Note to Obama Campaign: "Only the 'Paranoid' Survive"

Hungarian immigrant and former Intel CEO Andrew Grove was perched atop the "wintel" world when he warned that one must be constantly paranoid to survive. Always, always be obsessed about your competitors' plans and potential. Always, always be driven nearly mad by the possibility of a disruptive technology that can lay waste to everything you have done.

One is only as good as the latest product, or position, or strategy.

Yes, Messrs. Plouffe and Axelrod pulled off one of the truly great upsets in US political history. It is not that Hillary lost by a sliver. Much has been written about why she lost, and, in a close loss, virtually every explanation is correct -- but for this one decision/gaffe/event/strategy, she would have won. Thus, everyone is correct.

At the same time, everyone is wrong. It should not even have been close. Her campaign had three parts: the aura of inevitability, a string of losses, and then a near comeback. How and why that happened is a case study in American politics, but the subject of a future article. Right now, all that matters is the lessons that can be drawn upon that will help the Obama-Biden ticket win the general election.

Now we are seeing national polls closing, Obama running behind the Democratic Party in general, and what do we hear from our leaders: "don't worry, the polls do not include many first time voters".

True. But, it violates Andy Grove's admonition. Too much is at stake to allow even such talk to go unaddressed. 'Paranoia' as Grove describes it is a few orders of magnitude above "we take nothing for granted; we know we have to work hard" that all organizations will espouse.

First, the polls' narrowing show the populations addressed by the polls, even if not totally representative of the voting population, have shifted. That does not mean Barack will lose, but it does mean that something may not be going right.

Second, the narrative the Republicans are telling about Barack has just begun. Since the Obama campaign is telling no narrative at all about McCain, other than in every speech honoring his service, the polls will continue to deteriorate. Moreover, the attacks thusfar have been relatively mild. As the Obama campaign continues to allow McCain to tell his own narrative about himself, the Republicans will escalate the viciousness of their attacks -- after all, with no response except denials or attacks against attacking at all, McCain pays no price.

Third, polls tell us that 27% of Hillary's supporters are still undecided. Work that percentage of a percentage into the polls, and Barack would be comfortably ahead even among the populations being polled. If that number does not plummet after the convention, a new strategy needs to be considered.

Fourth, while a large cadre of Barack's supporters, myself included, may feel even more juiced to climb the higher mountain created by falling polls, there is a much larger number who could easily get discouraged by the Rovian-McCain tactics. If that happens, as would be likely, then the compensatory votes that are not being counted in the polls will shrink.

Fifth, the primaries demonstrated the power of the narrative the other side tells about you. Despite her overwhelming advantages as a frontrunner, Hillary was losing because Barack had a positive narrative about himself and she had no real narrative at all about herself, believing inevitability was enough; she started winning ONLY when she began telling her narrative about Barack AND when Barack told no narrative about Hillary. That is, there is something akin to 'scientific' evidence that Obama's polls will continue to deteriorate without a change of course, and thus the gap required to be made up by the unpolled will grow.

Sixth, the general election differs from the primaries in many ways, one is that the winner becomes President and gets enveloped with the prestige of the office, thereby removing the stains of negative, even lying, campaigns. We have already seen the McCain camp deal in lies and scurrilous attacks. I do not suggest that Obama stoop so low, but that does not mean he cannot tell the truth about McCain that is different from what McCain invents about himself.

In the primaries the winner only becomes the candidate, and thus has to be concerned about how his conduct of the primaries will impact the supporters of the other candidates. Paradoxically, Barack handled that very well in the primaries, and even the ardent Hillary supporters acknowledge that there was very little 'blame' that Barack has for however they believe Hillary was mistreated. Certainly, he was far more respectful of her than she was of him. Yet, a victory-or-landslide denying percentage of Hillary's supporters remain opposed or undecided.

Whatever the strategy for the primaries, however, the general election requires a paradigm shift. As Drew Westen has pointed out, Barack will not win without telling a powerful narrative about himself AND his own narrative about McCain. He cannot allow McCain's narrative about himself to stand.

Moreover, Plouffe and Axelrod must fire all the conventional Democratic strategists so long as they are polling, developing a message based on the polls, and then spending tons of money on that message. Polls cannot tell you what people REALLY base their emotional decisions on because people themselves rarely are so in touch with their inner psyches to know, and it is those emotional decisions that determine peoples' votes.

There is a laughable event surrounding every modern election, exit-polling. It is very accurate in predicting the actual vote (the question being, for whom did you vote?), and purports to be accurate as to why ("I preferred my candidate's healthcare plan", or "he will do better on the economy"). Voters are never asked WHAT their candidate's healthcare plan is, or what they will do about the economy, and, if they were asked, 99% could not provide anything close to an accurate description. If they were then asked what the opponent's proposals were, and why his candidate's was better, that would stump them completely.

That, of course, does not stop the media from confidently "explaining" the outcome. What they miss is that voters (all of us, this is not a matter of knowledge or intelligence) invest in the person they trust to be on their side the greater likelihood of doing the right thing for them. Thus, they voted for a candidate because of his economic strategy or healthcare proposal not because they really know the differences, but because they trust that person more to have the healthcare program or economic strategy that is better for them.

Perhaps you think this is splitting hairs. It is not. The key is developing that connection with the voter that makes them believe you will have the better policies for them, and that you can deliver. That is, they will trust you to have the better policies.

It seems counterintuitive, does it not, that a voter would choose McCain despite the disastrous Bush administration that he supported 95% of the time, but it is ALREADY HAPPENING. It is not theoretical. McCain is sitting 15% above George Bush.

So, let us not be lulled into a false sense of security by the illogic, and by believing that once people "know the truth" they will switch. They already "know the truth", and it does not matter because they still trust McCain.

So, first, they need to know the truth about McCain. Before those 15% are going to link McCain closely enough to Bush so that their illogic disappears, and before the 27% of Hillary Undecideds (not to mention the 21% who say they will vote for McCain) will be weaned away to Barack, the Obama campaign has to convey that McCain is not what he's cracked up to be (i.e., not a maverick), that he is in this race not for the voters but only for his own personal ambition (as he wrote in his book, "Worth Fighting For", and see "McCain ['I Run for Personal Ambition'] Provides Obama Key Narrative for Victory: Will He Use It?, 8/22/08"), and that he is a radical rightwinger--a card-carrying NeoCon on foreign policy who will involve their children in additional wars, and member of the hard right on women's rights including abortion -- and, furthermore, that he understands little about the plight of the average person.

Unless and until those messages sink in, those 'illogical' supporters will assume McCain will do the right thing by them. And the only way for that message to sink in is to repeat it over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over again.

Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) provided help in crafting such messages when he said that McCain is "not a maverick, he is a sidekick" to George Bush. That resonates with people. Hillary's "twins in the twin cities" was another clever formulation.

But, the point is that a consistent and repetitive narrative about the real John McCain is critical to breaking through and turning this into a victory and then even a landslide.

Imbibing Grove's 'paranoia' is good for our electoral health.

For more Huffington Post coverage from the Democratic National Convention, visit our Politics @ the DNC page, our Democratic Convention Big News Page, and our HuffPost bloggers' Twitter feed, live from Denver.

Comments

[magen]

Exactly!!!!!!!!!!

How many times do we have to go through the same BS of playing nice with criminals who use EVERY tactic (illegal, immoral or not) against us and eventually losing to cheaters???????????????

Fight!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Be relentless!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Call them on their lies deceit, and elitism!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Repeat, repeat, repeat, in the media.

TELLING THE TRUTH ISN'T BEING NEGATIVE-LYING IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Manx]

The McCain campaign has kept Obama on the defensive for months. I keep waiting for the Obama campaign to turn it around but it never happens. Unbelievable. Bush is the worst president in U.S. history, enabled by McCain, so it should be easy to keep McCain on the defensive. I've been an enthusiastic supporter of Obama but I have a sinking feeling that it's the Kerry campaign all over again.

[santamonica39]

I would give anything for them to stop saying "McCain served his country honorably" before any mention of him. Stop it!! McCain should be torn apart at every opportunity, not praised! What the hell is wrong with them? He is a lying, cheating, corrupt politician and should be taken apart by Obama. He is not FIT TO BE PRESIDENT, and they need to start saying that NOW

[petekwando]

Mr. Abrams, you have said what I have been trying to say for weeks, perfectly and eloquently. To those who say Obama's campaign has been attacking, I say this: saying something once does not a narrative make! A successful political narrative requires discipline and repetition, discipline and repetition, discipline and repetition. The "how many houses charge" was good. It should be repeated by every surrogate, at every campaign stop, in every media outlet. It should be used to interrupt the GOP talking heads at every opportunity. Ditto for the brilliant lines we have heard at this convention: the "twins" line Hillary delivered, the "that's not a maverick, it's a sidekick" given to us by Senator Casey, and so on. Repeat, repeat, repeat! Study the attacks of the right-wing pundits and be ready with a counter immediately. Short, punchy, ten words or less, not angry but confident, conversational, regular joe.

This is the truth of American politics: the electorate votes with their hearts, not their heads. Our opponents will do everything, use every underhanded tactic, to defeat us. Honor? Fair play? Forget it, they don't give a damn about any of it. We must play the game as they play it, with a smile on our faces, and a knife held ready behind our backs.

[ngannon]

I really hope that the Obama campaign reads this. No more Mr Nice Guy! Just because McCain was a POW 40 years ago does not make him an intelligent choice for President - in fact- anything but! Do we know anything about his psychological condition or history after his return?
It seems to me that McCain thinks that a military response is the answer to every situation- and his POW status the response to every criticism. His anger seems inappropriate and out of control. Whatever his psychological condition is, I, for one, would be incredibly hesitant to have him in any position where he could initiate any conflict with Russia, Iran or any other country. He reminds me too much of a Khrushchev with more expensive shoes.

[Jaid]

It is unfathomable to me why anyone would hail Hillary Clinton as some kind of hero. It was she who used unprecedented accusations to muddy and bloody up Barack Obama so that he would be deemed unelectable. Since Iowa and realizing Obama was kicking her butt, it was she and Bill who have “coded” their way through poor Appalachia regions and the south to taint his candidacy. Now that they have succeeded, she wants to appear magnanimous in releasing her delegates to vote for him. What a crock of s**t! Hillary and Bill Clinton sent further code last evening. Well, know this—if Hillary Clinton or her progeny (Chelsea) try to run again for even dog catcher, I will go to the ends of the earth to work for her defeat. She splintered the party with her vitriol and now we are to applaud her for doing so? You people must be on drugs. It has always been about Hillary not the party. It is her responsibility for fixing this riff because she and her minions were the architects of this debacle. In the words of Dennis Kucinich “wake up America! Now she want to appear pristine and clean of responsibility for the collateral damage done to Obama or the party when nothing could be further from the truth. Its despicable! It’s a rich day when the Democratic elite (Hill, Bill, Carville, Begala, Davis and their ilk) continue to work so hard to defeat one of their own. What frauds!

[ashenthorn]

One of the great myths of the campaign is the PUMA myth. The myth is that the HRC supporters that are not supporting Obama (the 27% you're talking about) are doing so because they are some crazed love cult of women Hillary supporters who've gone temporarly mad and and are voting against their issue interests and if only Hillary can convince them with a speech to come to their senses and think about the issues, everything will be fine, To the contrary, these folks - the 27% - are both men and women (probably more men), white blue collar voters, and they were Hillary primary supporters not because they are partisan when it comes to Hillary's issues, but because they were PERSUADED by her negative primary campaign that Obama is a weakling and an empty rhetoritician, who is not qualified to be president. Now remove Hillary from the menu of choices and add John McCain whose carefully constructed public persona of the last 20 years presents him as a strong, straight talking, emminently experienced and qualified - a Republican, but also a historical opponent of Bush (who these folks detest as corrupt and incompetent) and touted by the press (and also some democrats) for years as an anti-republican. That's a recipe for disaster.

[djarvis]

Mr. Abrams, you made some good points in your post, but I didn't agree with part of it.

"Since the Obama campaign is telling no narrative at all about McCain..."

Obama HAS pointed out the McCain will follow the same policies as Bush. I have heard it many times in his speeches and ads. I do think that maybe he needs to do a little more of it and come up with some good catchphrases that are easy to remember. It would also be good if he would expand on the narrative about McCain not remembering that he owns seven houses.

[PaulAbrams]

You have a point but it is not a full narrative, and McCain will paint his maverick posture to counter it. I think if they focus on McCain's own statement about running only for personal ambition, and build a narrative off of that, it will be a more comprehensive narrative that explains why he is supporting Bush--he needed his backers in the primary, again--personal ambition, nothing more.
Personal ambition does not make people trust he will even care about their needs when the chips are down.

[Colmore]

Since John "I was a POW" McCain expects everyone to genuflect to him because he was the lone POW in the Viet Nam war (so he thinks) why are his medical and military records sealed at his request??? There has to be something in them that he does not want revealed. Why can't ANYONE gain access to them, or at the very least ask him why he insisted they be sealed? It would not come as a shock to find out that he is not the "hero" he claims to be. His first family could vouch for THAT. I am tired of the dems. all "honoring him for his service" . Time for the truth to be told, ALL of it.

[JailNeoconVicts]

From what I've seen, Obama and his team still believe in the intelligence of the American people--who historically have regarded being intelligent as "elitist."

I hope not, but I think we've already lost this election.

[Erdgeist]

In the computer world McCain is attempting to use FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt). Apple countered FUD by the contrastive ad showing PC Guy and Mac Guy. In a very short period of time the viewer gets to see what is wrong with a PC and why Apple is better (and it truly is).

In Kathleen Jamieson's book, *Everything You Think You Know about Politics — and Why You're Wrong*, she notes: “Voters prefer contrast. Contrast mobilizes. In sum, contrast advertising is a win-win form of communication. Voters, candidates, and the process are aided by its use.”

[SaintZak]

Here's the thing. When John McCain ran that first ad accusing Obama of ignoring the wounded troops in Germany the obama camp should have kicked McCain in the teeth so hard he'd still be sitting on the pavement dazed and confused. I'm not suggesting the Democrats and Obama mimic the Republicans' and McCain's sleazy tactics, but any and every smear, lie and attack should be met with a brutal hit. No playing around, slam them as hard as possible. That's the only way they will win this election,and my fear is they don't have the stomach for it.

[DontEvenThinkIt]

Just as John Kerry should have done after the swift boat attacks on his service, he should have said, "what, you are going to compare and disparage my service in the Viet Nam War to Bush's non presence in the 'national guard'? He never went, period, because he didn't want to go, Bush avoided it all together"

Problem with these "new kind of politician" is they claim to be positive, above a little public spatting, and they have to stick to that to prove their word, but in the end it just makes them look naive and weak.

[Soothsayer08]

You are correct. always praising McCain is making people go towards McCain. It's logical if you are always pumping someone else up before you try to tear them down people are only listening to the praise. That's why not defining John McCain is wrong. He and the Repubs have defined Obama and all of his campaign's time is spent on defense. Everyone is aware of McCain's military service, the Obama campaign needs to learn to attack and leave the praise out.

[suigeneris]

I agree with this article entirely.

But I wonder if the Obama campaign is aware of it?

Also, I wonder if their strategy allows them to take the steps you recommend. After all, Obama is running on a platform of positivity, hope, and change -- it's going to be hard to pivot off those to go negative on McCain, however essential that is. Perhaps Biden, Clinton, Dean, et al can do the dirty work...

[russpix]

It's not that the campaign isn't saying the right things; it's that the voting public is not being told what's said. Last night, Montana Governor Schweitzer railed against Bush/McCain and McCain's policies to thunderous applause. But you wouldn't know it if you were watching one of the cable networks. While Schweitzer drubbed the GOP candidate, MSNBC's "coverage" amounted to talking heads analyzing the campaign as not talking about McCain or his similarity to Bush (with the tiny, silent figure of Schweitzer somewhat visible but silent in the background). Get the word out; watch the convention on CSPAN or PBS.

[PaulAbrams]

Even if they showed Schweitzer for his full speech, it would not matter very much. The point I was making is NOT that the campaign needs to attack McCain, but that it has to develop its narrative about who McCain is, and that it must be repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated.
Schweitzer by the way is great. I'm glad you got to see him. I've seen him several times since he lives next door (Montana to WA State), and he is a unique fellow. BTW, he also speaks fluent arabic!!