Tag Archives: obama

END GAME ELEMENTS

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Since early in the primaries this blog has taken the
position that Obama’s strong element – the basis of his campaign – is Passion
(his ability rally people around a central motivating core concept) and that
McCain’s is the element we call the Antagonist (his ability to define the story as his struggle against whatever is between him and his goal).

No story element is better or worse than any other. You need
all five to tell a compelling story, and every storyteller has their own style and
preference. But it is fascinating that as we come into the home stretch that we have such a strong visual contrast between the two campaigns.

One the one hand you have Obama gathering enormous pep rally style crowds like the one he had in St. Louis where what he says is broad and inclusive. It is worth the click. This is “come on in the
water is fine” at its most public.

And on the other you have McCain and company saturating the
phone lines with highly targeted robocalls that define Obama as pretty much
whatever it is that the listener might find unappealing. Phone calls, even robotic ones, are by
nature private and personal.

Election day has both qualities. When you vote you get to feel that you are part of something much bigger than yourself – and you get to brag
about it by wearing you “I voted sticker.” And when you are actually casting your ballot you are totally alone with
your own deepest and most private thoughts and fears. It is a great story contrast – a suiting end to
a long and historic campaign.

COOLER HEADS

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Like a lot of people who spend way too much time prowling
the web I was shocked by this YouTube of folks coming out of a Palin
Rally convinced Obama was a terrorist. If that is the take away from a GOP rally
something is seriously wrong.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons not to vote for Obama
– enough so that I don’t really have to list them here – but him being a “one
man terrorist cell” whose “name says it all” is not one of them.

In The Elements of Persuasion Bob and I say:

“Of course, not every story has a happy ending, and
there is a very real moral danger in creating villains… Story telling is innate
in human beings, but it is in some respects a value-free process. Fortunately,
there is a fail safe. Those stories that produce destructive and negative
actions tend to cannibalize the people who tell them. They rapidly eliminate
themselves from the cultural dialogue…”

But what do we do while we wait for the fever to run its
course? Listening to the wise words of our political elders seems a good place
to start.

This speech by Republican Jim Leach, formerly the
Representative from Iowa’s 2nd District, fills the bill. It was
given at the Dem convention, and is an endorsement of Obama, but that isn’t the
point. The point is that it is truly bipartisan.

What I really like about it is that it places the story of
this election cycle in the larger context of the Four Great Questions that have
been at the heart of every American election from our county’s beginning and lists progressive
politicians from both parties who have helped our country move towards achieving our ideals. It would make the kernel for a great High School
History class discussion.

Sometimes the real gems from a political convention don’t
standout until later. This speech is one of those. To find out more about Jim
Leach, click here.

THE PAST IS PROLOGUE

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I don’t usually comment on the debates. I don’t do
play-by-play and in story terms these debates have basically been yawners.

But one moment from the VP Debate has stuck with me. Palin
set it up early by conspicuously asking Biden, “Can I call you, Joe.” Then later
when he brought up McCain’s record she pulled the trigger with “Say it ain’t
so, Joe. There you go again, looking backwards.”

Biden’s reply when asked to respond by moderator Gwen Ifill,
“Gwen, as you know, past is prologue,” seemed awfully academic to me given
Palin’s down home diction. But now a video has come out that shows Biden may
have been doing a little setting things up of his own.

This video is long – 13 minute – so it is preaching to the
choir, but it seems to be designed to tell the Dem faithful what they need to
know to pivot character attacks on Obama back to their strong point, the
economy. Don’t have 13 minutes? The trailer is only 30 seconds.

In McCain’s defense at least initially he seemed to learn
his lesson from the Keating fiasco and he earned his reputation as driver of
the “Straight Talk Express” by being open and honest about his mistakes with
reporters. But now, in an analogous situation, he seems to be ducking even off
the record interviews. Am I the only one that finds that strange?

OBAMA SHOULD SAY NO RIGHT NOW!

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If McCain should say “No” to the Bush/Paulson bailout plan
that goes double – or maybe triple -
for Obama. And he needs to say it quickly and clearly. He can’t play “Lets Make
a Deal.” Any deal the House Dems can craft will be a bad deal. Obama has to say
“No Deal!” His status as a hero – his core brand of change – depends on it. .

Obama’s best explanation of what he meant by change was, “If
you keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result you are crazy.
That’s why we need to bring real change to Washington.” He was talking about Iraq, but he could have
been talking about the financial crisis.

The Fed, under both Clinton and Bush, has been bailing out
financial institutions, one after the other, for years. It hasn’t worked. It
just makes things worse. Now under intense time pressure, Paulson and Benrnanke ae telling Congress that
if they don’t authorize the mother of all bailouts the whole system will melt down. Maybe they
are right. I don’t know. But it sure smells like a classic con. It’s like a man
running up to you at the carnival and saying “A guy just got stabbed back
there. Hold this bloody knife and I’ll get someone to give him CPR. Oh, and be
sure to touch the handle, OK? ”

The only group of rubes that might be stupid enough to fall
for that (because they really are big-hearted bozos) is the current Dem House
Leadership. Not coincidentally, they are also the only group that actually has
lower approval ratings than the Bush White House.

Obama needs to stay absolutely clear of this legislative
train wreck. And to do so he needs to go with one of his best lines in the
convention speech, “Enough”. Something like this:

“Enough. Enough panic, enough lies,
enough accounting tricks. We will get to the bottom of this and we are going to
get through it, because we are all Americans and we are all in this together. But it isn’t going to be solved by pulling an all-nighter then jumping on a plane to go and campaign. The days of fast fixes and quick bucks are over. It is going to take hard work and hard facts. And to my Wall Street friends all
I can say is calm down, take a deep breath… and then take your hand out of my
pocket.”

MONEY TALKS

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Not all stories are words. Some are told visually, some
numerically. The right spreadsheet at the right time can speak volumes.

A headline like the one I woke up to in this Sundays L A
Times:

“Bailout to reach
$700,000,000,000”

(with every zero in there for emphasis) makes it crystal
clear that the Market Meltdown will be sucking up all the story oxygen for a
many news cycles to come.

So how can the McCain and Obama campaigns get ahead of the
story and roll it into their candidate’s vision of the future? I’m not talking about political spin or
partisan posturing. Any hint of that will probably prove fatal. I’m talking
about how the candidates can use their points of view – the empathic connection
they have been developing for months with the voters – to help us all get
a handle on this problem. That’s what heroes do – they bring us together for
the common good by giving us a common framework to solve our problems.

How should Obama and McCain do it? Interestingly enough both
campaigns should follow the example of Nancy Reagan and “JUST SAY NO!”

The reasons why they should say no are different for each
candidate because each candidates story is different but the fact that they
should both end up saying the same thing – NO – gives me bipartisan hope.

In the next day or two I’ll go into details on the story implications for each
candidates. But to get an overview of the situation I suggest you check out
this interview Bill Moyers just did with Kevin Philips.
Philips first major work – The Emerging Republican Majority – was done
while he was working in the Nixon White house and laid out what became known as
the Southern Strategy. Since then his analysis has crisscrossed back and forth
over party lines. His book “Wealth and Democracy” is as good a macro analysis
of the problems America now faces as I have ever read. In this interview Phillips makes it clear that
current financial crisis is a bipartisan problem long in the making, with more
than enough mud to go around if we want to start slinging. Hopefully we
won’t.

To stay up on breaking
news you might want to try out ‘The Big Picture” blogsite if you don’t use it
already.

IT’S THE NEOCON ECONOMY, STUPID

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If you find yourself fighting someone you can’t lay of glove
on (say a legitimate war hero or a cute, plucky, hokey Mom) you could get down
in the mud and scuff up their heroic image, but you’ll end smelling like dirt.
What you should do is attack not the people, but their point of view. That is what makes them Heroes in the first
place.

This means that Dems shouldn’t run against McCain (or Palin)
– but should run against the Repub
point of view- aka Neocon dogma. And at least at first they should stick to the number one issue
on voter minds – the economy.

McCain’s statement that “the economy is fundamentally sound”
could be the gift that keeps on giving. But it isn’t enough to show McCain is
out of touch – no duh, right? That would be attacking the man. Attack the ideas
behind him.

Dems need to get voters to ask, “What caused the market to
crash?”

Experts agree it was the lack of adequate market oversight.
And most of the oversight protections put in place by the New Deal Dems after the Great
Depression in 1932 were scaled back after the Neocon Revolution swept through Congress after 1992. Who was leading
the charge to turn your money and mine over to “the invisible hand” of the
hedge fund hustlers? Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas.

Gramm is no longer a Senator (he is too busy as a lobbyist)
but until he was caught on tape calling American investors “whinners” he was
McCain’s main financial adviser! Off the record it seems he still is. He,
and the ideas he champions, are the Dem sweet spot. If you are looking for a place to put a stake in the heart of the neocon market
monster – Phil Gramm’s chest is ground zero.

So Dems should drive one simple point home – "Markets go up under Dems
and down under Repubs". That is a fact. Has been for the last 75 years. If you are a
Dem, say it loud, say it proud, say it often.If you are a Repub – do you best to change the subject.

The best thing about Dems running against the neocon economic
brand rather than against a person is that Obama and Biden can stay out of a negative
tit or tat game of gottcha. Instead of coming across slightly rabid they can
come across as having a calm hand on the tiller. That is going to be key.
Because when the seas get rough I don’t want a guy at the wheel who “will fight
for me,” (McCain’s favorite phrase) I want a guy who knows how to find a safe
harbor and keep things calm on deck until we get there.

HOME COURT ADVANTAGE

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Central to our analysis of this election is the idea that
the campaign itself is a story and moves through the story elements in
sequence. The primaries are about who can fire up the party base and get them
Passionate about politics. At the convention each party nominates its Hero. In
the months after Labor Day each candidate works to define the Antagonist –
showing that the other party’s candidate is what stands between the voters and
a better tomorrow. This is when candidates and surrogates go at in hammer and
tongs. In the final three days before the election Awareness dawns and voters
make their real decision of who to vote for. The result is a Transformation -
for better or worse.

As we have said before each candidate has story strength.
Obama’s is his ability to inspire Passion, particularly among the young.
McCain’s is his skill as an Antagonist (that is he defines himself by what he stands against  – corruption, lobbyist influence, whatever). McCain’s maverick persona
is the natural outgrowth of this – he is even opposes his own party at times. This doesn’t mean he can’t be the Repub Hero. In fact, it gives the Repubs the current home court advantage because we
are in the Antagonist phase of the campaign. This is when “fighting words” are
key. And here the Repubs shine.

Two new attack ads came out today
that make this point. “Still” is the new Dem ad.  It is clearly true, but so what? Is it really news?
“Disrespectful” is the new Repub ad.. It might better be called “Uppity”. FactCheck says it is
demonstrably false – click here to see why -
but it generates lots of adrenalin. Which candidates name is more likely to
stick in your memory?

It is starting to look like Obama
brought a knife to a gun fight after all. He does have two prime surrogates –
the Clintons – he has yet to unleash fully, but if Obama doesn’t decide that
winning is more important than looking good he – and the Dems – are going to be
in for a world of hurt.

AT THE STARTING GUN

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Now that both parties have rolled out their candidate teams
it’s time to look at story strengths and weaknesses. The success of each campaign will be determined by how they
strengthen their weak story elements and exploit the weaknesses of their
opponents.

Obama’s strong element is Passion. If you can get 200,000
Germans in Berlin to show up for your standard stump speech and wave American
flags, you have stratospheric motivational mojo. But the Dems need to address
Rove’s “elitist” attack and clearly establish Obama as a version of every
citizen – better and brighter maybe, but essentially our equal. A guy who sees
things the way we do. The President is above
all our Hero-in Chief. This Ad – featuring Bidin’s voice
- is a great example of how the right VP pick can help make that crucial arch
of equality with key voters in a swing state. Take a look.

McCain’s strong suit is Antagonist. His campaign defines him
by what he is against – as a maverick. In his acceptance speech he used the
word ”fight” a staggering 27 times! He is a war hero – he has done
heroic things – but he hasn’t really shown himself to be our Hero in the story
sense – a point of view that we can all share. That is why the “how many
houses” moment is so important. It’s hard for a guy who inherited 100 million
bucks (by marriage) to be a regular Joe who sees things the way we do.

Instead of addressing this weakness McCain doubled down on
his Antagonist persona – choosing a self described “pit bull with lipstick” as
VP. The selection of Sarah Palin wowed the Repub base but reports are that she
didn’t test very well among independent swing voters at focus groups.
Apparently her snide, lip-curling attacks were a bit much.

But Repubs had to do something try to recapture the
narrative initiative, even if it is only a short-term bounce. The race is
officially on! May the best man win.

BARACK CLOSES THE DEAL

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We said yesterday that Obama needed to come out swinging in
his acceptance speech. If you saw it – and shame on you if you’re interested in
story and didn’t – you know he did that in spades.

If you missed it – hey things happen – you can see it here.

It was a classic
five-element story line. The crowd was wildly PASSIONATE before he spoke,
having been fired up by Al Gore and Stevie Wonder so he wasted no time and moved
on to immediately accept the nomination, becoming the Dem official HERO. The
vast majority of his time he spent defining his ANTAGONIST by methodically
connecting McCain to Bush’s unpopular policies – specifically linking him to
the failure to catch Bin Ladin (“Don’t say you will follow Bin Ladin to the
gates of hell. You won’t even go to the cave where he lives!) and to higher gas
prices (“Senator McCain has voted 26 times against alternative energy sources…
More drilling is just a stop gap measure”). Then he went for the jugular,
bringing up the issue of “judgement and temperment” on a day when McCain’s
nasty side had surfaced in an interview with Time magazine, throwing the press some fresh meat and making “temperment”
a point in the upcoming debates.

At the same time Obama was laying out specific policy initiatives – that is, he was giving us clear
AWARENESS of how we as a nation can get back on the right track. And he ended
on his theme of Change – TRANSFORMATION. So the speeches storyline was
complete. He touched all the bases, and that is the very definition of a homerun.

I’m not usually a big fan of Chris Mathews, but as a
political speechwriter himself he did a great analysis of this speech. Check it
out here. I particularly like what he said about “attacking from a defensive position.”

But maybe Al Sharpton had
the best one-line summary, “Obama took the gloves off but never stopped
smiling, and that is a very dangerous opponent for John Mc Cain.”

OBAMA BECOMES A HERO

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At FirstVoice we’ve been waiting for Obama to transit from
being a motivator to being a hero. Motivators use rhetorical Passion – the
first of our Elements of Persuasion – to stir things up. Without fire we won’t
care about a story and it never even gets started. But if the story doesn’t
move to the next stage and develop a coherent point of view – personified in a hero – it dies on the vine.

Obama is so good at motivation we were starting to think he
might get stuck there.  If a story doesn’t grow through the five elements, it gets stale and boring. That is really
what the Obama-fatigue talk was all about.. Luckily for the Dems Obama has now made the transition to
Hero. He did it a few days ago with this speech. It is worth listening to in full. His
team then came out with an attack ad version that has a very nice
tag to it, so the ad is worth a watch as well.

The specific line that makes Obama a hero? “If LIKE ME you
only have one house…”

Heroes embody equality. They walk on the
same earth as we do. Recent Repubs have mastered the  black art of making the media see Dem candidates as aloof and out of touch. They did it with Gore, then Kerry, and they tried it
again with Obama by casting him as a “ditzy self-obsessed celebrity”.

The
problem for Obama was that when you counter that sort of attack directly you end up reinforcing it through repetition. So you need to ignore the jab,
wait for an opening and then hit your opponent hard with a meaningful counter punch that homes in on the core issue -  in this case Obama’s "otherness". Obama’s line “If like me you only have one house” works gang busters because it flips the Repub storyline 180 degrees! Who is
more like the average American? McCain, a guy with so many houses he can’t
remember where he put them all, or Obama, a guy working hard to pay the
mortgage on his one house?

McCain’s counter attack ad has more than a whiff
of desperation about it. And the party line "Hey, they aren’t  McCain’s houses, they belong to his wife" just digs him in deeper.