Ygelsias’s view:

Everyone’s making good points about the value of town halls in the past. But if these things are going to be regularly astroturfed, I agree with MY that it’s hard to see the upside right now, for individual candidates.
I’m not sure what the overall effect has been on health care reform. Ambinder is saying that the right has blown it by letting their crazies run with the ball. But I haven’t seen a whole lot of effective messaging from our side, either. The net effect may be that people are convinced that the teabaggers are nuts, but remain confused & apprehensive about health policy.

A commenter named ‘Midland” explains:

…Most politicians get their start talking to people one on one and get to the top doing the same. That’s why so many of them seem so inarticulate on television: they didn’t get to where they are going to acting school, they got there by talking to a whole lot of people in small groups. About politics, about themselves, about things they believed in, for good or ill.
The saddest thing about this latest blast of meanness from the right is that town halls, for most of the last two decades, have been a refuge of intelligent, adult political debate. No matter how stupid, bombastic, trivial, or dishonest the network coverage, a politician in a honest town hall meeting usually got sincere questions from thoughtful citizens. It was always a welome contrast to the Beltway gasbags.

‘Njorl’ suggests an interesting idea:

…The Democrats best strategy would have been to hold simultaneous town halls all over the country. You’d get fewer shipped-in crazies that way.

The bottom line, simple as it sounds, may be that, with major electronic media so unwilling to give fair coverage to the case FOR Democratic health care reform proposals, proponents simply have to take every messaging opportunity available.