Town Hall Lessons

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have noticed over the last week or so an interesting phenomenon: The massive spike in unruly, often confrontational town hall meetings focused on the issue of health care. 

You may also have noticed the extent to which a great many of those engaged in the health care debate in this country—including President Obama, various Members of Congress and a diversity of advocacy groups—have been caught off-guard by the strong (frequently opposition) views being exhibited with regard to this subject.  You wouldn’t be in the minority, either.  Many of these events were conceived to “sell” the public on the health insurance reform being pursued by the administration, congressional Democrats and a wide coalition of outside organizations—something that appears not to be being accomplished.  For better or for worse, those who want a different variety of change, or none at all, are making their voices heard, drowning out even the President himself, grabbing news cycles and shaping the debate.  But this isn’t just interesting as a political spectator sport. It offers an important lesson in how those advocating for major policy changes that could prove controversial need to work to get their message out in a modern media environment—and it underlines that time-tested communications playbooks are increasingly inadequate and potentially irrelevant in the age of the internet.

Despite this, countless advocacy organizations and elected leaders have relied on them in pursuing this iteration of health insurance reform.  Big names in health care who like the President’s plan have focused time and money on running endless TV ads and attempting to organize perfectly orchestrated events that are being gate-crashed, primarily by protesters who, as I noted in a recent appearance on MSNBC, are organizing online, through Google groups, Twitter, and conservative blogs.  These are the same people shut out of President Obama’s recent “town hall” in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which looked like a 2004-esque campaign event complete with a handpicked audience meant to appear diverse, interested and favorable to what the President was saying— but who try though the President’s team has to grab control of the media’s attention, remain the story.  The message is clear: The best audience-selection, paid media and prettily-packaged facts and statistics are no match for some angry people who read blogs, use Twitter, and have Gmail.  And the lesson that online can no longer be ignored or treated as a low-level priority is one of the most fundamental that elected leaders and advocacy groups are likely to learn this month.

Here’s what might be done better next time around: Those advocating for major policy change should be prepared to engage early and often with online media, and not just with obvious friends and allies.  Yes, President Obama did a call with bloggers in late July, but it was a progressives-only call focused on the much-discussed public option (which progressives universally support)—hardly a Q&A session that might have helped explain away misunderstood points or set the record straight with regard to factual inaccuracies, of which the administration clearly believes there are many.  When nearly half the country opposes what is under consideration (according to a recent CNN poll), that’s hardly the kind of “engagement” likely to help move the dial.  Nor, for that matter, is creating a website at which supporters can report “fishy” information that those skeptical of the President’s plan are unlikely to ever visit, especially with the message consistently going out that those not on board with health insurance reform are “extremists” or worse.  A far better idea would have been to attempt engagement early with skeptical (as opposed to downright hostile) online media, much of whose product could easily be found by that 45 percent while seeking out information online—and which might have proven to be less negative than it currently is.  Better yet—and this may be particularly pertinent for advocacy groups speaking to particular demographics—check out what people are saying on tools like Twitter and engage with them, where they are already congregating, to clarify misunderstandings, answer questions, and get your point across, or at the least, inform ongoing messaging.  Do not just do what worked in 1993 or 2004 or even 2007.  Do what works now.

Where those about to engage in tough policy fights moving forward do this, they may just find that they are able to win over more hearts and minds than the health care coalition has, this time around.  Where they do not, they very likely run the risk of a health care town hall redux.  That’s something that could leave hardened opponents smiling with glee—and the communicators tasked with selling change with a major headache.