When the Republicans learn a media trick, they never forget it
On Friday last, it seemed a good idea to go to Naples, Florida for the Presidential visit there. Because I was already in the state, less than an hour's drive would allow me to get an advance sample of his upcoming visit to Ireland. I would get to observe the President and his brother in campaigning mode on an issue environmentalism widely seen as one of his weak points. And, as it turned out, the early start from a more northerly Florida city was worth it if only to see a Republican administration at its media-smart best.
Approaching Naples that morning, it was obvious Presidential supporters within the wealthy city had made a considerable effort to ensure the arriving motorcade received messages of positive welcome long before they reached the city itself. Highly professional banners reading "Welcome, Mr President" and "Support our Troops" could be seen at junctions along the Interstate.
Outside the nature reserve which was the focus of the visit, the President's opponents were eager to talk about their determination to show him up as belonging to Big Business and uncaring about the natural environment. As the sun climbed high into the sky and the temperature reached ninety Fahrenheit, they warbled on about a pontoon boat, decorated with anti-Bush posters. It would arrive shortly. Well, stab me in the vitals, there's a breath-holder for you. (The promised pontoon may eventually have arrived. However, if it did, I missed it. As did the TV cameras.) The protesters seemed to be both environmentalists and Democrats, although only one poster of John Kerry was to be seen. It did him no favours, turning him into an Easter Island stone-face with Irish Cottage thatch on top.
Even the (few) anti-Bush protestors who mentioned Kerry seemed unsure about him. Clever TV ads from the Bush campaign attacking Kerry's constant inconsistencies have hit home, poorly countered by his own daily media offerings tendency to be on the wordy and conceptual side.
Protesters, questioned, could confirm that Kerry had said SOMETHING, recently about Bush's environmental record. They just couldn't remember what it was. Not that their own posters were any more memorable than Kerry's utterances. They made statements like "Clean Water = Healthy Fish = Healthy People."
Logically questionable, and about as potent as the putative pontoon, that slogan. It didn't exactly stick it to the Bush environmental track record, even though that track record drives Democratic lovers of the environment nuts.
"Isn't it ironic?" one protestor asked, rhetorically. "The President using a nature reserve for a speech before going to a fundraiser with developers the very people despoiling Florida's environment?"
Irony doesn't translate to TV, I thought. And references to contradictions in the President's schedule, if they made it into media at all, would make it only into print media, and then only into the last paragraph of a lengthy newspaper report.
Indeed, when the Presidential motorcade swept past them, some of the protesters missed it. They were fully occupied trying to persuade the unpersuadable: fighting, under the broiling noonday sun, with Bush supporters in terms guaranteed to get them nowhere. Explaining the technicalities of water pollution to a guy who just wants to see his President's nicely casual sky-blue shirt is an obvious waste of time. But it's a waste of time sadly characteristic of liberals in America.
When a liberal disagrees with you, they think more explanation will make you see the light. When a conservative disagrees with you, they think you're impractical, immoral, thick as a plank, probably disloyal and deserving of a smack upside the head. They have no desire to convince you. They just want to discontinue you.
The President got out of his car. The protestors now on the wrong side of a fence of low-slung palm bushes worked hard at co-ordinating their shouted slogans. At the same time, one woman leaping up and down screaming a welcome established that the President has developed the old Ronald Reagan hearing disability. That's the hearing impairment where the person being shouted at can't quite catch or react to negatives, but never fails to pick up on even a subtle gesture of support. Bush never noticed the ragged chorus of hostility, but he didn't miss the little woman yelling hospitality. She got his characteristic you'n-me-are-pals thumbs-up and nearly died on the spot from delight.
You know that management style called MBWA, meaning Management By Walking About? George Bush does a variant. He does TBWA: Television By Walking About.
Because nobody could get into the reserve on the day without a ticket issued three weeks earlier, the President was able to walk around with his brother in the sunshine, his bright blue shirtsleeves pushed up to the elbows, listening to volunteers while the cameras rolled. Message: I care about the environment.
IN the background were more plants being hacked at by attractive young volunteers, some of them boy scout leaders. Any long shot showed blue Florida skies and the occasional cotton-wool cloud thrown in for good measure. Not a chance that nasty posters claiming that the waters of Rookery Bay reek with mercury would get into any of the broadcast pictures.
The President's speech on the day could be summarized as "Clean Water = Healthy Fish = Healthy Recreation = Health Income from Tourism."
Loads of Federal dollars are going to be made available to South West Florida to get rid of invasive non-native plants.
To underline this point, the President put on a pair of strong gardening gloves and went right out there to kill off some invasive non-native plants. Not many, mind you. He was back in his air-conditioned car before sweat could form dark circles at the armpits of that spiffy casual shirt.
The TV stations carried live sunshiny happy shots of a clean outdoorsy President doing practical things for the environment. It was a demonstration that when the Republicans learn a media trick, they never forget it.
They discovered, in Reagan's time, that staged footage of their actor-President joshing on a building site with carpenters and plumbers could obliterate data suggesting the building industry was having hard times. It didn't matter that the newscaster's voice, under the pictures, was reading out statistics indicating a dearth of house-starts. What people remembered was their President having a great time with beaming building workers. The judgment viewers came to, as a result of those memorable pictures, was that the building industry must be OK.
The same approach worked beautifully for George W in Naples, this weekend. The day after the Presidential visit, all South West Florida newspapers put the shirtsleeved smiling Bush on their front pages under headlines like "Bush counters Kerry environment attacks." The New York Times ran a half page with a picture of the President and his brother opposite a full page about how Kerry's anti-war stance is backfiring on him.
Game, set and media match to the President.
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