Jon Henke's blog

The problem is ... an echo chamber that has rotted our intellect, a grassroots that is ill-equipped to shape the Republican Party, and a Republican Party that has replaced strategy with tactics, substance with marketing. 

The very serious Republican problem I described after the election - and which Patrick Ruffini cogently described as "The Joe-the-Plumberization of the GOP"- is pervasive and crucial.  Unfortunately, Paul Krugman identifies another example of the problem...

What is the appropriate role of government?  [...]  [B]oth sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.) [...] So what did Bobby Jindal choose to ridicule in this response to Obama last night? Volcano monitoring, of course. [...]

The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.

There's a time and place for ridicule, but it should be a byproduct of a coherent, intellectual policy framework and agenda.  Policy experts do policy, communicators do marketing. 

In recent decades, though, the Repubican Party has turned that process on its head. Now, marketing drives policy (e.g., tax cuts are the answer to everything, and transparency is only something the other guy should do).   The policy experts are forced to spin the gimmicks, and the Republican Party grows farther and farther from reality. "Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." - Sun Tzu

TechDirt made an important point about the Obama administration's transparency failure...

[T]he administration has set up Recovery.gov in an effort to be transparent. That's leading to some reasonable confusion because the bill actually called for an independent Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to create a website for transparency. Recovery.gov is not at all independent and is maintained by the White House.But, I think there's a more important issue to be discussed here: which is that this is transparency after the fact. If the administration were serious about transparency in this process why wasn't their transparency and openness during the process? [...]  To then tell us after the fact that you've set up a website to hear from people and be transparent seems way too little and way too late. It's not about providing the data after the decisions have been made. It's about letting people at least share their thoughts before such decisions have been made.

Transparency is good, bipartisan policy.  While the Democrat's failure to implement it is disappointing, public choice theory suggests it should not be surprising.  But I'm really surprised at the Republican failure to make progress on this opportunity.  They have a genuine incentive to show leadership on transparency - both to regain reform credibility and to hold Democrats accountable.

Unfortunately, Republicans appear uninterested.

Two weeks ago, I proposed a process for major Republican transparency reform (the process outline is below the fold on this post).  It was simple, doable, credible and it would advance the core principles of the Republican Party.   I expected to hear from at least a few Congressional offices and movement organizations interested in discussing and advancing the plan.   I expected some enthusiasm about the project. 

Instead, nothing.

Or rather, almost nothing.  Two organizations responded, enthusiastic about the idea and eager to help any Republicans willing to move the ball forward on transparency.  Neither organization was Republican or conservative.

I don't know who the future leaders of the Republican Party will be, but they won't be the people whose "leadership" consists of the ability to get on tv and read the latest "why Democrats suck" talking points.   The future leaders of the Republican Party will be the politicians and organizations who actually reform the Republican party. 

Leadership starts at home.  But in the Republican Party so far, it hasn't started at all.  

I hope that changes.  A plan for doing so is outlined below the fold.

 This should help you evaluate the rhetoric you hear from Republicans as they dicker over the future of the Republican Party.

1. [BAD] Bargaining: "If you return us to power, we'll stop the Democrats!  And behave better!" 

2. [INADEQUATE] Apology: "We've learned our lesson"; "We lost our way."; "We need to return to principles."; "You can tell we've learned because we're voting against Democrats!"

3. [GOOD] Repentance: "I was wrong to [fill in the blank with specific votes, decisions and opinions], because [fill in blank with specific reason] and I pledge not to do that again."

4. [BETTER] Acceptance: "You have absolutely no reason, none, to trust our word or our actions at this point." - RNC Chairman Michael Steele, acknowledging the Republican Party's failures, lack of credibility and responsibility for same.

5. [BEST] Reform: "We abused the power we were given, and we should not be trusted with the majority again until we have taken steps to reform ourselves.  To that end, we are unilaterally adopting transparency, ethics and procedural rules for the Congressional Republican Caucuses.  What's more, the RNC, NRSC and NRCC are adopting strict accounting rules to protect donations and expenditures, and strict communications accountability rules, including disclosure of evidence for independent review and verification, that will ensure the integrity and accuracy of any message we communicate to the public.  We hope the Democrats will join us in these reforms, but we will not wait for them to act before we get our own house in order." 

If Republicans still believe in Trust, but Verify, then rebuilding the Republican Party does not begin until Republicans make real progress on step #5.

Karen Hanretty pinpoints the reason President Obama and Congressional Democrats are rushing to get the stimulus bill passed.

President Obama is in a race against time.  Because you don’t build support over time.  You lose support. In other words, the longer it takes the conference committee to work out a final version of the bill (and we’re talking days, not weeks), the more time there is for the ugly details of this legislative beheamoth to be revealed.  It’s happening already, and the more the people know about how the sausage is being made, the less likely they are to want to want a serving.  [...]

Transparency is not in President Obama’s best interest right now.  Thus, the political urgency to get a bill on his desk he can sign.

As Patrick Ruffini has pointed before, "inevitable" "emergency"  legislation is "never more popular than on the day it is passed".  Current polling suggests the public does favor the stimulus legislation (CNN: 54-45; Pew 51-34; Gallup 59-33).   

However, those same polls carry a hint at the future.  55% said the bill spends too much (CNN).  Only 16% said government spending is the best way to stimulate the economy quickly (CBS). 

Remember:

• Democrats win by focusing on the benefits.  "Look what we can do FOR you." 
• Republicans win by focusing on the costs.  "Look what they're doing TO you."

The Democrats biggest advantage - the availability bias that focuses minds on the visible - will become their biggest problem.  When the recession is displaced in the public consciousness by announcements of massive, trillion dollar deficits, inevitable tax hikes and the forthcoming fiscal crisis, public opinion will change.  And so will the public priorities.

Transparency is an area of genuine opportunity for progress right now, because (1) the majority party promised they would do it, and (2) the minority party has a political incentive to hold the majority to their promise. 

However, as easy and obvious a policy as transparency seems, there are also two problems with it: (1) the majority now has a political disincentive to be transparent, and (2) the minority has no credibility to insist upon it.

With that in mind, let me endorse what Cato's Jim Harper says at the excellent Washington Watch website about the prospect of televising the stimulus bill conference committee meetings (where the differences between the House and Senate bills are hammered out to produce the final legislation).

I have been to conference committee meetings before as a staffer. Senators, Representatives, and their top staff members huddle in a smallish room and go through the bill hashing out the final product. ... [T]hey are closed, “insider” affairs. What goes in and what comes out are largely pre-determined by back-channel discussions before the actual meetings.  If conference committee meetings were televised, members of the conference committee would be constrained to explain what they were doing and why. That would be a good thing.

There is some risk in how these ideas are being put forward. Republicans threaten the goals of the transparency community (in which we count WashingtonWatch.com) if they use transparency as a partisan cudgel against Democrats and President Obama.

Republicans should pair their push for openness while Democrats are in control with a pledge to openness of their own. Any openness precedents set now should hold in any Congress, regardless of partisan control.

Transparency is good, but Republicans cannot simply endorse transparency measures that make life more difficult for Democrats.  Republicans cannot (as they did last year) reduce "transparency" to "policies that make it politically easier for us to pursue our agenda." Unfortunately - and this gets back to my argument that Republicans have become tactical, not strategic - the GOP approaches transparency as a tactical means to achieve political advantage.

The key to Republican credibility - on transparency and many other issues - is actual, unilateral leadership.  

That can be accomplished in three steps:

1. First, Congressional Republicans must designate an outside, non- or bi-partisan group of experts and advocates to design an ideal, accomplishable set of transparency rules.  And that process itself must be transparent.

• This would be an ideal project for the new RNC to organize.  By working with bi-partisan experts and groups (from leaders in the new media and tech communities to leaders in the transparency community, such as Cato and the Sunlight Foundation) to enact genuinely transformational changes, the RNC would demonstrate their commitment to reform and to technology innovation.

2. Second, Congressional Republicans must, unilaterally and without condition, embrace expansive - even uncomfortable and politically inconvenient - transparency and disclosure rules for the House and Senate Republicans.

   • They should do this for the entire Republican caucus.  If they cannot get enough Members onboard to enact the rules for the entire Republican caucus, then individual members should organize their own Accountability Caucus.  Republicans who do not join the Accountability Caucus should pay a political price for being unwilling to abide by the highest standards of transparency and accountability.

3. Third, Congressional Republicans - after having adopted a non-partisan standard of transparency and disclosure - should propose to universalize those rules (on an all-or-nothing basis) across Congress. 

   • In order to prevent the inevitable climb-down when the rules become inconvenient to the majority, the rules should require that any future rule change that limits or reduces transparency must be approved by a supermajority of Senators or Representatives.

There is only one, very small constituency that opposes Congressional transparency.  Unfortunately, that constituency is the 535 members of Congress.  Since they operate at the decision chokepoint, transparency is usually choked.

If Republicans want to demonstrate a commitment to actual reform, this is the way to accomplish it.  It would be good policy, it addresses crucial problems, and it is something Republicans have in their power to accomplish.  What's more, while it would make many in Congress unhappy, it would be publicly popular. 

And perhaps that is the big question this would answer about Congressional Republicans.  Do their allegiances of Congressional Republicans lie with the politicians in Congress, or with the voters who elected them? 

UPDATE: Rep. Tom Price called for cameras to be allowed inside the conference process.  You can see video at C-Span or read Rep. Price's post at Red State.  Two questions for Rep. Price: (1) Did you demand this kind of transparency from Republicans when you entered Congress in 2005?  (2) Why not take the lead (as described above) and impose transparency rules on yourself before you demand it of Democrats? 

I'd genuinely like an answer to those questions.  At this point, it's very difficult to take Republicans seriously on their transparency demands.

Four years ago, liberal journalist Garance Franke-Ruta (now at the Washington Post) wrote at The American Prospect that "right-wing blogs openly shill, fund raise, plot, and organize massive activist campaigns on behalf of partisan institutions and constituencies", and "instead of taking these bloggers for the political activists they are, all too often the established press has accepted their claims of being a new form of journalism. This will have to change -- or it will prove serious journalism's undoing."

Ironically, her description of the Rightosphere is now pretty much an operating formula for the Leftosphere.  Two recent posts encapsulate that dynamic.   At Daily Kos, diarist msblucow wrote of her eagerness to get marching orders...

Tuesday night I was on a conference call with Organizing For America, what the Obama campaign structure has morphed into since the campaign. I, along with thousands of other former Obama campaign volunteers, expected to get our marching orders, told who we should telephone, e-mail, visit, blog about - whatever it took to get the best possible stimulus legislation out of Congress.

Open Left's Chris Bowers also hoisted the team flag and asked how he should wave it.

I really want to help pass the stimulus package at its current size, but I honestly don't know how to do that right now. It is very frustrating when you want to help, but you don't even know if that help is wanted, or exactly how you could help even if it was wanted. If President Obama would let us know which side he was on--the center-right Senate coalition's or the Democratic congressional leadership's--and urged people to take specific actions to help that side, everything would be a lot clearer.

Now, let me be clear: there's nothing really wrong with advocating, fundraising, plotting and organizing to pursue political, even partisan, goals. But I don't think it's ever been as overt on the Right as it has been on the Left.  Heck, I did new media outreach for the Senate Republicans, and I can tell you we never had the benefit of this kind of organized, energetic "tell us what to do" atitude from the Rightosphere.  As far as I've been able to tell, neither House Republicans nor the Bush White House did, either. 

For the most part, this is because the Right has been growing more and more alienated from its base, and especially from the more fiscally conservative/libertarian Rightosphere.  Meanwhile, the agendas of the Leftroots and the Democratic Party have increasingly aligned as the Democrats gradually re-gained political momentum.

But it's an interesting dynamic, and we will see more and more of this sort of organized blogging advocacy and message coordination in future policy fights.  Perhaps somebody with the Washington Post might cover that. 

National Journal says the Senate has reached a compromise stimulus deal.   Nevertheless, nobody has much cause to be happy about the passage.  The President, Congressional Republicans and Congressional Democrats have managed to hit the rare trifecta of failure.

1. The Emperor has no leverage:  President Obama promised to ban earmarks and pork in this legislation, and then folded like a lame duck when Congressional Democrats demanded their earmarks.  Not only can Obama not pass his top priority legislation on his own terms with a major Democratic majority, the Congressional Democrats aren't even listening to him.  President Obama cannot be happy that he's been shown to be so impotent on his biggest policy priority.
2. Republicans have very little leverage: After years of political domination, Republicans have made virtually no progress on strategic policy goals.  Meanwhile, Democrats look certain to entrench significant policy gains within weeks of the election of a Democratic President.  And while Obama offered some tax cut overtures to Republicans, the massive deficits implicit in the bill make them pyrrhic victories.  Tax cuts can't outrun the bill coming due. 
3. Democrats had to compromise: I was given a Senate document today that shows the (then-current) status of negotiations.   Note what is being cut (a lot of non-stimulus spending that Unions would like) and what is being added (defense spending).   See the document below the fold...

I love accountability journalism.

Somebody recently asked me: What can Republicans do on health care? The answer is simple. They lose. In fact, for the next four years, that's going to be the answer Republicans are forced to face over and over again. So let's be blunt about what we can expect: taxes will be higher, universal health care will be imposed, spending will go way, way up, Unions will be given more power, and the government will increasingly pick winners and losers.

And there's almost nothing Republicans can do to stop it.

But though we can't stop it, that doesn't mean we can't do anything about it.  We ought to do two things:

1. While we lose, Republicans ought to work to include accountability/transparency mechanisms, so that the public can evaluate the success/failure of the Democrat's programs; we need to insist on the inclusion of market mechanisms (such as lower licensing barriers for health care practitioners) to provide space for the market to innovate within the new, more restrictive Democratic regulations.
2. Republicans don't need to "get back to their principles." Principles aren't the problem. The idea of individual freedom, free markets and limited government is just fine. The problem is that Republicans lack any viable political strategy to achieve them. It's one thing to say "cut spending," but it's quite another to actually cut spending in a significant and lasting way. Republicans must focus on developing the viable political strategies that address the underlying incentive problems that make a "philosophically conservative" America so "operationally liberal." 

   These problems include our lack of a price mechanism for government, a "safety net" that catches everybody and thus has become untouchable, a health care system captured by cartel interests, an inflation measurement that overstates inflation — thus understating economic progress — and a legislative process that removes accountability through bundling.

Over the next four years, Republicans would do well to remember one more thing: Democrats are not The Problem. Nor are Republicans. The Problem is structural, and the only way Republicans can actually move the ideological ball forward is by limiting Republicans and Democrats alike.  Republicans can rise again, but they will have to persuasively argue that they can limit themselves.

[Reposted from the late, lamented Culture11]

Colin Delany makes a crucial point at e.politics (and techPresident) about the importance of (a) integrating new/internet/social media with the rest of the organization rather than siloing it as one department among many, and (b) treating new media as a force multiplier for existing goals.

[Former Obama new media director Joe Rospars said] his department was NOT a part of the campaign's tech team. Instead, it was coequal with communications, field/grassroots, finance, etc., and was in fact just as much a client of the technology folks as, say, the press team was.

His remark jumped out at me because it's true so rarely. More often, online organizers and online advocacy staff are put in the technology box rather than allowed to be communicators ... And online communicators are often the last people consulted when messaging and outreach strategy are being planned, when they should be a part of the process from the beginning. [...]  [I]t's not the tools, it's the people and how they're organized and directed to USE the tools.

The Obama campaign used the internet as well as they did not because they employed tools that were particularly new (database-driven field organizing, email fundraising, online video and social networking have all been around for years) but because they worked out human systems to put those tools to work effectively.

 It is important that we don't put the technology cart before the mission horse.  The internet simply changes the scale at which we can productively do things that people already want to do.   As I've written previously, the Leftosphere is not effective because they can fundraise and mobilize activists.  They are effective because they can communicate and organize people around a message.  Fundraising and activism is a product of communication and organization.

I've outlined the correct course and order for rebuilding the Right as follows. 

• ...better information organization, which helps create coalesce a movement around...
• ...the organizing agenda, out of which flows...
• ...the storyline, narrative, which motivates...
• ...the grassroots/netroots to get engaged, mobilized and donating, all of which is channeled effectively by...
• ...the infrastructure, both online and offline.

Notice that the first 3 steps are really about information organization, ideas and communication.  It's not until we get to step 4 - when people are actually motivated to do something - that new, innovative technology really becomes necessary to turn information into more tangible results.

The key: new media operations need to be service-oriented.

The internet is not an organization, full of people to direct.  It is a market, full of people who already have things they want to do. 

We need to stop approaching the internet with a "what do I want them to accomplish?" mindset.  Instead, our campaigns and infrastructure need to ask, "what do they want to accomplish and how can we help?"