June 27, 2005 – Page 1788
There is no getting around it. Compared with President Bush and his Republican talking-point machinery, Democrats are about as subtle as a sharp stick in the eye. Party chief Howard Dean had to wrestle his foot from his mouth after appealing to liberals with a slam on the GOP as nothing but “white Christians” who never worked for a living. Last week, Illinois Sen.
Dean and Durbin were trying to rally their faithful with the harsh, red-meat language that partisans enjoy, but they have a lot to learn about how to deploy the stiletto instead of the assault rifle.
One reason Republicans keep Democrats on the defensive is how effectively they speak to their partisan ideologues and still manage to avoid a backlash from moderates. Speaking in words that the faithful understand — while sounding innocuous to the uninitiated — is how the modern game of niche politics is played.
Bush is a master at this time-honored practice. He showed his expertise again at the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville last week, which got little attention from the national media but still allowed the president to achieve maximum impact with a core constituency.
He appeared by satellite, as he usually does when addressing this group and other socially conservative gatherings. One advantage of keeping his distance via satellite is how mainstream television news outlets tend to shy away. Without a live subject on the scene, producers find these events a bit dull to cover. A grainy picture of a disembodied speaker on a wide screen with muffled audio just doesn’t cut it in today’s high-definition broadcast world.
Perhaps that is why so many reporters and producers missed Bush’s revival of a plan he had seemingly abandoned: to ban gay marriage by constitutional amendment. “Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society,” he told the throng of 10,000, “it should not be re-defined by local officials and activist judges. For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage.”
But another reason for the paltry coverage was how Bush couched his language. He never mentioned the word “gay” or anything close to it. Instead, as he has done before, Bush phrased his call to action purely as an effort to support marriage.
It does not take an NSA code breaker to interpret Bush’s words as support for banning gay marriage. But in the linear world of news wire reporting and the primary colors of television coverage, you can see how this slipped by. Most mainstream news coverage, including the Associated Press story, did not mention it.
The religious press, meanwhile, wasted no time heralding Bush’s renewed interest in a gay marriage ban. The Christian Post, an online news outlet, led its story on Bush’s speech with his statement “opposing gay marriage.”
This is just how a code-speaking politician wants it. The below- the-radar niche press runs wild with your true meaning, while the conventional media remains clueless, leaving few scars on those who would otherwise take offense.
As good as he is at this, however, even Bush has to bow to the superior talents of his predecessor and idol, Ronald Reagan. The Gipper’s skill at this technique is the model for the Bush team.
The conviction in the Philadelphia, Miss., civil-rights murders committed four decades ago is what brings this back to mind.
In 1980, Reagan went to this very hamlet to announce what would become his successful campaign for the presidency. The fact that he chose Philadelphia to make known his play for the Oval Office is fascinating in itself. But rather than honoring the civil rights workers brutally slain by Klansmen — as politicians had done there for more than a decade — Reagan chose this venue to deploy a phrase designed to quietly appeal to white voters. He endorsed “states’ rights,” once the rallying cry for Southerners (such as 1948 presidential candidate Strom Thurmond) opposed to integration.
Four years later, on the eve of his 1984 re-election, Reagan dropped another code bomb for Southern conservatives, this time in Macon, Ga. While calling for a constitutional amendment to give the president the line-item veto, he flashed a mischievous grin and in that conspiratorial whisper he used so effectively, noted that the proposal was an idea “favored by a leader named Jefferson Davis.”
For stirring old Dixie emotions, there’s nothing like a favorable reference to the president of the Confederate States of America — in the city where the Yankees put him in jail.
These days, even those skillfully phrased appeals might not escape media attention, as they did in Reagan’s time. But Bush and the GOP adapt well. As the campaign for control of Congress heats up, we all better keep our code books handy.
Contributing Editor Craig Crawford is a news analyst for MSNBC, CNBC and “The Early Show” on CBS. He can be reached at ccrawford@cq.com.