Don't Think of a Maverick! Could the Obama Campaign Be Improved?

Throughout the nomination campaign I was struck by how well the Obama campaign was being run, especially how sophisticated the framing was. I was heartened that my five books on the subject might have had a real effect. But recently I have begun to wonder. It looks like, in certain respects, the Obama campaign is making some of the same mistakes of the Hillary campaign and the Kerry and Gore campaigns.

The Dayton speech on education had fine policy, but was the first really deadly dull Obama speech I've heard. It started out with lots of numbers. True, but dull. And he is promising more of the same policy wonk speeches. He's right that we are facing serious realities, and he's right to say what he intends to do, but the old inspiring Obama just isn't there. And the surrogates -- Biden and Hillary -- are policy-wonking it too.

I hope I'm wrong. Given my great respect for those who ran the nomination campaign so well, I wonder if I should say anything at all. But, as I predicted, Palin has turned out to be effective and the Obama campaign has not been effective in dealing with her. I've been getting loads of email asking me to say something to the campaign. So with some hesitation and a great deal of respect, I will simply point out what I see.

Four years ago I wrote a book called, Don't Think of an Elephant! The title made a basic point: Negating a frame activates that frame. If you activate the other side's frame, you just help the other side, as Nixon found out when he said, "I am not a crook," which made people think of him as a crook.

The Obama campaign just put out an ad called "No Maverick". The basic idea was right. The Maverick Frame is central to the McCain campaign, and as the ad points out, it's a lie. But negating the Maverick Frame just activates that frame and helps McCain. You have to substitute a different frame that characterizes McCain as he really is. There are various possibilities. Let's consider one of them. Ninety percent of the time, McCain has been a Yes-Man for Bush. Think in terms of questions at a debate. If the question is, is McCain a maverick?, you are thinking about him as a maverick, even when you are trying to find ways in which he isn't. McCain wins. If the question is whether McCain is a Yes-Man for Bush, you put McCain on the defensive. People think of him as a Yes-man 90 percent of the time, and try to think cases when he might not have been. This is not rocket science. It's the first principle of framing.

The "No Maverick" ad also misses an opportunity. It correctly observes that McCain's campaign is loaded with "lobbyists." But most of the people the ad is trying to reach don't know just what a "lobbyist" is. McCain is saying he is fighting against the Washington power structure. A lobbyist is a "member of the Washington power structure." If you use such a phrase, you can point out that McCain campaign itself is part of the Washington power structure, the old-boy network.

But these are small, easily fixable problems. Just change a word here or there. The campaign is facing bigger internal problems. Let's start with the statement by Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, that the campaign is "not about the issues."

In 1980, Richard Wirthlin -- Ronald Reagan's chief strategist -- made a fateful discovery. In his first poll he discovered that most people didn't like Reagan's positions on the issues, but nevertheless wanted to vote for Reagan. The reason, he figured out, is that voters vote for president not primarily on the issues, but on five other factors -- "character" factors: Values; Authenticity; Communication and connection; Trust; and Identity. In the Reagan-Carter and Reagan-Mondale debates, Mondale and Carter were ahead on the issues and lost the debates, because the debates were not about the issues, but about those other five character factors. George W. Bush used the same observation in his two races. Gore and Kerry ran on the issues. Bush ran on those five factors.

In the 2008 nomination campaign, Hillary ran on the issues, while Obama ran on those five factors and won. McCain is now running a Reagan-Bush style character-based campaign on the Big Five factors. But Obama has switched to a campaign based "on the issues," like Hillary, Gore, and Kerry. Obama has reality on his side. And the campaign is assuming that if you just tell people the truth, they will reason to the right conclusion. That's false and they should know better.

Chris Cillizza, in his Washington Post column, made the mistake of calling this a matter of "personality." DLC theorists Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck have previously made the same mistake. Voters are smarter. Since they don't know what the situation will be in a couple of years, it is rational to ask if a candidate shares your values, if he's saying what he believes, if he connects with you, if you trust him, and if you identify with him. That is a rational thing to do. Not just a matter of personality.

Unfortunately, it is also easy to manipulate these things with marketing techniques. As Cillizza points out, McCain and Palin are being marketed as American icons: the war hero and the ideal mom. Obama and Biden were marketed (honestly) as realizations of the American Dream, living hope that it is still possible -- with Obama as the lone figure with the charisma, character, and talent to actually unite the country and bring back the dream.

So far, the McCain-Palin narratives are proving powerful. Palin has enormous charisma of her own. Meanwhile the Obama narrative is being given up in favor of "the issues." It is as though, after the Republicans attacked Obama's charismatic leader persona, the Obama campaign gave up on it, instead of realizing that they could capitalize on it.

Barack Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe released the following statement: "We appreciate Senator McCain's campaign manager finally admitting that his campaign is not in fact about the issues the American people care about, which is exactly the kind of cynical old politics people are ready to change." But Plouffe, very much to his credit, beat the Clinton campaign in just that way. Hillary played the policy wonk and lost. Barack ran on what his biography showed about his values; his willingness to say what he believed (authenticity); his ability to connect, communicate and build trust through his sincerity; and on the use of his biography to get voters to identify with him. The beauty of Obama's nomination campaign, right through his acceptance speech at the convention, was his ability to frame realities through running on those five character factors. The campaign performed brilliantly.

But post-Palin, the Obama-Biden campaign seems to have become the Gore-Kerry-Hillary campaign. They are running on 18th Century theory of Enlightenment reason: If you just tell people the facts, they will follow their self-interest and reason to the right conclusion. What contemporary cognitive scientists have discovered (See my new book, The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st Century Politics with an 18th Century Brain), and what Republican marketers have known for decades, is that the Enlightenment theory of reason doesn't describe how people actually work. People think primarily in terms of cultural narratives, stereotypes, frames, and metaphors. That is real reason.

Realities matter. To communicate them, you have to make use of real reason. That's what Obama did in the nomination campaign when he used his personal narrative to communicate about the country's needs. Obama needs to go back to being Obama. The Obama campaign's job is to shine a light on those realities through Obama's unique personal qualities as a leader and communicator.

The Obama campaign has problems with conservative populism. They don't seem to understand it. Conservative populism on a national scale was invented in the late 1960s. At the time, most working people identified themselves with liberals. But conservatives realized that many working people were what I have called "biconceptuals" -- they are genuinely conservative in their mode of thought about patriotism and certain family issues, though they are progressive in their understanding of nature (they love the land) and their commitment to communities where people care about each other, etc. So conservatives have talked to them nonstop about conservative "patriotism" and "family values", thus activating their conservative mindset. At the same time, conservative theorists invented the ideal of "liberal elitism": that liberals look down upon working people and are not like them. Conservatives have been working at constructing this mythology for nearly forty years and liberals have stood by and let it happen. Palin is a natural for the conservative populists. She understands their culture.

Conservative populism is a cultural, not an economic, phenomenon. These are folks who often vote against their economic self-interest and instead vote on their identity as conservatives and on their antipathy to liberals, who they see as elitists who look down on them. Simply giving conservative populists facts and figures won't work.

They tend to vote for people they identify with and against people who they see as looking down on them. The job for the Obama campaign is to reverse the present mindset that the Republicans have constructed, to reveal the conservatives as elitist Washington insiders who cynically manipulate them, to get conservative populists to identify with Obama and Biden on the basis of values and character, and to have them see realities through Obama's leadership capacities. Not an easy job. But it's the real job.

Debate Preparation

I am concerned about the upcoming debates. There are two aspects of debate prep: internal and external. Let's start with the external, since it's less obvious. What happens in a debate depends very much on questions asked and the framing used to ask them. It's the job of a campaign to get questions asked that use their own framing and language, not the opposition's framing and language. The McCain campaign has been very active in prepping the press to ask his questions with his frames: The Maverick Frame, the Country First Frame, The Surge Is Working Frame, the Victory Frame, The Drilling Frame, the Change Washington Frame, and so on. McCain can answer questions based on these frames easily and forcefully, as he did at the Saddleback debate, which he won handily.

Obama's On Your Own Frame for McCain is one the press should bring up. And whether our economic problems are all psychological, as McCain has said. And Obama's riff on empathy, and caring for one another being the basis of our democracy. This is a matter for Obama to decide, but the press should be prepped about what the moral and character issues are for Obama, as well as what the policy issues are.

McCain won because he used short answers, and answers that reflected deep conservative values. Obama hesitated, tried to give nuanced answers, and came off looking like he had no values. Obama needs to train, to give fast, straight-on, inspiring responses that link his major themes -- empathy, responsibility (both social and personal) and aspiration -- to the foundational ideals of our country. Obama's values are America's values, and that has to come out loud and clear.

Additionally, he must show just how extremist the McCain/Palin ticket is.

Drilling

Senator Obama occasionally uses a rhetorical strategy that I believe is counterproductive. In response to a conservative position he rightfully opposes, he will sometimes try to sound sweetly reasonable by using a conditional sentence of the corm: If A, then B. Here B is the conservative position he is against, and A consists of one or more reasonable proposals that he knows conservatives would never accept. If we raise fuel efficiency standards on cars, get rid of the oil company subsidy, invest hundreds of billions in renewable sources of energy, ... , then I might be in favor of limited office drilling. This is reported in the news as Obama changes his position on drilling, when he hasn't changed it at all. Knowing that the if-clause could not be accepted by conservatives, he isn't really making a commitment to offshore drilling. But the fact is that, to many people, it looks like he supports drilling, and in so doing, he is helping to legitimize drilling.

Meanwhile, an opportunity is being lost. The Drilling Frame is being accepted. The Drilling Frame works like this:

You drill. You hit oil. You pump it up. There's lots of it. Prices go down.

What is left out of the frame are all the crucial facts.

The timeline: It's ten years from drilling to getting gas at the pump.

The amount: It's very small compared to what we use. We'll barely notice it. There isn't enough to significantly bring down prices.

The danger: Drilling is killing: Offshore spills can destroy fishing grounds.

The world market: The oil will go on the world market, which means that China, India, and other countries will drive up the price. There may be no saving at all.

Global Warming: More oil can only increase global warming.

A Diversion: Drilling takes investment away from alternative energy.

Just stating the facts won't change the frame. But the right visuals might. Start with the existing frame and visuals. Add each pitfall visually, one by one, so that it becomes clear at each stage what will go wrong. Visuals are powerful, and they can be used to put McCain on the defensive.

The Moral: Obama needs to be Obama again, the inspiring figure who gives us hope, not the dull policy wonk. He underestimated McCain's debating abilities, and needs to prep both externally by giving the press new questions to ask, and internally, by being precise and making his values clear. And he has to remember that voters vote on the basis of values, authenticity, communication, trust, and identity. If he is going to bring realities into the campaign, he has to do it via a strategy that includes all of those.

Natural charisma and brilliance are not enough. There's some hard work to be done.

George Lakoff is the author of The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st Century Politics with an 18th Century Brain. He is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley.

Comments

[PuritanDescendant]

Forget Obama and his damned campaign. Someone, tell me, what is the nastiest 527 group out there. I'll write the check today. The only way to fight the shameless lying is to show them that the same will happen them to them. During the cold war it was called MAD - mutual assured desctruction. I want a 527 group that is going to slime that SOB McCain. Please post a link...

[Mildmannered]

move-on.org???

[rcozad]

This is a great article ;sad , that it will probably do no good as Obama seems unwilling to change battlefield tactics. Think for just a moment if we (democrats) had been walking up a gangplank looking like a beggar without his cup of pencils,and they (republicans had pictures of us with a crook and a con man how long it would take McCain to run an ad something like Change the way Washington works ? Same old politics as usual blah blah blah. Will Obama run this I doubt it , should he? YOU BET! ENOUGH!

[SpectCon]

Obama's camp routinely changes, you don't notice because the strategy you've suggested is exactly what they've engaged in most recently.

Lipstick on a pig is an attack line, and a good one, but was used against him. The Maverick ad Lakoff mentions came out very recently, and it's a negative ad. They've had ads highlighting Palin's lies.

In fact, this week has been basically split up discussion three things, two of which Obama is responsible for due to going negative.

1. Is Palin lying? The answer is yes, but the pundits say Obama is distorting things as well or it doesn't matter because McCain will just continue lying and it's brilliant strategy.

2. Lipstick on a pig. Did Obama really call her a pig? Everyone basically agreed no, hoax by McCain's people to distract, but again great strategy.

3. Why is Obama so worried? (He isn't. They're simply playing up last weekend's poll numbers which were out of whack for party ID, taken right after the GOP convention and are meaningless since national.) What does Obama need to change?....This is the latest theme prior to 9/11 Palin interview day.

He's not in trouble. His people, contrary to what you seem to imply, need to stop being so reactive and set the tone-POSITIVE.

As long as Obama keeps the Dems excited, McCain can turn out every conservative and GOP in the country and will still be blown out.

[democrack]

McCain's campaign is brilliant for picking Palin for all reasons Lakoff states, but since Obama says he won't get into dirty politics (personality, family, and judgement related to the two), the McCain campaign is 100% innoculated from the substantial personality/family/moral-value defitic that embodies Palin and McCain's decision to pick her. Lakoff is perfectly right about negative framing. I love when any Obama opponent makes-fun of "a change we can believe in". The more they say it, the more easily it rolls off of people's tongues -ALL PEOPLE'S TONGUES/MINDS.

[AmazingChicken]

I just finished watching MSNBC's morning coverage and have finally clued into the fact they are anything but a pro-Progressive network. Silly me. They just seem less evil than Fox on comparison.

But this isn't about my slow reflexes, it's a response to Mr. Lakoff, whom I greatly admire:

Mr. L., Obama needs to do more than Frame the proposals the republicans are presenting as 'what they'll do to fix things.' He needs a way to identify - quickly and unambiguously - the fact that the Republicans don't care when their messages contain lies about the Democratic candidates. and that when their lips are moving, lies are being told. Consistently.

Until and unless we can get this truth out - on the evening news by the candidates, coordinated with spokespeople distributing evidence supporting it - we won't be able to shut these people up.

Someone's got to give the American people an 'Aha' moment, in the next two weeks, or we'll be waiting another eight years for the next chance to do so.

[TheNervousImmigrant]

Nice piece. It's clear that Obama et al don't have the weaponary to take on the McCain campaign in a slanging, negative, attack-style race. So the key for their success is to change the parameters of the race - if Republicans claim he's insulting Palin with his "lipstick on a pig" comment, then he can't simply come out and say "that's ridiculous, that's not what I meant and you know it."

Instead, he needs to regain the high-ground - demand that if either McCain or Palin really believe that he was calling her a pig, then they need to come out and say that publicly and explicitly, or shut up about it, and admit that it wasn't what he meant.

Make them stand behind their claims, don't get into a fight you can't win, put the pressure back on them to either defend the indefensible, or back down from their bluster.

That's how you beat the Republicans (or anyone when you're outgunned), they're better at imposing their narrative, better at soundbite controversy, and much, much better at re-inventing history. You can't beat them at these things, you have to create a situation where they either beat themselves, or are no longer in a position to deploy these weapons.

Absent this approach, coupled with the level-headed recommendations outlined above, I fear we are in for a demoralizing few months.

[williamwilliam]

Which is more troubling?

That the points raised in this piece are so simple and obvious that there
should be no need to bring them up to anyone on the street with a basic
feel for the tricks of language and presentation, much less to those whose
nominal professional specialty is contemporary political marketing?

Or, that even after having had their noses continuously rubbed in the filth from
the abattoir that is the last eight years, Americans remain cheerfully
vulnerable to this type of manipulation in the first place, bat their big eyes,
and march right in the doorway?

I would say the second is the more dire in consequence and the
more pitiful of spectacle, but either way, having a front seat before of all
of this has just got to be even better than holding hands with your sweetheart
on a Lakehurst porch swing in May 1937.

[LizDexic]

Hillary needs to get out there and point out that Sarah Palin's beliefs could not be more different than hers, and that voting for the McCain Palin ticket just because it has a woman on it will set back women's rights by many decades.

I had heard that as much as 20% of HRC supporters are now turning to the McCain/Palin ticket. It's hard to believe that that many people could be that stupid.

Hillary needs to stand up for her alleged feminist beliefs.

[faultymemories]

BINGO! BINGO! BINGO!

Give me a positive reason, as a PATRIOTIC AMERICAN, to vote for you Senator Obama. McCain talks about American exceptionalism. But it is a reactive, insular backward-looking exceptionalism. You've talked about American exceptionalism as our character, openness and fearlessness in facing competition and the future.

Get back on that track! Now. Please.

[imfedup]

Thank you, Dr. Lakoff. I have been baffled for weeks about how and why things are developing as they are, and this is the first thing I have read that really explains what's going on. I hope Obama's campaign takes what you're saying to heart. It could turn things around for him.

[bobdob]

Spot on. My main complaint about Democrats is that they sometimes appear to assume that everyone is intelligent, engaged and well-informed. Which is hardly ever the case. This election season, voters are probably more engaged than I've ever seen them. But, as usual, they're engaged in a way that suggests that they think this is a television reality show, rather than the most important election of our lifetimes. They like Sarah, and they hope Obama gets voted off. Or they're rooting for Obama, but they're afraid McCain might have secretly acquired immunity.

There's a saying in Buddhism: "In order to get up off the ground, you must use the ground." The Obama campaign wants to think of voters as more than just engaged. They want them to be well-informed and intelligent as well. Probably ain't gonna happen. They need to start dealing with reality.

[Bluedanube]

If they don't the next question will be, does McSame/Palin have coattails?

[LoyalJane]

The final matter in this whole campaign is race. Youve got a older white establishment guy whose campaign has been fragmented and now has a white woman who is near the point of calling out eye rape on Obama and youve got code words for "N" ie uppity, staying in one's place, elitist, terrorist fist bump?, inexperienced, celebrity (Im sorry...biggest celebrity). According to the McCain campaign now Obama is sexually targeting kindergarteners?

If anyone does not know this is a racial matter, your blind. The powers that be....Media...fair media....needs to bombard it's white collar bosses that it is time to hit the airwaves aside of the sponsors of big oil, and corporate ad dollars and do what is right for the American people.....Put the McCain-Palin fiasco to shame.

There are so many Americans who feel that they don't have a voice in this insanity called an election. Aside from blogging, we don't.

[Camarosc35]

Lou Dobbs on CNN made a similar observation that Obama had run the slickest presidential campaign until his vacation and it appears he and his staff have never returned from it. I wish Plouffe reads this article, you should alert him to your very astute and critical observations.

[dayala]

I think Obama needs to revamp his camp, Plouffe,Axelrod,Gibbs may have been effective for the primaries but they are out of their league in the general, Rove and Davis have out-manuvered, out-wit and out-played Obama.

Obama needs Paul Begalia and James Carville.

[KNadine]

Hey, that's a great idea!! During the finals, bring in the Second String - you know - the one's that didn't win. Brilliant! I'm emailing the Obama campaign right now to give them your suggestion.

[dayala]

Obama needs to pull the rug out of the Rove/Davis diversion gender smear antics by seizing the limelight away from Palin/McCain and calling a news conference to announce his choice of Hillary for Secretary of State in his administration and Chuck Hagel as Defense Secretary with a news flash announcing his first two major appointees, choosing Hagel might make Nebraska reconsider and shift to Obama and showing Obama reaching across party lines.

The news flash would have Bill in the background, Hillary and Chuck by his side, projecting a powerhouse image of an Obama/Biden/Clinton administration.

Obama needs Clinton.

[MaryfromMontcoPA]

George Lakoff, THANK YOU!

I posted this on the Obama blog last night, linking to the Truthout link to this excellent article... I only hope Obama/Plouffe et al. take it to heart!

Keep up the great work. Together, we CAN.

[GoodDay]

It is obvious what the Obama campaign needs. It needs, and quickly too, a high level spokeswoman, a woman who is likeable and articulate. Hillary Clinton is not the person for this role. But the Obama campaign needs a spokeswoman.

[luckyinnc]

Nancy Pelosi isn't doing anything important.

[GoodDay]

Not Nancy Pelosi. The Obama campaign needs a spokeswoman who still has some credibility with the people of the United States.

[Deaninphilly]

LOL