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The Inescapable President
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Obama's weekend media blitz is a desperate act of overexposure-unless it's a brilliant strategy that helps secure health-care reform. Eric Dezenhall on the pros and cons of a political marathon.
If you don't want to watch President Obama make his big health-care pitch this weekend, tune into Fox because it might be the only place he won't turn up. Obama has committed to sit-downs with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and Univision news programs. Then, on Monday, he'll do Letterman.
Regardless of your media preferences, rest assured the commander-in-chief will find you because he is, by nearly all measurements, the most visible president in history.
The question is: From a communications perspective, is his forthcoming media blitz strategically smart?
Obama may only have one crack at getting health-care legislation passed, so why not try it while there's still a whiff of that new car smell? The bully pulpit is not capital to be borrowed against later; there may be no later.
The conventional wisdom is that Obama is overexposed, that people will tire of him if he keeps popping up everywhere. This notion shouldn't be embraced as public-relations gospel because there are new variables at work that weren't operating in prior presidencies. What follows is a tally of the communications upsides and downsides of the impending Obamapalooza:
The Upsides
1. The mainstream media like Obama. While the orgasmic convulsions of the past year have waned, I'd tell the president, "When you set aside the obligatory incantations of objectivity, you're their man." This means that Obama's interviewers will grant him on-camera deference and cover his pitch more favorably than if he were, say, anybody else. As the blueblood adman, Roger Sterling, admonished a colleague on this week's Mad Men, "Half the time this business comes down to 'I don't like that guy'." If the media like you, go with it.
2. Obama is good in TV interviews. The president usually comes across as earnest, measured and considerate of all viewpoints—even if he's really not. He's a hard man to dislike personally when he's in your televised presence. Always keep your client where he's strong and don't put him where he's weak.
3. Obama can control the message (for the most part). When you're the president in a one-on-one format, you can talk about whatever you want, no matter what you're asked. He may be challenged, but the pushback will be comparatively soft (remember, no Fox), and he can deftly navigate back to his "high concepts" of hope, change and community - themes no sane person can disagree with.
4. Attacking Obama and his policies is reliably refracted as racism. There is no greater advantage in warfare than having your enemies' weapons banned. While Obama never calls his critics racists, his team will exploit the organic reality that dissent will manifest in the press as right-wing dirty tricks and bigotry. Republicans will surely play right into this provocation by behaving as if they are, at best, insane and, at worst, scheming to put David Duke on the 2012 ticket.
5. Yesterday's overexposure is today's exposure. Pornographic self-promotion is now the coin of the realm because topics shift so fast that showoffs feel like they must dive in front of the camera before it switches to a rival exhibitionist. Obama may only have one crack at getting health-care legislation passed, so why not try it while there's still a whiff of that new car smell? The bully pulpit is not capital to be borrowed against later. There may be no later.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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Eric Dezenhall co-founded the communications firm Dezenhall Resources, Ltd., and serves as its CEO. His first book, Nail 'em!: Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Business, pioneered techniques for understanding and defusing crises.
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Eric Dezenhall co-founded the communications firm Dezenhall Resources, Ltd., and serves as its CEO. His first book, Nail 'em!: Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Business, pioneered techniques for understanding and defusing crises.
Enough with 'Transparency'
Eric Dezenhall co-founded the communications firm Dezenhall Resources, Ltd., and serves as its CEO. His first book, Nail 'em!: Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Business, pioneered techniques for understanding and defusing crises.
Not sure overexposure should be much of a concern.
What people might be concerned about is
G.E., NBC/MSNBC Parent Company,
CEO Jeffrey Immelt on Obama's Economic Advisory Board.
Does that not render the NBC Stations a propaganda machine for Obama.
Has there ever been an example of a Major Media Outlet,
who's CEO was part of an administration ?
Conflict of interest ?
Sophia, I suggest you read Jon Meacham's "American Lion" to answer your question. Also, it's a good read.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Good points made on both the pro and con side, except for one thing: Weren't we criticizing him back in August for being disengaged? Didn't a lot of pundits tell him to get back in the game, and prevent the conservatives from framing and dominating the debate? I'd have more respect for this argument if Mr. Dezenhall would acknowledge the chattering classes' short attention span.
This is a good point. I think some of Obama's inexperience shows from time to time with regards to this issue. Sometimes, he doesn't know when he should and shouldn't speak in public. I believe he has said everything there is to say on this issue.
Obama is our President and I am glad to hear what he is doing from his lips as often as he cares to tell us. Bush hid in his office, did as he pleased, and we fumed. Give me Obama any day after the last 8 years.
Katrina happened, no Bush. Economic collapse, no Bush. People are comforted when they see their President at important times. At least he's coming to the people and attempting to answer their questions instead of doing all the work behind the curtain. There are some who will applaud everything Obama does, and some that will be sick to their stomachs no matter what he does, but the majority of Americans want to hear from their President. Now, if he was on E! discussing Chris Brown and Kanye West, that would be a problem.
An over-reliance on a cult of personality
No cult of personality, simply the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Refreshing, no?
I guess after Bush, the bar is pretty low.
Over jealous, masochistic doll,arrogant and full of himself that needs to stop operating the White house like his poker room and become a real president.
Disclosure: I'm hoping that Pres Obama succeeds with Universal Health Care with the Public Option, ending the current Depression. rebuilding our banking/financial structure from scratch including very tough regulations to prevent another 9/15/08. I'm an ultra radical, Trotskyist, extreme socialist. I didn't vote for Obama or McCain. I voted for the SEP's candidates.
Pres Obama still has momentum, the big M. He could go to most envelope openings & draw a large crowd of supporters & intense media coverage. Those who voted for Obama still love him & want to trust him. If Pres Obama fails to get UHC w/PO by 12/31/09, there will be problems for him. He could then morph into Harry Truman in 1948 to give those who failed to support UHC w/PO real, unshirted, hell. He could pull that off.
You say FDR made only X "Fireside Chats". So what, FDR didn't have BHO's access to instant TV & photo ops. Pres Obama knows how to fully use the MSM to deliver his messages. It's 2009, not 1933-45.
As for rebuilding the USA's economy, that could take 20 years; that's more than the 12 years Obama will have if he's reelected.
Obama bought Afghanistan & the Patriot Act from W. He's going to get out of what he bought from W quickly because the voters won't support him or pay for what Obama bought from W.
My personal bias tells me that Obama is at his unbeliveblely(sp?) good personal best when he faces immense challenges. Who knows? Time, Newsweek, Huffington Post & the Daily Beast will tell. The old traditional media is dying. Not even Murdoch can restore the traditional MSM of the 20th century. His papers will collapse & fold soon. No ads is fatal to any media enterprise. Murdoch's electronic media could collapse overnight sans ads. FAUX's operations don't have the demographic advertisers seek. Low priced digestive aids & patent medicines aren't going to buy ads as they did in the 1st 3/4 of the 20th century. The automotive sector, consumer electronics, big ticket home appliances-forget it. They are made offshore by offshore firms. By 2014 Murdoch's, multinational News Corp will be dead. His heirs won't be chips off the old block[head]. Murdoch's time will be gone before he dies.
Oboma, after he leaves office as POTUS, that will depend on what he can do for Americans? Try astrology for some answers in 2009.
I'm a democratic socialist who voted for Obama, although I am well aware that he is a pragmatic capitalist reformer. If we had a viable socialist or labor party in this country, it goes without saying that i would support that.
I think Obama will be elected again in 2012 because of the historical political cycles of reform in this country, that occur every 30-40 years. These reform cycles continue at least a decade, so barring a worsening of the depression or a long quagmire in Afghanistan, Obama will be reelected with a larger majority than in 2008.
Desperate? No. Becoming overexposed? Yes.
I normally watch ABC/NBC/Fox on Sunday. this week I still may watch Fox. What possible new things can the President possibly have to say. This is death by a million video clips. I wonder what new person died due to health care that could not be received (that actually did get care) will he come up with. I already heard Michelle today saying that thank God their child had insurace or she would have died from menengitis. Wake me when the nightmare is over!
his supporters can cheerlead him on, it won't work.
#1 all those shows are on on sunday morning. how many people honestly watch such programs at 8am other than beltway insiders?
#2 most people are gearing up for sunday football or going to church.
#3 even the presidents most ardent followers who are the ones he needs on board the most, are most likely sleeping in or just getting back from the saturday night before.
#4 he's failing on this initiative not because of underexposure or misinformation but because the majority of the american people oppose what he wants to do. going on a number of different programs for fifteen minutes isn't going to change that.
#5 he's desperate. what's left in his bag of tricks? he called a joint session of congress to speak because he couldn't schedule yet another prime time press conference which hadn't been going too well. and even after his big speech, the number of those supporting and opposing are back to where they were before, with the majority opposed and the overwhelming majority of those with strong feelings, strongly opposed.
#6 if he were smart, which i increasingly do not think he is, he would go on one show, for an entire hour and have an extended conversation/discussion and not on five shows over a two hour span for a segment or two in which he most likely will say the same things and answer the same questions.
#7 oh, and he wouldn't choose to go on univision instead of the most watched network for tv news, fox. conventional wisdom is you go where the audience is, not where they aren't.
Fox News will have a record audience on Sunday, as Obama has not said anything interesting about the health care debate since it started. I suspect we will have more of the same old Liberal bromides.
Mr. neverlate posts his usual stupid old Fox Newsiversity bullshit.
FDR was on the radio all the time, and gave press conferences every day, and speeches too numerous to count, but he was also very effective, at least up to the last year of his life, when he was seriously ill. In his prime, he had no political equals, although his conservative detractors were even more harsh, unyielding and hysterical than those of Obama.
I believe Mr. Obama reads letters from people who are in trouble. they have lost their job, their spouse or child is sick, and they're not sure what is next. perhaps President Obama is a compassionate man who is trying to help. or perhaps he is a socialist who covets the facial stylings of adolph hitler. I would prefer to believe the former, but my fundamentalist religious upbringing teaches me "lest not judge those who would tax my wealth for those are the chosen ones"
No realy I like to whatch like many of us, I didn't know but many Europeans they do too I heard they said we have a comedian month, can't believe this people follows this like the Young and the Restless, to me just make me laugh !...
While clown hall participants were screaming and Chuck Grassley and Sarah Palin were lying non-stop about killing grandmothers and Glenn Beck was doing his usual tearful psychotic rant who wrote columns about desperate overexposure. Now that we have a very slim possibility to materially improve a disastrously broken healthcare system, the President's effort to inform the American public about what's really in the works is "overexposure."
I call for a BLACKOUT of all sunday talk shows!
Thank you.
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