Left

I received a copy of this request -- from UHCAN Ohio to promote government healthcare reform -- we must communicate our opposition!!!!

Request for Proposals for Targeted Media in Southwest Ohio UHCAN Ohio and the Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage is engaged in a campaign to inform the public about the importance of federal health care reform and reduce the fear that is being created by opponents of health care reform who are spreading misinformation. We are looking for a media/communications consultant who can secure for us earned media opportunities to spread a positive message on health care reform and inform the public on the many areas that are rife with confusion. Our target market is the eight counties of Adams, Brown, Butler, Clermont, Clinton, Hamilton, Highland and Warren. We desire to mount a media campaign over the next three months that will cross print, broadcast, cable, and internet media. We are looking for opportunities to reach a broad swath of the public and of interest groups, such as business or religious constituencies. The pace of federal health care reform efforts has dramatically accelerated since early June 2009. If meaningful health care reform is to happen two needs must be met:(1)   Voters need to remain positive about reform, even as contentious debate arises over details of reform (such as the public health insurance option and the financing of reform) and as opponents of reform undermine public support with fear mongering.(2)   Federal legislators need to hear from voters that they want to see federal action on health care this year and that they care about affordability, quality, and health care security for all Americans. For voters to remain positive about health care reform, they need to receive positive messages and reliable information that reinforces the benefits they will derive from health care reform.  Meeting the Need for Clear Messages that Reduce the Fear Being Engendered by the Opponents of Health Care Reform.  People get most of their information from broadcast, cable and internet media, as well as people (family, friends, co-workers and others) who repeat to them what they heard in the mass media. The opponents of health care reform are spending millions of dollars on persuading the public that health care reform will result in a “government takeover” and “get in between them and their doctor.” The proponents of health care reform need to find ways to gain earned media to let people know that health care reform will protect and improve their choices.  We are looking for a PR consultant local to Southwest Ohio who will secure opportunities in Southwest Ohio across media types for UHCAN Ohio and Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage staff and partners to discuss health care reform.  We need a PR consultant to secure for us these opportunities:1.      Appearances on radio talk shows2.      Appearances on “drive time” radio programs3.      Appearances on broadcast and cable TV4.      Articles in daily and weekly newspapers targeted at the general public5.      Articles in specialty newspapers, such as those targeted at religious communities or the business community6.      Connections made through social networking sites including the blogosphere Time Frame:·         This will be a three month contract taking place between August and October.  Contractor Responsibilities:·         Contractor will pitch stories and potential interviewees to the media. Contractor will identify blogs that discuss health care (among other topics) that have a readership in Southwest Ohio and refer Client to those blogs.  Client will be responsible for furnishing the person(s) to be interviewed, and for developing messaging around health care reform. Client works with a communications organization in Columbus, and has some outside technical assistance from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on messaging. Client primarily needs a consultant who has local connections and can secure media exposure.  Please submit a brief proposal to UHCAN Ohio stating(1)   Your history of securing media for small groups and not-for-profit groups(2)   Your history of handling communications that are part of a campaign(3)   Your history of working with health care professional or advocacy groups(4)   The plan you would undertake to secure significant earned media coverage in the next three months in Southwest Ohio on health care reform (including how you track media hits)(5)   Your fee. Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage is a consumer-based coalition seeking fundamental health care reform benefitting consumers. It is staffed by UHCAN Ohio. Information about UHCAN Ohio and OCHC can be found at their web sites:www.uhcanohio.orgwww.ohioconsumersforhealth.org Proposals should be submitted no later than 5 PM

I really enjoy reading the work of converts -- people who were formerly on the left but through some epiphany became conservatives. They have the most keen insights into what animates leftist thought, and they also understand the tactics that the left uses to advance their causes. David Horowitz, who edited Ramparts in his youth, is probably the best known.

Janet Daley of the UK Telegraph is another such voice. She has a wonderful column this morning that wraps up the Obama administration's response to the economic crisis, and pairs it with Gordon Brown's leadership.

She notes that while Obama may not meet the textbook definition of a doctrinaire socialist, he meets her own practical definition, one with which Great Britain, particularly in the 15 years before Margaret Thatcher, became all too familiar:

You may quibble at my use of the word "socialist" to describe people who generally present themselves as friends of the free market, and who have repudiated full-scale nationalisation (even of the banks at a moment when that option might have appeared irresistible). So, as someone who spent her formative years on the Left, let me make clear that I am using the word to designate those who accept the primary tenet of Marxist ideology: that the economy can and should be controlled by the state.

Like Krauthammer last week, she calls Obama on the odd, revisionist story he told during his speech to Congress, a statist vision of the causes of economic upheaval:

...he actually seemed to suggest that the present crisis had been caused by America's failure to develop a universal health care system and to attend to the impending environmental disaster of global warming ("we made the wrong choices"), and that by focusing on these matters a way can be found out of the country's economic problems.

Is he quite mad? Does he really believe that the banking crisis and the recession were some kind of divine retribution for the absence of universal health care, and excessive carbon emissions? Or is he suggesting that a practical solution lies in spending money on health care and the development of alternative energy sources?

No, not "quite mad," just clever, in a ham-handed way.

I grew up with the Left and what this looks like to me is a power grab: a seizing of the moment by the forces which always believed in state domination. The Left sees an opening here, first for telling a critical lie about the historical origins of this crisis, which was propelled as much by the Left-liberal determination to spread prosperity through easy credit to the poor, as by the greed of bankers. And then, out of the wreckage, to restructure the economy along the lines that it always wanted, complete with central controls over the pay levels in private financial institutions.

We are being led to believe that public debate should be all about economic mechanics when it should really be about political principle: just how many freedoms do we want to lose while governments pretend that they are the solution?

On the lighter side, another UK voice worth reading is James Delingpole, whose book, Welcome to Obamaland: I Have Seen Your Future and It Doesn't Work!, is a real hoot. Delingpole is no convert, but he understands the Obama attraction well, and has good fun comparing it to the Blair years to let us know what's ahead in the former colonies. It'll make all but most humorless Obama acolytes laugh, too. Among other things, he chronicles the left's campaign to ban fox hunting, "the only sport," he notes,  "FACT - where alcohol actually improves your performance."

Okay ... so the new talking point making the rounds on the Left is that Sarah Palin is afraid of her lack of experience, knowledge, intelligence, accomplishment and basic humanity being exposed by those paragons and arbiters of honesty, courage, strength, fairness and objectivity. As evidence, they are pointing to Palin's absence from the Sunday morning talk shows. What is she (and John McCain) afraid of, they sneer? The Chicago Tribune's Mark Silva (H/T: Don Surber) offers this hopeful possibility for the Obama faithful;

So, maybe putting Sarah Palin out there in public where she has to answer questions from a reporter, as opposed to running circles around a fast-reeling TelePrompTer, isn’t in McCain’s “best interests?'’ Palin, conspicuous by her mere absence: This booking strategy may speak volumes about the McCain campaign’s confidence in the governor from Alaska.

Most of the Democratic Press have already convinced themselves that she is an airheaded lightweight who will collapse and fold like a cheap suit under tough questions designed to test her "knowledge" and "experience." They're so convinced that [H/T: Erick] Jonathan Alter of the strongly Democratic Newsweek [sic] is confident enough to offer us a window into his thoughts of what is likely to happen should Palin make the mistake of coming face to face with er ... "tough-minded" (read: in-the-tank-for-Obama) reporters;

Her lack of experience will only become an issue if it is manifested during the campaign. To decrease the odds of a gaffe, expect her to be carefully shielded from the questions of tough-minded reporters.

I'd imagine that Palin will dodge press conferences in favor of interviews with people like Sean Hannity, Larry King and Ellen DeGeneres. Then, when the media complain that she is being kept away, the McCain campaign will cite the half dozen or so interviews she has granted as proof that the campaign press is just bellyaching. Brief press "avails" on the plane will be useless, unless reporters ask open-ended queries designed to elicit proof of real knowledge.

Let us not be unmindful of the fact that the conventional wisdom in the Fourth Estate is that Sarah Palin has not been properly "vetted" - by them at least - for her ability to serve in the office to which she has been nominated. And as Roger Simon (not Roger L. Simon) of the Politico's more recent attempt at snark reveals, they honestly do believe that airing wild-eyed accusations that she is actually her son's grandmother, that she cheated on her husband, that her husband fathered her last born on their daughter, that she's - at best - a neglectful mother of her children, and that her husband is an alcoholic because of a DUI 22 years ago, is all part of evaluating whether or not she has the "knowledge" and "experience" to serve as Vice-President of the United States.

Note that, unlike Democratic politicians' children, who are free to appear on stage with them, actively campaign with them, and pose on magazine covers with no fear of having their lives gone over with a fine toothcomb and all the warts and bumps discovered put on national television, Republicans' children, according to this leading light at the AP are fair game should they be even mentioned by their parents - talk less of having the audacity of getting on stage with them.

This is not bias though, this is part of the essential vetting process for Sarah Palin's knowledge and experience for the Vice-Presidency.

Anyway, perhaps I digress ...

The real question I want to ask is if the Left (and their media cohort) really wants to go this route ... again? The attacks they launched against Palin before she unsheathed the sword on them and their "Community Organizer" (which makes him kinda like Jesus, you know) a few days ago led to a massive lowering of expectations that has dramatically altered the race's dynamics ... and it definitely wasn't in their favor.

I understand that the official line is that she employed the services of a speechwriter for that speech so the question of her intelligence, knowledge and other essential qualifications (such as whether or not she really is the mother of Trig Palin) remains as yet unanswered.

But ... lowering expectations after what happened on Wednesday just doesn't seem that smart to me. I mean, when you look at her here being interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, I think they're in danger of setting, once again, a very low hurdle for her to clear when she's at last face to face with Charles Gibson of ABC.

Oh well ... I guess we'll see. Personally, I'm getting ear-muffs ... actually, scratch that - I think I'll get some popcorn instead. I think I'm actually looking forward to the caterwauling and whining ... 

PS: Found this CSPAN interview (Parts One, Two & Three here) of Sarah Palin from February ... where, I have on good authority, she also used a speechwriter and teleprompter. Yep ... she's obviously so dumb the McCain campaign is keeping her away from reporters so it won't come out. Yep yep yep ....

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I can't tell you how tired and pissed off I am about how the left has handled Sarah Palins' nomination.  Conservative women can't win with the militant and hateful lefties.  Why ?  Because they have vaginas that bear children.  They appear to actually like and love the men or husbands in their lives.  They like children and can somehow change the world even though they children to care for.  They are quick witted, intelligent and hot and can seem to keep it all together.  They don't take shit. 

It is amazing how desperately a left oriented media and the democratic party want to tear Sarah Palin down and destroy her.  Funny, I thought the democrats and media were progressive and pro change, especially for women.  Why wouldn't they jump in and support such a monumental choice for vice presidential nominee ?  Because, Sarah Palin is not the women they want.  They would be happy with a women being in that position as long as it is a women who, doesn't appear to love children, hates men, believes in killing unborn children, and panders to gays and lesbians.

John McCain gave the best response so far

" If Barack Obama was as qualified as Sarah Palin, he would be a great candidate for Vice President as well."

Keep attacking lefties and nutroots.  With every fresh attack you ensure greater and greater gains for the Republican ticket in November.  Note to liberal nuts:  Most americans, especially american men, don't like seeing hot, family oriented, mother type professional women being attacked viciously and savagely with no good cause.  I'd suggest you find another way to bring down the republican ticket because right now you are only helping the conservative cause.