If President Obama could miraculously do the following:

[Are_grits_groceries]

End the wars
Balance the budget with no tax hikes and more tax cuts
Pass an affordable and rational health care plan
Create eleventy billion jobs
Put more resources into social programs
Shore up small businesses
Reform Wall Street
and a million other things that both sides want,
he would still lose the overall battle for the American people IF he didn't frame the message right, push it first and forcefully, and smack the GOP as if playing "Whack a Troll."

Don't expect people to think rationally or perceive things as they should be. Once messages enter the Great Spin Machine, they are then blared across the land 24/7 by many people and groups. That is what will probably stick. How in the world did an absurd message like "They want to kill Granny" gain traction? First spin, big spin.

One of the changes that has magnified the way events are perceived is the change in spreading news. There are many more outlets and forms. With Twitter, you can have a message going around the world before an event is even over or before someone can respond to a problem.

The Democrats better move and move fast to radically alter the way they get their messages out. There is no use whining about the way things are done because while they are whining, the perception is getting even further away from them.

I read and hear a lot about why and how such and such are misread or misinterpreted because people aren't looking at the whole picture. Newsflash: They won't! They will get a small but sharp message no matter how skewed.

I have been arguing about the problem with the NASCAR racers turning down their invitations to the WH. I believe they aren't intentionally dissing him. However, along with other events, the public is hearing: Boner makes Obama change time of speech, Obama caves on EPA regulation, and NASCAR racers refuse to go to the WH. Whether any of those messages or true or not is irrelevant. What the perceived message that gains traction is the one that will matter.

To round out the whole mishegas, people are scared in these uncertain times. Scared people are more likely to stampede or do irrational things. No matter what a politician's record is or what they are saying, if what finally gets through to the public is that someone will help them no matter how absurd that is in reality, that's all she wrote.

Go first, go big, go constantly or go home!