Effective Republican Messaging on Health Care Needs the One Thing They Don't Have but Democrats Do: Unity

Andrew Ricci, Vice President, LEVICKA curious thing happened just about two hours after the Senate Republicans unveiled their long-awaited health care bill: President Trump admitted that there were no tapes of his conversations with former FBI Director James Comey.This, I suspect, was no accident, and although the two are completely unrelated, it should be seen as a telling forecast of the difficulties that Senate Republicans will face in messaging their health care legislation beyond the halls of Congress. By diluting the big news of the day with another major story that was bound to come out eventually, the President effectively diluted the coverage that both news items would receive. The networks reflected that by jumping back and forth between coverage of the two as they tried to give them both the “breaking news” treatment.For weeks, Republicans in the upper chamber have been slammed for the secretive process by which they attempted to draft their supposedly eight-years-in-the-making health care repeal and replace effort. Tweets and on-camera statements were dug up from the archives of prominent Republicans – including then-Congressman Mike Pence and Senator Mitch McConnell – blasting what they alleged was a closed process, despite the Democrats’ legislation undergoing robust action in three House committees and two Senate committees and hours of bipartisan floor debate. This bill, comparatively, is not scheduled for any Senate committee action at this time.While the bill was being drafted in secret and kept under lock and key, Democrats have been out in full force with their messaging about what it would likely entail and why they felt it would negatively impact the country.It’s an oft-cited axiom in the communications business that playing defense in a communications campaign is almost always a weaker position than playing offense. This has been the case for millennia, and Chinese military strategist outlined as much in his famous 5th century B.C. military treatise The Art of War. In Chapter 6, on weak points and strong, Sun Tzu said “Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.”Nothing could more clearly illustrate the current situation. Democrats’ messaging has defined the narrative here already, before the bill text was even released. Republicans have been put on the defensive from the start of this process, and there are no signs that it will be letting up any time soon.After the bill was released to the public, Democrats were quick to blitz across local and national TV networks with their criticism, which will almost certainly leave Republicans exhausted as they try to play defense. Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey was quick to take to his twitter account, offering line-by-line criticisms – each of which Republicans will have to defend before this debate is over. Republicans hoping to vote on this next week before they leave for their July 4th recess are in for a long couple of days indeed.Further frustrating Republicans’ messaging efforts, four Republican Senators – Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Mike Lee of Utah – quickly came out opposing the bill in its current form. Still others have already expressed serious concerns or are expected to have problems with specific provisions. Republicans’ overall messaging is not helped when they can’t even count on their own to either hold their nose and support it or at least keep quiet about their individual issues.While I suspect President Trump made a strategic decision to issue his Comey confession right after the Senate bill dropped in an attempt to dilute coverage and scrutiny of both issues, Republicans in the Senate will still have to defend their legislation now that it is in the public sphere. And they will have to speak with one voice if they want to have any shot at winning the messaging and political war. That may be a long way off and time is not on their side.In the meantime, as Republicans try to find their common ground, Democrats are demonstrating unity and putting forth a strong offense. And, as Sun Tzu would remind us, “once people are unified, the brave cannot proceed alone, the timid cannot retreat alone – this is the rule for employing a group.” The next week will surely be interesting as both sides continue girding for battle.[author]About the Author: Andrew Ricci, Vice President at D.C. communications firm LEVICK. Andrew, an experienced media relations expert, content-creation specialist, and public affairs strategist, started his career working on political campaigns and on Capitol Hill, serving as a senior communications aide to Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) and as the Congressman’s official spokesman during his reelection campaign. At LEVICK, Andrew now counsels a wide range of clients navigating reputational challenges in the public eye.[/author]