A Deo Lumen

In the first year of my Master’s program of Communication Studies at Barry University, one of the Comm theories that caught my attention was what was called the “Agenda-Setting Function” of effective communication. In other words, if you can set the terms of the debate up front you have already gone a long way in determining who wins the debate.

Like all elections, the 2010 election will largely be decided by who best sets the agenda for debate. To use another good word for all of us to know, it is about the narrative, that frame of reference that most effectively connects the dots in the minds of the larger number of voters.

This is what public relations folks who come from Comm theory programs like mine become trained to do over time. Politicians, marketers, and journalists all do the same. It is a professional discipline that plays a major role in our lives, and if we do not have our own governing narratives to connect the dots in our own minds, we are more likely to be taken in by the narrative that most suits us and those people we aspire to be like.

So, with that, well, narrative, in mind, I call attention to Tim Kaine’s recent comments as relayed to us by the indispensable Mike Allen (read and subscribe to Mike’s Playbook here).

Allen relays in his Playbook email today that the Democrats will run this fall as the “Results Party.”

DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, speaking at a Christian Science Monitor lunch, lays out his side’s national midterm narrative and execution plan:

In registering voters and convincing voters to turn out for our candidates, we must give them a choice — and that means we’ll both tell our story and tell it in contrast to the other side. We have more accomplishments to run on than any Party in a long time. … Americans want results, and that’s what we’ve given them. … At a time when many Americans doubted the capacity of government to tackle and solve big problems, we have shown that we are the Results Party. … [V]oters will have a clear choice between continued progress and a return to the failed policies that created the biggest period of economic decline since the Great Depression…

Republicans have obstructed the President and worked to defeat his and the Democrats’ agenda for one primary reason — political calculation. They have placed their own politics above progress on our nation’s most pressing issues. Americans expect and appreciate a loyal opposition Party whose opposition is based in principle and genuine policy differences. But, we know for a fact that the Republicans set out before President Obama was even sworn into office with a plan to obstruct his agenda at all costs, no matter what the details, and notwithstanding that the American public wants to see meaningful cooperation at a time of significant economic crisis. From saying they wanted the President to fail and to break him politically, to trying to obstruct everything from health reform and the jobs bill, to blocking Administration appointments to sensitive national security posts, Republicans have failed to offer any positive vision for the country and instead just decided to go all in on a strategy of fighting against the President. Second, Republicans continue to put the interests of Wall Street above the needs, interests and financial security of Main Street…

“We’ve seen just how extreme and divisive the Republican Party has become. The level of extreme rhetoric emanating from Party leaders, often as part of a cynical strategy to manipulate people hurting in a tough time, is creating internal civil war within the GOP and increasingly striking a negative chord with American voters who are fundamentally optimistic about the nation and our need to work together in a tough time. So, although we know it stands to be a tough year for us based on history, we like the story we have to tell about our accomplishments and a Republican Party that lacks any vision but a desire to obstruct progress and appease lobbyists and others who have benefited from a status quo that has harmed everyday Americans.

Longer excerpt here.

For my part, I want to see the agenda-setting blown up by we the people and find ways to control the narrative by asking the basic question: “What results?”

Are all the results of the Obama administration and Democrat majority good for America?  For our children?  The overgrown government?  The wealth redistribution?  The broken campaign promises?

The fact that the Republicans tend to make the same mistakes is no justification for saying such results are acceptable.  It just means that we the people need to control more than just the agenda or the narrative.

This is the result I want to see: Citizen-driven government.  Constitutional, faithful, focused on what is best for our children (i.e., what is sustainable) and not primarily for one’s political supporters and campaign donors.

Such results will not be coming while the two party system is configured and funded as it is.  No way.

That’s why the DNC and RNC work so hard to set the agenda, rather than being plain dealers.  They have interests that are defined by their donors, not by their duties to the American people.  Both parties.

The more of us who realize what our representative democracy has become, the better.  I am NOT saying that it’s time to rush the gates of Congress.  We need to accept our own culpability in letting ourselves be taken in by the agenda-setting.  And we need to NOT accept Kaine’s, Steele’s, Obama’s, Palin’s, or anyone else’s agenda without careful analysis.  The stakes are too high (our children’s future opportunity spectrum, for one thing).

More than anything right now, I think we need to hear such speeches and remember that these people may not be as aligned with America’s true long-term interests as they profess.  And we need to use this new interactive media ecology to call them on that again and again.

Right?!