Dems Won't Regain Control of Health Care Message

From Amy Walter, "Health Care Battle Won't Be Won Over Recess: Democrats Are Unlikely To Regain Control 0f the Message War Without a Specific Bill":

Much has been made about August being a "make or break" month for the health care debate. At this point, though, Republicans have already won the messaging war - never mind the fist bumps House Democrats gave each other last week for passing a bill out of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Do Dems really have a chance to rewrite the debate over the dog days of summer?

The GOP didn't change Americans from health care reform advocates to detractors overnight. By tapping into the "government-run health care" vein, they hit a long-held soft spot for many voters, namely their inherent distrust of Washington-run programs. From 1992 until 2006, CNN/USA Today/Gallup asked the question "How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right?" Except in the period immediately following the 9/11 attacks, a majority of voters have said that they trust the government only "some of the time." That number was as large as 75 percent in 1993.

As we've known for a while now, the battle for health reform isn't going to be decided by winning over partisans; they've already taken sides. In the latest Diageo/Hotline poll, just 30 percent of Republicans said they approved of "Congress and the president enacting a major overhaul of the U.S. health care system." Almost all Democrats (83 percent) approved. Independents, meanwhile, were almost evenly divided with slightly more approving (49 percent) than disapproving (43 percent).

I got some insight into how those independents may be thinking at a focus group in Towson, Md., hosted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. All 12 participants were self-identified independents, with just over half (seven) having voted for Barack Obama.

Once the conversation turned to health care, the overwhelming message was pretty simple: slow down. One participant worried that Congress couldn't possibly complete comprehensive health care reform in just six months. Another said it "can't be done overnight" and that doing something "too fast" could make things worse. For independents, then, the issue seems to be less about specific elements of a health care plan - public option versus a co-op - than a fear that Congress has created an artificial timetable that is causing them to rush through what should be a thought-out, balanced plan. Speed, in Democrats' case, is not their friend.

More at the link.

Yeah, and I'm sure those "self-identified independents" were actually "plants," surreptitiously smuggled into the focus-group by the cabal of healthcare lobbying agents that have taken over the right's grassroots protests!

More of that at Huffington Post, "Durbin, Schumer: Town Hall Protesters Are “Birthers” “Tea Baggers,” And “Fringe”." See also, Campaign for America's Future, "Birthers = Health Care Deniers." (Via Memeorandum.)

Things are getting pretty extreme, alright - on the left!

Video Hat Tip: Fousesquawk.