Via Atrios. Responding to the earth shattering news that the Democratic Party has realized that the Republicans have an effective marketing arm, John Podesta announces in the NY Times today that the Dems are looking into setting up similar operations.

As Hesiod points out, this is just a tiny bit….uh….stupid. You don’t announce that you are countering a successful Republican political operation by copying it.

You say that “there is a huge wave of interest in Democratic ideas among grassroots Americans and that the party is actively helping to disseminate those ideas along with various interested parties from business and industry who are gravely concerned about the direction this administration is taking the country.” It’s spin, marketing, shading the truth, selling the product. It’s called propaganda. And you never admit to it. Ever.

Propaganda is defined by Miriam Webster as:

Pronunciation: “prä-p&-‘gan-d&, “prO-

Function: noun

Etymology: New Latin, from Congregatio de propaganda fide Congregation for propagating the faith, organization established by Pope Gregory XV died 1623

Date: 1718

1 capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions

2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person

3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

Setting aside this clumsy “announcement”, it’s clear that the Democratic media operation is non-existent, and in this day and age, that is pathetic. But, it seems to me that the real problem is not just that we don’t have liberal media outlets, or a unified Democratic message. The real problem is that we don’t understand what the modern media wants and what it needs.

I think that the mainstream media is actually fairly politically agnostic. Entertainment values are what motivate them and entertainment values are driven by emotion and sensation, not reason, the basis of rational political debate. But, these values are manifested in more than a race for ratings and careerist brown-nosing of the corporate boss (both of which are big factors, but not decisive ones.) Political news coverage is shaped by celebrity, insiderism, institutional cronyism, drama, stimulus, schaudenfraude, comedy, starpower and Washington zeitgeist. And, they are desperate for material. This need for a compelling story is a yawning black hole that constantly needs to be filled and that is something the GOP has learned how to manipulate.

Therefore, I believe we have to learn to present our policies in terms of conflict, courage, empathy, community, fun, heroic deeds and sex appeal and these “stories” must be told by people who know how to tell them in a stimulating way. We must learn how to lead the press where we want it to go by using seductive themes and dramatic narratives.

I am almost certain that Clinton survived the bashing he took because of his superstar charisma as much as his brains and toughness. Everything about him was interesting, either as a villain or a hero. He was a Master Celebrity and he made everyone pay attention. The media were far more interested in his Q rating than in his job approval rating. Up or down, they wanted him on screen. And he delivered. He was the first rock star president, for better or worse.

But, his presence and the focus the media put on him meant that the Democrats did not develop the media apparatus they should have when this new 24 hr cable universe came roaring into being. The Republicans did…

However, I do not believe that they could continue to beat us at this game if we applied ourselves to it. The only reason that the GOP has managed to dominate the media political discourse is by outright buying of outlets and broadcasting the political equivalent of “Battle Bots”; selling cheap, puerile schoolyard conflict on every single one of them. This attracts the kind of viewer who also loves to watch shark feeding shows on the Discovery Channel and any movie starring Steven Sagal which is hardly representative of the electorate.

But, up to this point that’s been the only version of “The Political Show” on television. Being a political junkie, I watched in the beginning but quickly found that I hated the format. The pre-ordained positions, the ritual argument, the predictable escalation to screaming and finally the shaking hands and good natured laughter between all the participants as the credits roll just failed to interest me as entertainment — these shows are like watching the WWF. A scripted narrative pretending to be real. (I’m all too aware that the consequences are very real, but I’m talking about the shows themselves.) Since they fail to inform about anything but a perfunctory analysis of daily spin, I don’t watch much of it. There are others like me.

The CW is that Democrats don’t do well in talk radio or cable news formats because we don’t have the right combative style. We’re too dry and boring. The NY Times article says that we “talk down to people.” This may be true, but it’s really a much deeper problem than that. The reason we’ve been stymied is because we have been clinging to the idea that political media should reflect a rational discourse in which views are aired and debated with civility and mutual respect and that commercial entertainment values are inappropriate and dangerous to democracy. I agree. The problem is that ship sailed while we were standing on the dock talking amongst ourselves and patting each other on the back for our fealty to reason. It’s over. Political journalism is now part of the entertainment media, at least on television and radio, and we are foolish if we don’t recognize it and get on with it. If there were a great disaffected audience of rational thinkers who just want to be informed, then Jim Lehrer would have the highest rated news show in television. He isn’t even close.

The fact is that people want the news to entertain them, in fact they demand it.

So, we have to find a way to provide it to them instead of letting the “Battlebot’s” dominate the national consciousness with the only definition of our policies and our values that seems to get out there these days. And, I expect if the Democrats got serious and consulted with their richest contributors who run the real media that most Americans watch every single day in numbers that make O’Reilly’s look like a local weathercast that they could develop a “show” that makes Rush and his jowly cohorts look like those old kinescopes of Dave Garraway and that silly monkey.

The Democrats need to be open to radically new ideas about how to sell politics. Because whether we like it or not, it’s another media product competing in a 500 channel universe for the attention of an over stimulated populace. Liberals have to use our dominance in the world of art, communications and entertainment to translate what is already a liberal cultural environment into a liberal political environment.

The brain-dead Battlebot script is not the only script that can sell political ideas. But, it may be the only script that can sell Republican ideas.

Psst. John Podesta: Think Oprah. Think music. Think reality television. Don’t be a dumbass and diss the most exciting new medium around — the internet. (John Podhoretz said the recent blogging phenomenon reminded him of when talk radio took off 10 years ago. That’s food for thought, eh?)