aberman's blog

There is an elemental will to power that guides Obama and his supporters.  His fortunes are tied to the self esteem of those who feel that they've been left out in the cold for eight long years, suffering under Bush.  They want to win, dammit, and there is nothing that Barack Obama or John McCain can say or do that will dampen that desire.

Or is there?

Essentially, what does it take for an angry Democrat to vote Republican or at least not vote Democrat?

Take a look at this energy grid, made famous by professional motivator Tony Schwartz:

People are most effective in the upper right "High Positive Energy" quadrant.  People regenerate and contemplate in the lower right "Low Positive Energy" quadrant.  The upper left "High Negative Energy" quadrant represents 'Fight or Flight'.  Thought is impossible in this quadrant, as the temporal lobes actually shut down to allow fast action. The lower left quadrant represents depression.

Democrats have spent years in the lower left quadrant and are sick of it.  Obama promises them a move into the upper right, and right now they are in the upper left, agitated, angry, itching for a victory.

Obama wants to lead them on a path that totally avoids the sedate contemplative quadrant on the lower right.  This is the quadrant where people think and reflect. This is the quadrant where people feel free to change their minds about things.

At the same time, Obama himself has a very calm demeanor as he attempts to relax his political enemies.  Lower Right for conservatives, Upper Right for liberals.

We need to do the reverse.  De-energizing our opponents counts as much as energizing the base. And not by making them depressed, but by giving them the psychological space to contemplate what we have to say. Here are some possibilities:
     1) Guiliani and Thompson talked about Federalism, a fancy word for States Rights.  McCain should put Federalism somewhere in his platform.  Adopting Federalism lets people know that McCain is restrained and respectful of your right to live the life you choose. No gay marriage in Alabama, no overturning of abortion laws in New York.
   2) Explain that McCain has a history of working in foreign policy and is not a gunslinger.  At the same time, he's not going to ignore problems such as Iran but will deal with them in consort with Europe.

In this sense, the removal of the Iraq war from the headlines is a terrific victory for the Republicans, even if the media doesn't cover the positive aspects.  It lowers the agitation level.  Just consider what McCain's numbers would be if there were 500 casualties a month right now.

A lowering of oil prices and relaxing about the economy would help as well.  We can't manufacture that, but we can certainly hope.

The (false in my view) perception of George Bush's presidency as being a failure looms over the candidates and shapes the current election.  This election will be about gasoline prices, housing prices, and Iraq.  Social and Ideological issues will motivate the bases, but there huge middle will care about not having a second failed presidency.  How do the candidates stack up here and what can we do?

Barack Obama has a significant advantage from just looking more competent.  He's the Blackberry-using, sharply dressed, eloquent whiz kid, who was President of Harvard Law Review.  His campaign is actually his showpiece for competence (after all, he has no record to speak of), and it is doing a very good job in that sense.  Nobody currently thinks of him as a screw-up.

So what are our objections to Barack Obama?  Shouldn't we want a competent guy to run our country?  If not, why not?  And can we express that to others?

The answer is that we don't like Barack Obama because he will screw up the country.  No, he wouldn't have gone into Iraq, but he wouldn't have gone into Afghanistan, either.  We'd still have been negotiating with Mullah Omar over extraditing Bin Laden and been in our 7th year of economic sanctions against the Taliban.  As for the future,  Obama only looks at the demand side of oil, while the common sense approach is to look at demand and supply (i.e., conserve AND drill).  High taxes will stifle economic growth just when it is most needed and absolutely bury housing prices.

Furthermore, it's not as if Barack Obama has a history of success to build on.  He achieved nothing in Washington and nothing in Illinois.  Even as President of Harvard Law Review he achieved nothing. Compare that to McCain's real record.

It may be that the best campaign slogan for McCain is an old one:  Where's the Beef?
 

Estimated Cost of Iraq War: $752 billion, according to Democratic-controlled Congressional Budget Office.

Estimated value of oil in ANWR, at $135 per barrel: up to $1.5 trillion.

Estimated value of offshore oil, at $135 per barrel:  up to $11 trillion.

That's a lot of value that Obama and the Democratic Congress want Americans to ignore.

Using standard principles of persuasion and negotiation, I've come up with a few phrases that present the conservative case on a variety of issues.  They all have the following in common:

1) Social Proof:  Others believe this, you should too.

2) Asking a question:  Let the person you're talking to figure out the answer and thus 'own' it.

3) Implicitly praising the person you're talking to as reasonable.

4) Gently pointing out unreasonableness of the other side.

Anyway, here they are:

The Courts:  We Americans are basically reasonable and fair.  How about picking judges who respect us?

Oil Prices: What happens to the price of oil when we have more oil? If China can drill off our coast, why can't we?

Gay Marriage:  How do we let a radical fringe claim that all civilizations throughout all of human history, as well as every historical figure you ever looked up to, were not only wrong, but bigoted?

Iraq:  Now that we're finally doing a good job with real results, why stop?

Meeting with Enemy Leaders:  Given that we already have multiple low-level meetings continuously with all of these countries, why reward poor behavior with a high level ceremonial meeting?

Taxes:  Who can spend your money better: you, or Congress?

Cutting Spending: Who can spend your money better:  you, or Congress?

Two guys at work were taking a break in front of a television watching a McCain Town Hall in New Jersey.  One was arguing that taxing the rich is crazy because the rich are the engine of productivity in our society.  The other argued that, as the rich benefit from society, they need to support it by paying more taxes.

The entrepeneurial one ripe for McCain's message was the African American.  This should, at some level, surprise nobody, but I think we cannot emphasize the point enough-- McCain should continue to run a campaign that focuses on issues, avoids the identity politics of the Democrats, and excludes nobody.

Oh, and bonus points to McCain for going to a Town Hall in New Jersey.

And CNN ran a lovely message underneath along the lines of "McCain says he regrets that Obama refused his invitation to joint Town Hall meetings."

And announce it early.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostpowerfulwomen/2007/

Carly Fiorina is also a possibility, even though she's not on the list. She is the Hillary Clinton of business, having been kicked out  of HP for doing a huge deal that turned out to be incredibly successful.

I was honored to have my earlier blog post mentioned by John Henke so I want to build on it a bit, given that there was substantial diasgreement in the comments:

It is my personal view that people have a heightened sensitivity to what they believe are the failings of the current president.  That which they are sick of, they don't want any more of. Can you imagine how much worse either of the major candidates would have done in 2000 if even a minimally credible mistress came forth? This suggests lines of attack.  One doesn't have to say "Obama is just like George Bush because George Bush did whatever the Republican Congress wanted and Obama will do whatever the Democratic Congress wants;"  one simply has to say "Obama will give Nancy Pelosi whatever she asks for."

Look at the following words and phrases that---fairly or unfairly---are used to describe Bush and ask whether Obama or McCain can better be described with the same terms:

• Wastes taxpayer dollars
• More interested in helping his friends than helping you
• Lack of experience heading into the White House
• Ideological

Listen to Obama's speeches carefully. He's learned well from spending 20 years listening to Jeremiah Wright. He speaks with the cadences of the made-for-tv ministries, except with the emotion and rhetoric toned down 80 percent.  Couldn't 'Yes We Can' come straight from Joel Osteen?  Yet he is a politician-- a secular job.  Religious fervor without Religion becomes a nebulous spirituality, which is why he is so attractive to the unaffiliated.

How do you defeat a minister? Especially one who asks nothing of his flock except to annoint him?