Why "#dontgo" Matters

Saturday's print edition of The Orlando Sentinel featured an AP article with the headline "Stuck on gas, Congress heads home".   At the very end of the article, a whole two sentences were devoted to late Friday's Republican protest on the floor of the house over failure to handle important energy legislation.   Two sentences.  A swing voter in Congressman Tom Feeney's district may not even make it that far in the story, seeing only a headline that Congress has -yet again- done nothing.    

Yet in Washington, the feeling is different.  The Twitterers among us (myself included) are giddy like Chris Matthews at an Obama rally, thrilled that technology was able to give word of the revolution to the masses.  Members of Congress connected directly with "followers".   Drudge made it his top headline.  The whole affair has been given the tag "#dontgo" on Twitter, drawing on the way in which conferences and major events get referenced using the micro-blogging site.  For us political junkies who have watched too much West Wing, the idea of a Congress gone rogue in defense of the American people is too romantic, too fantastic not to spend the weekend gabbing about.

So, then, the question arises - to what extent is "#dontgo" actually going to move voters?  If Congressional Republicans do something exciting and important but nobody really knows about it, does it matter? (If a tree falls in a forest, and all that jazz.)

My answer is an emphatic "yes".

The internal and external factors impacted by "#dontgo" have consequences for the congressional elections.  

Externally, the "#dontgo" event may not have been noticed by, say, my mother in Rep. Ric Keller (R-FL)'s district - yet.  But Congressional Republicans, emboldened to continue driving a message (yes that's right - a unified message!), are going to keep hammering away...and they should.  If there was ever an issue to create a ruckus about, it's this one.  

Peter Brown of Quinnipiac writes in WSJ that "the public’s support for drilling appears to override its distaste for President George W. Bush" as "strong majorities agree with him that Congress needs to follow his decision to allow drilling in previously closed offshore oil fields".    Truth be told, in this environment, if President Bush sponsored legislation that would give every child a puppy and a trip to Disney it would probably have trouble gaining public support.  That's the hard truth these days.

And yet, drilling somehow gets swing voters and President Bush back on the same team.

The discovery of energy as an issue to drive, one that both dovetails perfectly with what Members value as well as the needs and concerns of voters, is a fantastic, rich find.  What "#dontgo" does in the context of this issue is it puts Congressional Republicans and the American people on the same side of an issue in a public, angry, genuine way.  Even more than a simple debate about drilling, the "#dontgo" difference is that the drilling debate sounds a lot more like this:

"We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore."

Which is what voters have been telling us pollsters for months now.

This is where "#dontgo" has its messaging punch.  It talks about the key issue in a way that taps the zeitgeist, that speaks to the 77% of Americans who disapprove of Congress (according to the most recent CNN poll).   "#dontgo" sets our members outside of Congress.  It felt spontaneous, it felt angry, and it felt real; THAT is something that Americans can relate to.  Motions to adjourn?  Parliamentary games?  Not so much.  

But the message "You're angry? Yeah, so are we!" can work if framed with energy as the mantra of the House GOP. Congressional Republicans can continue to set themselves as a group of folks just as angry at Congress' awful performance as the average voter.

And it can work if everyone stays on message. The internal excitement over the "GOP uprising" indicates that message discipline, and constant stream of "energy, energy, energy" and more energy could be on the way.   

Which leads to the second reason why "#dontgo" is actually a very big deal.  After months and months of the Speaker Pelosi Congress, of internal controversy and scuffles and generally poor morale among Republicans on the Hill, "#dontgo" is something to get excited about.  Even if it turns out to be nothing more than a pep rally held in secret that nobody hears about but a few tourists from Nebraska who got dragged into the gallery by a staffer, a little "pep" may be just what our team needs to get them back in the game fighting after halftime.  There's something to be said for Members of Congress running into the chamber, giving impromptu speeches in shorts, dragging luggage behind them, applauding each other in a raucous, impassioned event.

That's the real magic of "#dontgo".  Set aside the fact that it's an event with just the right message on just the right issue.  What makes "#dontgo" special is that it felt organic, spontaneous.  In a world where pre-planned press events involve advance teams and prepared remarks and canned talking points, suddenly the rules appeared to be thrown out the window.  This was the real deal.  People let their hair down and said what was really on their minds.  And it's that excitement that is just the shot in the arm a lot of the GOP needs to get in gear for November.

The whole "#dontgo" event continues on with press events today and may carry on here in Washington as well as back in districts.  The spark of the first day may have passed and the adrenaline rush on Capitol Hill may have faded, but if this can kick-start four months of message discipline on energy and can set House Republicans beyond the bounds of "Congress" and the job approval that entails, "#dontgo" will have made a crucial, lasting mark. The fact that the event got minimal coverage won't matter.  What will matter is that Republicans got fired up about something, got on the same page, and talked about an idea that mattered in a way that felt real.  Let's hope it keeps up.