Health care debate must be fought below the belt

By GottaLaff

Right in the middle of writing this post, I stopped and read this piece about how the White House and the DNC will now try to turn all those nasty town hall mobs and Drudge reports into gold. They plan on making them the face of the opposition by taking on these thugs in new ads, playing by new rules. Good.

Phil Singer, who worked on rapid response for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and dealt frequently with the largely unfavorable conservative site, said:

"To be sure, Drudge asserts a certain level of influence. But I think it is fair to say Obama exerts a little bit more. And one of the things that has been interesting to watch has been the way that the White House and before that the Obama campaign was able to turn some of the old media rules on their head and create a new media dynamic."

Now back to my current blog already in progress, and opinion piece by Dan Neil:

How could the left possibly be losing the debate on healthcare reform when its opponent is the roundly loathed health insurance industry -- an ongoing criminal syndicate, in my view, that demands protection money from sick people?

It's because the insurance industry's demagoguery is better and smarter than the reformists' demagoguery.

This is a gunfight to which the reform agenda has brought a dull spoon. [...]

You might as well have Spencer and Heidi advocate for the public option. [...]

The American public is being roasted in a caldron of bull like St. Antipas, and this ad calls for increased reasonableness and bipartisanship? With allies like Big Pharma, who needs enemies?

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee, through its Net-roots operation Organizing for America, has spent weeks and millions on the "It's Time" ad spot, a series of close-ups of people telling their sad tales of falling through the cracks of the healthcare system. [...]

Do these advertising strategists even live in America? When it comes to healthcare, appealing to the public's sympathy is a dead end. The whole healthcare debate is precisely about avoiding responsibility for less fortunate citizens. Then the kicker: "It's time for healthcare reform."

That's it? That's the galvanizing take-away? It's the emotional equivalent of "It's time to storm the Bastille." [...]

The insurance industry's ads are more effective. They are big, scary, threatening. Reform gets rolled like the British at the Somme by this ad.

Liberal progressives and advocates are going to have to get down and dirty if they want to win this fight. There's some hope on the horizon, though, in the ad from Americans United for Change [...]

[T]he female narrator asks, "Why do the insurance companies and the Republicans want to kill President Obama's health insurance reform?" Note the yoking of insurance companies to Republicans. Note also that it's Obama's health insurance reform. Evil insurance. [...]

The important thing is that the ad hominem ad is pointed, shrewd and manipulative.

And yes, it's class warfare. But then again, this is war.

Hopefully, after the aforementioned new efforts by Obama and the DNC, this is a war we can win.