Republicans may not be winning the stimulus spin wars -- something's going to get passed eventually -- but they're changing the way the White House will fight future battles. The White House was looking forward to today's new Gallup poll, hoping that Gallup would focus on the more than 70% of the country in favor of passing a stimulus package. But Gallup broke that category down: 38% want the bill as conceived of by Obama and the Democrats, and just as many want the bill passed with "major changes."
During the past week, two checkpoints seem to have been crossed. One is
that, even as the line items of the bill remain a mystery for most
Americans, they're beginning to see the bill as a regular bill subject
to partisan pressures. For that they can thank (or blame) Democrats who
added in (tiny bits of) unnecessary spending, Republicans and Democrats
(like Ben and Bill Nelson) who called them out, and the show of
Republican unity against the House bill.
The second checkpoint is that individual trees seem way larger than the forest. There's no evidence that Americans actually object to the Obama-Democratic plan in toto. What they're upset about is the very marginal (in terms of dollars) spending on pet liberal projects. There's no evidence that they buy the GOP spin that the bill isn't stimulative, or that it doesn't contain enough tax cuts, or that it doesn't provide enough spending for infastructure. These are the real debates; the American people seem to be reacting to other things entirely.
Bottom line: the communications challenge for the White House is to redirect attention to the bill itself ("Look at me, Simon"). They're going to do this by unsheathing the the biggest sword in the cabinet, namely, the President himself, who will be very visible. Mr. Obama will be armed with the message that the stimulus package is one part of our economic recovery, a vital part, and that Americans need to see it as integral to the solution. Oh, and that recovery will take a very long time -- even longer without the stimulus.
I think The White House is slowly losing the spin war, and more importantly, they're losing their authenticity of being post-partisan due to the pet projects included that are dominating non-national newspapers and talk radio/cable and the tax & lobby issues surrounding nominees that are getting heavy play. By April I think this will be reflected in polls.
If my mother - who is an Obama supporter - is upset about the money thrown in the stimulus bill for the National Mall (200 million?), then I would say that the WH is certainly losing the spin wars. While the WH is focused on the big picture (the economy!), it seems that the nitpicking (contraceptives!) is definitely breaking through and doing damage. I have yet to seethe Democratic leadership successfully counteract this. Obama isn't doing himself any favors by choosing 2 Cabinet nominees that had tax problems. Now isn't the best time for that to become a major issue.
I'd add that it took the Republican corruption scandals and Katrina for Democrats to shake the Elitist tag, and it took McCain's housing issue and economic down-turn for Obama to shake that label. Too many more stories about nominee tax issues and Dem's could be tagged again with the elitist issue next Fall
I have said for a long time the faster Obama distanced himself from Pelosi and Reid the better. To me they are two of the most divisive characters in Washington. I don't care if the pork in this project is relatively minute, the fact that it is there is becoming a weight around the President's neck. If this bill was streamlined to infrastructure construction projects and tax cuts the Republicans would have had a tough time opposing it....but his cohorts in congress thought they saw an opening and it became politics as usual.