Back in May, Republican language guru Frank Luntz wrote a memo for Republicans on how to fight the Democratic plan for health care reform. The Republicans did a good job of following the script for a while, often invoking “government-run health care” and “government bureaucrats” when making their arguments.
Dr. Frank Luntz, a top Republican consultant on the language of politics, is warning the GOP that the American people want health-care reform and that lawmakers need to try to avoid directly opposing President Barack Obama.
“You simply MUST be vocally and passionately on the side of REFORM,” Luntz advises in a confidential 26-page report obtained from Capitol Hill Republicans. “The status quo is no longer acceptable. If the dynamic becomes ‘President Obama is on the side of reform and Republicans are against it,’ then the battle is lost and every word in this document is useless.
“Republicans must be for the right kind of reform that protects the quality of healthcare for all Americans. And you must establish your support of reform early in your presentation.”
Instead, Luntz says Republicans should warn against a “Washington takeover” of health care, and insist that patients would have to “stand in line” with “Washington bureaucrats in charge of healthcare.”
I hope you’re sitting down. It appears that conservative organizers and Tea Party activists aren’t really interested in some kind of bipartisan reform of the health care system, or watered down Democratic proposals. Their goal is to protect the status quo at all costs. Greg Sargent reports:
On a private conference call, a group of top Tea Party and conservative organizers offered a surprisingly frank description of their goal, according to a source on the call: Completely blocking any kind of bipartisan compromise, and completely preventing any type of health care reform bill at all from ever becoming law.
The source who got himself on the call was an organizer for the AFL-CIO, and AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale provided me with the organizer’s notes. It’s certain to be seized on by Dems to argue that organized Tea Party opposition to Obama has no constructive intentions and is fomenting public “concern” about Obama’s plan solely to prevent any reform from ever taking place. GOP officials would argue that they don’t share these goals.
The call consisted of representatives of top conservative groups, such as the American Liberty Alliance, the “Tea Party Patriots,” and
According to AFL-CIO’s notes, the moderator on the call said, “The goal is not compromise, and ANY bill coming out this year would be a failure for us.” Another organizer added, “The purpose of Tea Parties is not to find a solution to the health care crisis — it is to stop what is not the solution: Obamacare.”
Palin and Gingrich have upped the stakes by getting involved. It’s now become conservative vs. conservative and the media is (belatedly) starting to debunk the lies of the anti-reformers.
I hope this is the beginning of the end for the deathers. Del Dem posted on this recently as well, but Obama’s numbers are starting to rise again – related to the antics of the deathers?