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From the 2-23-05 The Hill:

Eight teams now man GOP message machine

By Patrick O'Connor

Building on a strategy developed during the Medicare prescription-drug debate, House Republicans have rolled out an unprecedented communications strategy, coordinating members and lobbyists to start selling the GOP’s ambitious legislative agenda.

Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) announced the eight teams of members last week after initially introducing the strategy during last month’s bicameral Republican retreat in West Virginia.

The teams, each of which will focus on a particular set of legislative issues, are Retirement Security, Voter Values, Economic Competitiveness, War on Terror, Lawsuit Abuse and Affordability, Education and Career Opportunities, Healthcare Access and Affordability, and Waste, Fraud and Abuse.

The rollout also included an appeal to K Street.

Following a meeting with lobbyists two weeks ago, Andrew Shore, in the GOP conference office, sent out an e-mail last Friday thanking participants for their interest in the communications strategy and attached a roster of team members and the contact information for key staff.

"We’re asking you to sign up for one or more of the 8 groups listed," Shore wrote in the e-mail. "Much like our Medicare campaign last year, we’ll be working with you on press events, media strategy, grassroots, town hall meetings and floor debate to highlight these issues."

Each team has a separate chairman, or co-chairmen, with an accompanying vice chairman. Chairmen were selected for their particular areas of expertise. For example, Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), a former judge, will head the Lawsuit Abuse team and Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), a doctor, will chair the Healthcare Access team.

Members were encouraged to sign up for the team that most interested them, with the conference deciding who would serve on the most popular.

The 18 chairmen and vice chairmen represent a diverse cross-section of the conference, and leadership has taken an active role in the effort.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has signed up for three teams, including those to push for Social Security reform and issues related to the war on terrorism, which one conference aide said would be among "the two heaviest lifts." Leadership Chairman Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is also on three communications teams.

Each team has a designated pollster, who will serve as a message adviser, but no money has been set aside to conduct specific polls. The teams will also focus strictly on message and will have no role in shaping policy.

"The public-affairs campaigns will be used strictly to enhance our messaging and communications efforts," conference spokeswoman Andrea Tantaros said in an e-mail. "They are not designed to craft or shape policy."

There will be coordination, however, between the teams and the committees pushing particular legislation.

Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.), chairman of the Education and Career Opportunities team, for example, has already scheduled a meeting to discuss message goals with the Education and the Workforce Committee, on which he serves as a member.

Because the teams were only announced last Wednesday, most of the teams have not yet scheduled initial meetings with members to discuss outreach goals.

Some teams will meet more frequently than others. The Economic Competitiveness team, which will focus on tax reform, job creation and energy independence, was already planning to meet once a week, while the Lawsuit Abuse team could meet much less frequently after last week’s passage of the class-action-reform bill.

There will not be a predetermined meeting time for most of the groups, but the conference has set aside a "war room" within the conference office for each group.

The new structure will allow the conference, and leadership in particular, to schedule issue outreach as legislation moves to the House floor. The Retirement Security team, for example, will get increasingly active as Social Security advances within the Ways and Means Committee. The Economic Competitiveness team will be responsible for trumpeting, or downplaying, jobs numbers as they are released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The War on Terror team will coordinate constant message strategy regarding the war in Iraq and other issues relating to homeland security.

Shore, in Pryce’s office, will oversee the K Street coalitions, and Tantaros, Anne Buresh and Jessica Ferguson, in the conference office, will oversee all of the teams.

The new groups help Pryce’s office monitor press from individual districts and were also expected to help vet that information as it comes in. But the teams’ primary function will be crafting a conferencewide message as it moves quickly from one agenda item to the next.

"Just like a full-service public-relations firm, House Republicans have streamlined and mobilized our conference so that we are accessible, articulate and ahead of the game on every issue," Tantaros said.