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.
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Yeah, keep spouting that drilling nonsense, ten years from drilling to pump. WRONG! The amount that is out there is so insignificant, WRONG! This can easily be debunked, and will be, by the repubs and oil company experts, plus the public doesn't want to listen to that defeatist attitude, they want a plan that reduces oil prices...n
The oil companies have thousands of drilling permits they are not using. Let 'em drill there before they come back to us for our best fishing grounds and scenic areas. They want ANWR out of spite, not because it's the only place left to get oil. Same with offshore drilling in places like California and Florida, where the people prefer clean beaches.
I agree absolutely with Lakoff.
Obama needs to be himself again. We can only be the best when we are ourselves. Seems like he is now trying to be somebody else, hence his speeches lack the conviction and motivation that ran though out his campaign.
He needs to be the great communicator around the change we so desperately need once again, since I know that McPalin is no match to that Obama!
brilliant piece. I can only hope to god that the Democrat strategists are reading it, and making notes. www.englan
Obama jumped the shark in two major ways:
1. He should have attacked McCain, relentlessly (with the truth), the MOMENT HE GOT THE NOMINATION! Playing defense made him look weak, like most Democrats do (Dems in Congress caving in to all/most of what Bush wants, eh Pelosi, Reid & Hoyer?)
2. Hillary Clinton as VP to sew up the deal, get her substantial women's vote, and be the true maverick that he is. Realpolitics, not hurt feelings about the bruising he took from her during the primaries, should have been his guide. He left an opening for phoney maverick McCain to appear mavericky by choosing Palin, even though she out-Bushes Bush.
The hardening of independent
Hillary Clinton would not improve the ticket at all. It's about image and Hillary has very high negatives.
Obama is on the attack. At least this tells the truth, unlike the sex ad put up by McCain against him:
The newest ad showcasing their hard line includes unflattering footage of McCain at a hearing in the early '80s, wearing giant glasses and an out-of-style suit, interspersed with shots of a disco ball, a clunky phone, an outdated computer and a Rubik's Cube.
"1982, John McCain goes to Washington," an announcer says over chirpy elevator music. "Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn't.
"He admits he still doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an e-mail, still doesn't understand the economy, and favors two hundred billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class," it says. It shows video of McCain getting out of a golf cart with former President George H.W. Bush and closes with a photo of him standing with the current President Bush at the White House. "After one president who was out of touch, we just can't afford more of the same."
Obama spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said the campaign was not making an issue of the 72-year-old McCain's age, but the time he's spent in Washington.
http://abc
Okay does anyone know where the ad is?
I've not been able to find it on Obama's website and it wasn't emailed to supporters. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound?
The Obama campaign has to do better than this. It should've been in supporters inboxes first thing this morning.
It's on this site.
I like the ad, but mocking McSame's computer illiteracy will not win over the conservative populists Lakoff is talking about in this article.
Very true...tha
Obama's campaign lost focus after the primary victory when it started incorporating into their team individuals from other losing campaigns. They seem to have forgotten--those folks LOST. Why accept their advice and tactics over your own?
Lakoff is right. Obama needs to be Obama. He is the man of the overarching vision, communicated with the resonant voice. He's allowed all of the backseat drivers to make him "small" and he's not good at being small. Let surrogates fill in the policy details.
Obama must generate several more moments like his convention acceptance speech where America was reminded why they were first attracted to him. He needs more "More Perfect Union" speeches that crystallize his worldview so eloquently that it soars above the mire of politics. Make them issue focused, but the details should be used in service to communicating the vision. He needs to continuously reinforce America's emotional connection to him.
Next, Obama should publicly acknowledge that the Republicans will always be able to out-lie and out-spin him. It's who they are. The way to beat it is to recreate Reagan's "There they go again" moment. To constantly respond to each attempt to trivialize this big election by saying "ENOUGH." Make that the meme.
Last, Obama is disciplined and he shouldn't abandon his. He rose from obscurity to the threshold of ultimate power. Who are all of these naysayers to tell him that he doesn't know what he's doing?
Should be possible to run an inspirational campaign that also deals with the issues. The key to doing this is to quickly summarize key policies and tie them into the values Obama espouses. Policy can also be devastating to McCain's narrative - why has the war hero frequently voted against veteran's benefits?
Because he married money and doesn't personally need the aid himself! Further evidence how out of the loop John McCain and the republican party is. They don't have a clue...
Its usual Repbublican attitiude, ''Let them eat cake"- as if these folks are better than anyone else or more entitled.
Puh-lease!!
Obama. Hire Lakoff. Now.
The policy wonk speeches work for people like me- I was very captivated by his speech on education, as I have a child in a 10th grade honors class where they are using an 8th grade textbook. Unfortunately, I was going to vote for him anyway. I look at my neighbors and wonder how this impacts them, and I see that you are right, George Lakoff.
O's inspirational speeches have a greater impact on my Rep neighbors here in Appalachia. He does best when he uses the frames that echo the traditional Christian belief that it it our mission in life to create a better world.
People under 30 here almost exclusively support O, and most of their parents, if not college educated, have been Reps for generations. They can see things falling apart and are torn between the voices of their kids and the rut of their own past. When O gives them frames from their own values it is very persuasive.
Great post and exactly right.
Turn off the pundits Obama!
You're exactly right. The revival style of inspirational oratory is an awesome weapon against the GOP who like such themes and imagery. And it excites the Dems...
Obama has promised that starting September 12th, he would be on the attack mode.
Let's see what's up his sleeve later today. Hope he does what we've always expected.
The minute he does, I'll bet you guys will then be saying "He's so angry! Do we REALLY want an Angry Black Man in office??" Please you guys, stop being so stupid. The McCain camp is baiting Obama and you guys are taking the bait.
Obama must remember the LCD theory. Pandering to the lowest common denominator is how to win an election. The electorate couldn't care less about being informed; they prefer to be entertained! Soundbytes over statistics. Short sentences. Easy on the imagery; keep it simple.
And remember America roots for the underd.og. Enter the pi.tbull.
"Keep it simple."
That about sums it up.
McCain and Palin are terrible candidates for the times we face, and we should be pointing this out to those we influence in our daily lives every single chance we get.
The weak link in this campaign may not be Obama, but the American people who simply wish to believe things are the way, the republicans frames it. In fact, there may be something naturally hardwired into the culture of white folks who readily buy into the emotional appeal of the republicans as they choose to continuously vote away their self-interests. The assumption that Lakoff offers is that a hard charging Obama can reverse this, and make them see the light. I disagree.
The American left has reached its point of awakening, but the right refuses to join; and until they consciously face that the republican policies aren't working and hold them accountable and responsible, and stop buying into the 'liberals' are destroying the country, Obama nor any other Democrat will be heard over the echoes of this cultural gulf.
Absolutely. Stress the biggest weakness in our economy. Trade with other nations and the collapsing dollar with a clear plan.
http://myr
and quit attacking Palin, it isn't getting old, it is old. Obama sounds like a jealous school boy when he speaks about Palin. He is running against McCain, but seems more like a Vice Presidential candidate when he gets one on one with Palin.
Obama has not attacked Palin. as a matter of fact if you remember, he said from the beginning that Palin's family is off limits. Give the man some credit, he has not even attacked McCain. John McCain is the one who sounds like a wounded lover, he kept blaming Obama for not coming out on his town meetings with him. He uses that as his excuse for the character assassinations. Man really knows how to hold a grudge.
Confirmation of Mr Lakoff's wisdom:
http://www
Wakey, wakey Obama-campaign team.
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