By Susan Duclos
First rule of negotiations is that when you know you are dealing with someone who is negotiating in bad faith, who has lied to you previously, you don't believe them again... ever.
Second rule of negotiating in Washington is to acknowledge that Barack Obama has the majority of media in the palm of his hand, they are his lapdogs and poll after poll has shown Americans know it, see a liberal bias.
The majority of Americans (60%) also continue to perceive bias, with 47% saying the media are too liberal and 13% saying they are too conservative, on par with what Gallup found last year.
Knowing the bias is there doesn't help ordinary Americans get the facts, when all they see is Obama and liberals rhetoric, then they are left with half the story.
To the first rule, go read American's Thinker's Prisoner's Dilemma piece, it is a good read, highlights the basic rule and concludes with:
Until then, conservatives and Republicans should remember the rules of the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. When your opponent shows by his actions that he can't be trusted, it means you shouldn't trust him. Ever.
On to the second rule and what the House GOP can do about it.
Take into consideration that distrust of the main stream media is at all time high, according to Gallup.
The Republican Party has a large resource available to them, yet they do not take advantage of it. That would be us, conservative supporters, the Republican base. We have a large online presence, bloggers large and small, excellent social media numbers, yet the "messages" constantly seem to get lost.
Take the upcoming debt limit battle for example:
In December 2012 76% of respondents in a Battleground Poll favored across-the-board spending cuts and 73% in a Rasmussen survey believed government should cut spending rather than increase it. In a September 2012 Public Notice Poll, 74% did not believe federal spending has helped the economy, while 86% said it has not helped their own personal situation.
The public is definitely on the side of the GOP in that battle, but with the bully pulpit and the Obama lapdog media, Obama and liberals are already attempting to turn the conservation away from the need to spending cuts and entitlement reform.
Rove makes this suggestion:
For now, Republicans must make Mr. Obama take ownership of his deficits and the debt (which has increased from $10.626 trillion the day he took office to $16.433 trillion on Wednesday). It's impossible to negotiate with an ideologue, but Republicans can systematically unmask him and constrain him as much as their limited power allows, if they are united and acting in concert.
I agree, to a point, but what he doesn't acknowledge is the very real, known, bias in the media that will help Obama cover up his lack of concern on the unsustainable government spending problem.
They cannot unmask him if the media refuses to tell readers, viewers and listeners unless the GOP learns how to organize and present the facts, the House passed bills, telling the American public the other half of the story, the one the media won't report.
The Republican Party leaders are seriously behind the ball in their online efforts and each economic battle they lose to Obama just highlights it further.
They need a presence on every social media site, they need to learn how to coordinate a message, specific people assigned to nothing but reaching out to their supporters, who in turn will reach out to their readers, viewers and listeners. Those readers, viewers and listeners will share links on social media, email friends and talk to family. Those people will do the same, etc...
The RNC and the GOP leadership need to learn how to utilize their best resource, their base.
