J.OBrien's blog

I've lived two very seperate lives as a marketer of technology and political consultant. I've worked with call centers, pollsters and fundraisers for polling and telemarketing and I've received those 7:30pm phone calls, right as you are getting the kids down. But I always take them to try and figure out who is behind it and why didn't they take me off their list? What juiciness are they testing for?

"So as a supporter of X, would you still vote for him if you knew the name of his gay lover? Ha! Or how about the DC undergrad in the basement of the RNC dialing for dollars. Welcome to the glamorous world of Capitol HIll. You clawed your way out of Bumbletown, now here you are in the big city calling it looking for $50 a hundred times a night. The pollster wants a random sample (we hope) the telemarketer wants anything but random people. All that work, but why no tactic in between that sets the table?

How about calling and asking people what they want from your candidate or your party? You think its your job to tell them 1. what they want to hear. 2. what they know you already stand for, and will not waffle. 3. The other guy is a jackass-commy-lovin-tax-and-spender. All topics people really do not want to listen to is what by time-tested "strategy" all campaigns spew.

Thomas Friedman in today's New York Times asks "Wouldn't it be cool if candidates could say what the real answers are to the problems we face?" We spend so much time getting them not to say what comes to mind, but rather to stay on message. And this is the year of "authenticity". Obama didn't think up a Summit with North Korea intentionally, no more than Bush watch the towers fall, turned and said, "Saddam will pay." (which I think the Iraq War was Scott McClellan's idea- what a jerk! He can fill in for George Stephanopolous on ABC when George gets his hair done.)

Why are we not calling and asking people- especially our people- what do they think? Not a poll or survey- a dialog. If anything in politics, you can count on anyone willing to wax poetic about their position- their idea. You hear them sometimes painfully calling into talk radio and you can imagine the producer freaking out to the talent as the caller thinks they have become a guest on the show. Brian on C-SPAN gets that little twinkle in his eye and barely smiles as they struggle through their point. Or even better at live events, when the Q&A comes up and too many people think its time to give their speech. And you cringe.

But their is gold to be captured in that moment. Engage that desire, if not that person. Find smart people. Don't suffer fools. But don't judge a book by its cover.  Listen to them. Find the story people want to tell you- everyone has one. They always make great 30 seconds spots, but why not a platform? And you make that jump from selling your platform to running on the platform of the very people who will now kill for you because you listened to them and are telling their story.

You can try and get an anonymous opinion. You can try and get $25. Imagine calling and asking for a voter by name and saying I want to know how you feel about this? Imagine if we could do this in our base? And get the best ideas out of our brightest people, we may not even realize we have because no one ever asked them.