Oh No! Democrats Lament Losing Messaging War on Budget Cuts

Maybe if they didn't trot out Elmo in a weak attempt to keep public funding for PBS they wouldn't be lamenting the lack of a human face on their insipid please for more of our money. But they just don't get it, do they. Now here the Democrats are whining about losing the "messaging" battle because they just can't figure out how to "humanize" budget cuts.

Well, how about using some actual humans instead of a muppet, you idiots?

A growing chorus of Democratic loyalists argue their party is losing the messaging battle over spending by failing to put a human face on cuts proposed by the GOP.

Instead of shining the spotlight on the programs slashed and the people affected, Democrats have let the debate revolve around the cumulative size of the cuts, the critics charge. That attention to an arbitrary figure — and not the underlying programs on the chopping block — has spun the debate into a fight over numbers that lacks a human element.

It’s a strategy, the critics warn, that gives Republicans a definitive upper hand as lawmakers joust over how to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year.

“The challenge for House Democrats is to make the case that programs that are popular and important are being harmed by a bunch of budget-cutting that is reckless,” said former Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), now with the lobbying firm of Alston & Bird.

“They have to make it specific and relevant to people, and I don’t think they’ve achieved that objective yet. … Up to this point, I don’t think they have been clear about what their objections are.”

Bob Beckel, a Democratic analyst for Fox News, agreed.

“When it comes to budgets and numbers, Republicans own that issue, they have for a long time,” he said. “We’re not going to win the fight on numbers. We’re going to win it on what government means, and what it means to people, and how Republicans don’t care what it means.

“If you expose what [Republicans] have done, as opposed to numbers, then you expose what this whole thing’s about, which is a bunch of fringe right-wingers,” said Beckel, a longtime veteran of Democratic campaigns. “That’s what’s missing in this debate, and that’s where Obama needs to pick up the slack.”

Of course using a thug like Bob Beckel to make your case and having him call the majority of Americans "fringe right-wingers" isn't exactly a coherent message, either. Here's a novel idea: How about they trot out some little kids and explain how they're going to starve and not get an education because of those fringe right-wingers?

One message they'll never get: It's not the message, it's their policies people have rejected.