Much has been written in the last week about the Obama campaign's superior data system, and the Romney campaign's untested ORCA GOTV tech that crashed on E-Day. The between-the-lines inference is that the Romney campaign could have won, if only their election-day GOTV system had worked. And though I worked on Obama's data team during the final five weeks of this cycle, and was nothing but impressed by the amazing data infrastructure that had been built up over the past four years, I still don't believe that what won it for us was superior data. That helped to facilitate our win, sure. And I'm proud to have even briefly been a member of that team. But the real win came from how each candidate presented their message to the voters.
The Obama message was simple. A continuation of 2008's Tax Relief for the Middle Class talking points, coupled with Joe Biden's war-cry of "General Motors is Alive and Osama Bin Laden is Dead." The Romney message throughout the campaign was so convoluted that I doubt anyone, especially Mitt Romney, could sum it up in just a few sentences. He is on-record as having had two different positions on abortion on the same day. By the third debate, Mitt Romney's message had become "Whatever Obama's Message Is, Well, That's My Message Too, But I Can Do It Better Because I Say I Can". Mitt Romney was actually using "Hope and Change" as an unofficial slogan within a few days of the election.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Off the Cuff
Back a few cycles ago in a nearby town, a young "tracker", that is: someone hired by a campaign to discreetly record the opponent at events to catch them saying or doing something that could be construed negative, was caught at an event by the congressional candidate he was tracking. The candidate, a former college athlete and a good ten inches taller than the young tracker, demanded that the tracker hand over the video camera. The tracker complied, with the camera recording the whole incident. The candidate put the video up on Youtube.
Any candidate, from Soil and Water Conservation District Manager to President, should know in this age of smartphones, that anything he or she says anywhere could end up on video available to the public. There is no such thing as a "private" campaign event. And most candidates are not lucky enough to catch a tracker in flagrante delicto. That is why the concept of message discipline is so important in campaign politics not only when the microphone is known to be on, but even when one does not know for dead certain that everyone in the room is on your side.
The recent video of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaking "off the cuff" about overprivileged Latinos, grateful Chinese factory workers, the Israel/Palestine conflict, and other delightful topics provides the most excellent recent example. Mother Jones has posted online the 18 minute video of the candidate in a room full of mostly high-dollar donors. And one tracker.
The problem with the video, by Romney's own account, is that he spoke "inelegantly". And that is true. The substance of what he said was not at all very different from the beliefs he's espoused throughout his entire campaign. The style, however, was unrehearsed and his jokes were pretty bad, and had he stuck to the script and recited his GOP talking points to that crowd, the audience probably would have been fine with it.
This video is strong evidence of a campaign that has been poorly planned from day one. Romney's advisers should have drilled message discipline into him from the start. Even a college basketball player cum congressional candidate knows: the cameras are everywhere waiting for you to slip up. Stay focused, stay on-message, and if someone is taping you, grab that camera and own it.
Any candidate, from Soil and Water Conservation District Manager to President, should know in this age of smartphones, that anything he or she says anywhere could end up on video available to the public. There is no such thing as a "private" campaign event. And most candidates are not lucky enough to catch a tracker in flagrante delicto. That is why the concept of message discipline is so important in campaign politics not only when the microphone is known to be on, but even when one does not know for dead certain that everyone in the room is on your side.
The recent video of Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaking "off the cuff" about overprivileged Latinos, grateful Chinese factory workers, the Israel/Palestine conflict, and other delightful topics provides the most excellent recent example. Mother Jones has posted online the 18 minute video of the candidate in a room full of mostly high-dollar donors. And one tracker.
The problem with the video, by Romney's own account, is that he spoke "inelegantly". And that is true. The substance of what he said was not at all very different from the beliefs he's espoused throughout his entire campaign. The style, however, was unrehearsed and his jokes were pretty bad, and had he stuck to the script and recited his GOP talking points to that crowd, the audience probably would have been fine with it.
This video is strong evidence of a campaign that has been poorly planned from day one. Romney's advisers should have drilled message discipline into him from the start. Even a college basketball player cum congressional candidate knows: the cameras are everywhere waiting for you to slip up. Stay focused, stay on-message, and if someone is taping you, grab that camera and own it.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Happy E-Day Everyone!
WHICH FLORIDA DO YOU WANT?
The first panel shows a boy and a girl skipping and flying a kite down a sugar-sand beach, with cool calm blue ocean behind them. The second panel shows an oil-drenched post apocalyptic hellscape of gigantic tar-gobs washing ashore, a foetid, smoggy industrial nightmare. Vote for me and your children will frolic, joyously and carefree in the surf . Vote for my opponent and you will end up in a burnt-out wasteland fighting off gangs of cannibal-zombies for the remaining fresh water, on a desert planet where the living envy the dead.
Open it up, and this glossy brochure features, down the left page, pictures of a smiling Candidate surrounded by a group of young people, a hard-hatted worker installing solar-panels, and another picture of a bright-blue ocean, with no oil rigs as far as the eye can see. The second page features a smirking picture of the Opponent, another Giant Oil Slick, a Large Pile of Money, and a pig. (Another recent mailer by the same candidate featured a cow. Are farm animals really a salient image in this largely urban and suburban district? More research may have to be done)
In the text: Our Candidate lets us know there will be Jobs. Green Jobs. The Opponent, however, is associated with Big Oil.
This flier works as an excellent example of a contrast ad. A vision of two different worlds is set up, one which has a Leader who will ensure a utopia of beautiful, solar-powered beaches where we all work together for carbon-neutrality, and the other a dystopia of political corruption and environmental degradation where all of our beaches will be covered in petroleum forever because the villainous Opponent could not keep hands off the neatly stacked bundles of crisp U.S. currency provided by a relative's connection with a government agency. Two narratives are delivered, each with an emotional reaction that will, the maker of the ad hopes, resonate at the voting booth.
Message Discipline gives this attack ad a A-. Points lost on: Piggy Bank Stock Photo too cute. Some kind of Sinister Piggy Bank would have worked better.
The first panel shows a boy and a girl skipping and flying a kite down a sugar-sand beach, with cool calm blue ocean behind them. The second panel shows an oil-drenched post apocalyptic hellscape of gigantic tar-gobs washing ashore, a foetid, smoggy industrial nightmare. Vote for me and your children will frolic, joyously and carefree in the surf . Vote for my opponent and you will end up in a burnt-out wasteland fighting off gangs of cannibal-zombies for the remaining fresh water, on a desert planet where the living envy the dead.
Open it up, and this glossy brochure features, down the left page, pictures of a smiling Candidate surrounded by a group of young people, a hard-hatted worker installing solar-panels, and another picture of a bright-blue ocean, with no oil rigs as far as the eye can see. The second page features a smirking picture of the Opponent, another Giant Oil Slick, a Large Pile of Money, and a pig. (Another recent mailer by the same candidate featured a cow. Are farm animals really a salient image in this largely urban and suburban district? More research may have to be done)
In the text: Our Candidate lets us know there will be Jobs. Green Jobs. The Opponent, however, is associated with Big Oil.
This flier works as an excellent example of a contrast ad. A vision of two different worlds is set up, one which has a Leader who will ensure a utopia of beautiful, solar-powered beaches where we all work together for carbon-neutrality, and the other a dystopia of political corruption and environmental degradation where all of our beaches will be covered in petroleum forever because the villainous Opponent could not keep hands off the neatly stacked bundles of crisp U.S. currency provided by a relative's connection with a government agency. Two narratives are delivered, each with an emotional reaction that will, the maker of the ad hopes, resonate at the voting booth.
Message Discipline gives this attack ad a A-. Points lost on: Piggy Bank Stock Photo too cute. Some kind of Sinister Piggy Bank would have worked better.
Monday, August 23, 2010
GOTV!
The Get Out The Vote final days are here. Fund raising ended on Thursday, then Early Voting ended on Saturday. Is your campaign Winding Down, or Gearing Up? These last few hours before the polls close are especially crucial in tight races, and everyone knows there are at lease a few squeakers this year. Several races at the city, county, and state level are too close to call.
How to best Get Out The Vote during these last few hours? Call your known and likely supporters who have not yet voted and remind them to vote Tuesday. Tell them where to go vote. See if they need a ride. Blanket-canvass high-voter-turnout areas with door hangers. Keep that ground-game in high gear.
Good luck to all of my candidate friends, and all those who are campaigning tirelessly for them. Put your faith in the voters, if you expect them to put their faith in you. May the voters choose to put the best candidates into office.
How to best Get Out The Vote during these last few hours? Call your known and likely supporters who have not yet voted and remind them to vote Tuesday. Tell them where to go vote. See if they need a ride. Blanket-canvass high-voter-turnout areas with door hangers. Keep that ground-game in high gear.
Good luck to all of my candidate friends, and all those who are campaigning tirelessly for them. Put your faith in the voters, if you expect them to put their faith in you. May the voters choose to put the best candidates into office.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Incomplete Glossary
Advertising
There are two types of political campaign advertising: negative, and ineffective. Many first-time challengers to incumbents will initially be reluctant to “go negative” because they think that it “turns people off”. They will soon find themselves “losing the election”. Not using negative ads in a political campaign is like not using your bishops, rooks, knights, or queen in a game of chess. It's an interesting strategy.
Big Oil
I usually try to purchase locally made, artisinal gasoline at small, independent gas stations in Railroad Square and Midtown. They do their own refining, right there in the back of the shop! "Big Oil" is a redundant phrase that is used in negative advertising to denote that ones opponent is on the take.
Campaign Finance Reform
For an incumbent who has the fund-raising advantages of name recognition and a juicy history of quid pro quo legislative favors, this means lowering or otherwise restricting the amount that an individual or organization is allowed to donate to a political campaign, in order that challengers will become even more disadvantaged. When a challenger uses this term, it is usually because they are jealous that the incumbent already has the name recognition and has doled out favors to the big donors. In any case, nobody involved in the process ever works meaningfully toward anything resembling actual reform of the campaign finance system, because they want a slice of that sweet, sweet pie.
Direct Mail
Glossy fliers that fill your mailbox from about Absentee Ballot mailout time onward. Usually with a picture of your candidate, smiling, outdoors, with her dog. And her opponent, frowning or smirking, offset by a photo of the flaming Deepwater Horizon and an oil-drenched baby bird. Or maybe a color picture of your candidate shaking hands with a multi-ethnic trio of firefighters, contrasted with a grainy black-and-white surveillance-camera still of the opponent robbing a liquor store twenty years ago. These mailers also have words on them. No one knows what they are.
Family
Every politician will at some point stress the importance of “family”. Photos of the candidate posing with their spouse and offspring are used in political advertising to denote that the candidate is still speaking with them. During the campaign season this might not actually be true, but at least it looks like they're trying.
Green Jobs
The new menial grunt work for the 21st Century, "Green Jobs" will consist of wind-turbine factory assembly-work, installing weather-stripping and solar hot water heaters in low-cost housing, and other low-paying work.
Jobs
Political candidates generally want you to believe that their policies, once enacted, will “create jobs”. Often this means they want to “provide incentives for small businesses”, which means tax-breaks for their campaign contributors.
Labor
The backbone of America, true heroes. All progressive, liberal, and Democratic candidates for office will claim to be “Pro-Labor.” This actually means “Pro-Union” because progressive, liberal, Democratic candidates for office invariably will seek and often receive endorsements, funding, and votes from Labor Unions, whom they will praise for their constant battle to provide workers with a living wage and health benefits. It does not actually mean that candidates themselves will pay their campaign staff a living wage or provide health benefits. Most candidates prefer to pay their staff nothing at all whenever possible, (they need that money for negative campaign ads) but they may begrudgingly pay wages severely below the market value of their upper-level staff members' skill and educational levels.
Lobbyist
According to Florida's super-strict campaign finance laws, lobbyists are forbidden from actually handing legislators large cartoonish money bags with dollar-signs printed on them, on the house and senate floor during regular session. Beyond that, just about anything goes, restricted only by the conscience of the candidate. No legislator will ever admit to have been, in any way, influenced by any lobbyist that has written them a check for several hundred dollars. And yet business and interest groups still hire lobbyists to do so.
Sign Waving Party
Takes the Yard Sign concept a step further in its ineffectiveness by adding in the time that people spend in organizing and attending a Sign Waving Party.
Small Business Owners
The backbone of America, true heroes. All politicians will claim to either be, have been, or at least deeply love, Small Business Owners. Anyone who has ever worked for a local pizza joint for minimum wage and no health insurance, overtime, 401k package, or respect can tell you that Small Business Owners are not all necessarily the paragons of nobility that politicians make them out to be.
Yard Signs
Usually convey little information other than a candidate's name, are expensive and time-consuming to purchase and distribute, and have a negligible effect on election outcomes. Candidates love them because they love seeing their own names, in print, on people's lawns. And in front of strip-malls. And on corners at intersections. And in front of vacant lots. And bars. There are more than thirty-five candidates currently campaigning for office at the city, county, state, and federal level in Leon County. Figuring an average of one thousand signs per candidate, and three square feet per sign, that is enough yard signs to cover the entire Tallahassee Antique Car Museum. These non-recyclable, non-biodegradable wonders of political ineffectiveness will blight the landscape of Leon County for several weeks after the elections are over, and then they will be buried, forever, in a landfill.
There are two types of political campaign advertising: negative, and ineffective. Many first-time challengers to incumbents will initially be reluctant to “go negative” because they think that it “turns people off”. They will soon find themselves “losing the election”. Not using negative ads in a political campaign is like not using your bishops, rooks, knights, or queen in a game of chess. It's an interesting strategy.
Big Oil
I usually try to purchase locally made, artisinal gasoline at small, independent gas stations in Railroad Square and Midtown. They do their own refining, right there in the back of the shop! "Big Oil" is a redundant phrase that is used in negative advertising to denote that ones opponent is on the take.
Campaign Finance Reform
For an incumbent who has the fund-raising advantages of name recognition and a juicy history of quid pro quo legislative favors, this means lowering or otherwise restricting the amount that an individual or organization is allowed to donate to a political campaign, in order that challengers will become even more disadvantaged. When a challenger uses this term, it is usually because they are jealous that the incumbent already has the name recognition and has doled out favors to the big donors. In any case, nobody involved in the process ever works meaningfully toward anything resembling actual reform of the campaign finance system, because they want a slice of that sweet, sweet pie.
Direct Mail
Glossy fliers that fill your mailbox from about Absentee Ballot mailout time onward. Usually with a picture of your candidate, smiling, outdoors, with her dog. And her opponent, frowning or smirking, offset by a photo of the flaming Deepwater Horizon and an oil-drenched baby bird. Or maybe a color picture of your candidate shaking hands with a multi-ethnic trio of firefighters, contrasted with a grainy black-and-white surveillance-camera still of the opponent robbing a liquor store twenty years ago. These mailers also have words on them. No one knows what they are.
Family
Every politician will at some point stress the importance of “family”. Photos of the candidate posing with their spouse and offspring are used in political advertising to denote that the candidate is still speaking with them. During the campaign season this might not actually be true, but at least it looks like they're trying.
Green Jobs
The new menial grunt work for the 21st Century, "Green Jobs" will consist of wind-turbine factory assembly-work, installing weather-stripping and solar hot water heaters in low-cost housing, and other low-paying work.
Jobs
Political candidates generally want you to believe that their policies, once enacted, will “create jobs”. Often this means they want to “provide incentives for small businesses”, which means tax-breaks for their campaign contributors.
Labor
The backbone of America, true heroes. All progressive, liberal, and Democratic candidates for office will claim to be “Pro-Labor.” This actually means “Pro-Union” because progressive, liberal, Democratic candidates for office invariably will seek and often receive endorsements, funding, and votes from Labor Unions, whom they will praise for their constant battle to provide workers with a living wage and health benefits. It does not actually mean that candidates themselves will pay their campaign staff a living wage or provide health benefits. Most candidates prefer to pay their staff nothing at all whenever possible, (they need that money for negative campaign ads) but they may begrudgingly pay wages severely below the market value of their upper-level staff members' skill and educational levels.
Lobbyist
According to Florida's super-strict campaign finance laws, lobbyists are forbidden from actually handing legislators large cartoonish money bags with dollar-signs printed on them, on the house and senate floor during regular session. Beyond that, just about anything goes, restricted only by the conscience of the candidate. No legislator will ever admit to have been, in any way, influenced by any lobbyist that has written them a check for several hundred dollars. And yet business and interest groups still hire lobbyists to do so.
Sign Waving Party
Takes the Yard Sign concept a step further in its ineffectiveness by adding in the time that people spend in organizing and attending a Sign Waving Party.
Small Business Owners
The backbone of America, true heroes. All politicians will claim to either be, have been, or at least deeply love, Small Business Owners. Anyone who has ever worked for a local pizza joint for minimum wage and no health insurance, overtime, 401k package, or respect can tell you that Small Business Owners are not all necessarily the paragons of nobility that politicians make them out to be.
Yard Signs
Usually convey little information other than a candidate's name, are expensive and time-consuming to purchase and distribute, and have a negligible effect on election outcomes. Candidates love them because they love seeing their own names, in print, on people's lawns. And in front of strip-malls. And on corners at intersections. And in front of vacant lots. And bars. There are more than thirty-five candidates currently campaigning for office at the city, county, state, and federal level in Leon County. Figuring an average of one thousand signs per candidate, and three square feet per sign, that is enough yard signs to cover the entire Tallahassee Antique Car Museum. These non-recyclable, non-biodegradable wonders of political ineffectiveness will blight the landscape of Leon County for several weeks after the elections are over, and then they will be buried, forever, in a landfill.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
My Dog Has Three Legs
There is a training role-play exercise used in political communications courses called "My Dog Has Three Legs". The idea is that you, as a politician, wish to get across to the voters, at all times, that you have a three-legged dog. So you field questions from a person role-playing an investigative reporter:
Q: What do you plan on doing about water management issues?
A: Water management may be important to many people, but what my neighbors are really concerned about is that My Dog Has Three Legs.
Q: What is your opinion about the president's plan to withdraw troops from Quebec?
A: I have the deepest concern for the people of Quebec, but what voters in my district are talking about is My Three-Legged Dog.
The goal being that practicing this will allow you to substitute your own talking-point for the unfortunate tripodal canine, in the hopes that if five seconds of your interview end up on the news, it will be five seconds about your message. In person, this can make a politician sound overly rehearsed at best, and ignorant and evasive at worst. But when you watch the five-second clip on television news, spliced in with a half-dozen other five-second clips, it works. Television news reports rarely show the question being asked, they usually just show the answer. If a candidate has the same answer for every question, that answer is what will end up earning media.
A recent environmental forum featuring candidates running for the Florida legislature demonstrated the importance of staying on-message. There is a candidate running for Florida Senate District 6, John Shaw, whose entire platform relates to hemp legalization. Hemp legalization, according to this bright and well-spoken young man, will lead to the cure of many of Florida's environmental, economic, energy, and social ills. And his answers to every question early on stated so. Not everyone in attendance shared his enthusiasm and optimism for industrial hemp production as an engine for sustainable growth, but as long as he stuck to the topic of hemp he at least sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
Mr. Shaw's problems at the forum really began when he switched over to water fluoridation, a topic that he brought up, and seemed unfamiliar with. He went off-message, and started to lose an audience who, while not necessarily agreeing with his hemp-centric platform, at least admired his tenacity. Hemp as a political talking point, at worst, inspires Cheech and Chong jokes. Water fluoridation, on the other hand, reminds people of General Jack Ripper in Dr. Strangelove. (A note to younger readers who may not get these film references: substitute "Harold and Kumar" for "Cheech and Chong", and just go ahead and watch Dr. Strangelove.) Thereafter, he quit talking about hemp so much and began answering questions with whatever sprang to mind. And so John Shaw's pooch grew a fourth leg, and quickly ran away.
This blog, Message Discipline, will be examining political communication, particularly in the realm of Leon County and North Florida politics. My aim is to point out how candidates for public office craft their message to appeal to voters, and to try to gauge the effectiveness of their communications. I welcome all comments and criticism, and look forward to hearing from you.
-Brian Lee
Q: What do you plan on doing about water management issues?
A: Water management may be important to many people, but what my neighbors are really concerned about is that My Dog Has Three Legs.
Q: What is your opinion about the president's plan to withdraw troops from Quebec?
A: I have the deepest concern for the people of Quebec, but what voters in my district are talking about is My Three-Legged Dog.
The goal being that practicing this will allow you to substitute your own talking-point for the unfortunate tripodal canine, in the hopes that if five seconds of your interview end up on the news, it will be five seconds about your message. In person, this can make a politician sound overly rehearsed at best, and ignorant and evasive at worst. But when you watch the five-second clip on television news, spliced in with a half-dozen other five-second clips, it works. Television news reports rarely show the question being asked, they usually just show the answer. If a candidate has the same answer for every question, that answer is what will end up earning media.
A recent environmental forum featuring candidates running for the Florida legislature demonstrated the importance of staying on-message. There is a candidate running for Florida Senate District 6, John Shaw, whose entire platform relates to hemp legalization. Hemp legalization, according to this bright and well-spoken young man, will lead to the cure of many of Florida's environmental, economic, energy, and social ills. And his answers to every question early on stated so. Not everyone in attendance shared his enthusiasm and optimism for industrial hemp production as an engine for sustainable growth, but as long as he stuck to the topic of hemp he at least sounded like he knew what he was talking about.
Mr. Shaw's problems at the forum really began when he switched over to water fluoridation, a topic that he brought up, and seemed unfamiliar with. He went off-message, and started to lose an audience who, while not necessarily agreeing with his hemp-centric platform, at least admired his tenacity. Hemp as a political talking point, at worst, inspires Cheech and Chong jokes. Water fluoridation, on the other hand, reminds people of General Jack Ripper in Dr. Strangelove. (A note to younger readers who may not get these film references: substitute "Harold and Kumar" for "Cheech and Chong", and just go ahead and watch Dr. Strangelove.) Thereafter, he quit talking about hemp so much and began answering questions with whatever sprang to mind. And so John Shaw's pooch grew a fourth leg, and quickly ran away.
This blog, Message Discipline, will be examining political communication, particularly in the realm of Leon County and North Florida politics. My aim is to point out how candidates for public office craft their message to appeal to voters, and to try to gauge the effectiveness of their communications. I welcome all comments and criticism, and look forward to hearing from you.
-Brian Lee
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