Communications

Messaging Memo

FROM: Kirsten Kukowski, RNC Press Secretary

TO: Interested Parties

RE: Obama’s Attack on Religious Freedom

Barack Obama’s new health insurance mandate is a direct attack on the Constitution and freedom of religion. The White House will try to spin otherwise, but that doesn’t change the central issue: the president does not have the power to undermine the Bill of Rights.

Our message is principled and rooted in the Constitution. No American should be forced to violate his or her religious beliefs at the whim of the White House. No religious organization should be forced to violate tenets of its faith.

Obama clearly disagrees. For him, a government takeover of healthcare is more important than the Bill of Rights. In pursuit of his big government agenda, he is willing to bully religious organizations and trample on constitutional freedoms.

The impact on society could be significant. The religious organizations affected by this mandate include Catholic charities, ... more

MEMO

FROM: Sean Spicer, RNC Communications Director

TO: Interested Parties

RE: Weekend Messaging Memo – More than a Number

Once a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its jobs report and the unemployment rate. And once a month commentators play the numbers game: How low must it go for Obama to win a second term? 7.3 percent? 6.8 percent?

It’s a dangerous game. High unemployment has become the new normal so we’re tempted to think that slightly-less-high unemployment is good. We’re tempted to settle. It may get better, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. It doesn’t mean the economy has recovered. The new normal isn’t really normal at all. 

The economy is much more than a single statistic, and the vast majority of numeric indicators tell us we are far, far from the growing economy we need to guarantee widespread prosperity. Barack Obama’s presidency must be judged on his record, and his record is the health of the economy.

In the Obama economy, most things are getting ... more

MEMO

FROM: Sean Spicer, RNC Communications Director

TO: Interested Parties

RE: Weekend Messaging Memo – A SOTU Repeat

Sitcoms are known for their reruns. State of the Union addresses usually aren’t. But if President Obama’s speech Tuesday night sounded like a repeat, you were right. He’d said much of it before.

Within minutes of the president’s conclusion, the RNC released a video, “Familiar Rhetoric, Failed Record,” pairing excerpts of Tuesday’s speech with similar or identical excerpts from the 2011 and 2010 State of the Union speeches. Within two days, the video had 600,000 YouTube views. If you haven’t watched it, you need to.

It struck a chord, proving yet again what we’ve long been saying: Attacking Obama with his own words resonates remarkably well. Our ad, crisp and straightforward, was played and replayed on cable news, on conservative radio, and, of course, across the Internet.  Bill O’Reilly called it “a brutal ad.” Rush Limbaugh declared it a “great video.”

And it was ... more

Good morning, the president is set to discuss college affordability and student loans today in Michigan but we’ve heard this all before. See the following comment from the RNC as well as stories from late 2011 – the last time we heard this same rhetoric.

“While focusing on student loans and college affordability is important for our country, the problem is we’ve heard this all before from President Obama. As with so many other important issues, President Obama is really good at making promises and is really bad at following through on them. Trying to jumpstart his reelection campaign, President Obama may think he can fool voters by traveling across the country, repeating the same promises he’s failed to deliver on the past three years.  He should give voters more credit. Americans have had enough of the rhetoric, it’s time for results.” – RNC Spokesperson Kirsten Kukowski

Detroit News:  Student Loan Program A Farce

“That's more money than Americans owe on credit cards, huge ... more

• It was abundantly clear that President Obama has given up on governing and used the State of the Union address more as a campaign prop than actual forum to put ideas forth that will get America back on track.

• We’ve heard this all before.

• Despite unfulfilled promises and failed economic policies from previous State of the Union addresses, Barack Obama tried to use tonight as a platform to boost his campaign, but Americans deserve better. It didn’t work previously, and it won’t work again.

• This shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, for our campaigner-in-chief:
  • He’s courting wealthy donors for campaign cash across the country, from L.A. to NYC.
  • He’s crisscrossing the country rallying disaffected voters in battleground states.
  • And he’s running disingenuous ads in five battleground states.

• From Day One, President Obama has been concerned about saving his job, not putting forth policies that will actually get Americans back to work and now that the calendar reads ... more
  
  

 MEMO

FROM: Sean Spicer, RNC Communications Director

TO: Interested Parties

RE: Weekend Messaging Memo – The Campaigner-in-Chief

Wonder what happens when a president stops governing? Look around.

Three weeks into the new year, over 290 days till the election, the president has gone into full-time campaign mode.

Yesterday’s agenda:

• Visit Disney World 
• Fundraise at a swanky Manhattan restaurant
• Fundraise (a second time) at swanky Manhattan restaurant
• Fundraise at Spike Lee’s house
• Fundraise at the Apollo Theater

Next week’s agenda:

• Campaign in Iowa
• Campaign in Nevada
• Campaign in Colorado
• Campaign in Michigan
• Campaign in Arizona

And, finally, he’s up with a defensive campaign ad in multiple battleground states. (Ironically, the ad, which tries to defend Obama’s ethical lapses, grossly misrepresents its own sources. For more on Obama’s countless ethical failings, see Chairman Priebus’ op-ed, “The Ethics of Audacity.”)

The message from the White House here is two-fold. First, ... more

 MEMO

FROM: Sean Spicer, RNC Communications Director

TO: Interested Parties

RE: Weekend Memo – Substance over Style

Substance trumps style in 2012. In this economy, Americans are hurting. They need results, not rhetoric.

That’s bad news for Barack Obama, purveyor of empty slogans and hollow promises. And it’s bad news for a dysfunctional White House that prioritizes the demands of politics over the duties of governing.

“We are the change we’ve been waiting for” and similar catchphrases worked in 2008, but they won’t work today. Now that Obama has proven the hollowness of his 2008 rhetoric, voters are looking for something different. They’ve learned their lesson.

Promises of “hope and change” mobilized many in 2008. In 2012, they fall on deaf ears—the ears of voters painfully aware of Obama’s destructive economic policies. It’s no secret Obama is a skilled promise-maker. It’s also no secret that he can’t keep his promises.

Voters demand an alternative in 2012—a proven leader. Our ... more

MEMO

FROM: Sean Spicer (@SeanSpicer), RNC Communications Director

TO: Interested Parties

RE: Weekend Memo – Failed Promises, Successful Strategy

Promises, promises. The president can make them, but he sure can’t keep them.

Happy Friday. With the Iowa Caucuses this week, the RNC took a look back at the many promises Candidate Obama made in Iowa four years ago. We released a hard-hitting video contrasting his promises with his record, we launched FailedPromise.com to list his Top 10 broken promises, and Chairman Priebus penned an op-ed for the Des Moines Register outlining the “Case for a New President.”

As the Chairman wrote, “Voters judge an incumbent president on one criterion: his record. A president is elected because of what he promises the country; he’s re-elected if he fulfills those promises. And today, even President Obama’s own team knows that he does not meet this most basic condition for re-election.”

Whether it’s on the economy, jobs, healthcare, housing, energy, the ... more

DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Team Obama are touting that they’ve got the strongest organization in Iowa, but new voter registration statistics released today show that Iowans continue to flee Obama and the Democratic Party.

SHOT:

@DWStweets: Talking to Shep Smith about how President Obama & Democrats have the strongest organization in Iowa. #iacaucus Photo: http://t.co/x1f6nOE9  

CHASER:

New voter registration statistics released by the Iowa Secretary of State today show another 1,252 Iowans left the Democratic Party in December while Iowa Republicans saw their 34^th straight month of voter registration gains.  (Iowa Secretary of State,  Accessed 1/3/2012)

Graph of Iowa New Voter Registration: http://www.gop.com/images/IowaNewVoterReg.gif

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MEMORANDUM

FROM: Sean Spicer, RNC Communications Director (@SeanSpicer)

TO: Interested Parties

RE: 2012 Outlook

The Holiday Season is almost over, and for Barack Obama so, too, is the Governing Season.

The White House and Team Obama have been in full-time campaign mode for a while; in some respects, they always have been. But now that the calendar will say 2012, everything will be done with securing the president’s job as the top priority.

That means we now know all we need to about the Obama presidency. 

His record is set. And since the 2012 election is indisputably a referendum on the Obama record, there is nothing more the American electorate needs in order to judge whether he deserves a second term. 

That judgment can and should be made by the very standard that Obama set at the outset of his first term: “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.” 

In 2008, President Obama sold voters on promises of economic recovery, cheaper ... more