Message Planning 2.0: Using High School Debate Strategies for Political Campaigns

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: Future campaigns can no longer afford to just find the right phrases. We have to find the right arguments and the right way to communicate them.

Lately, a lot of the discussion has rightfully centered on policy. Earlier, Jon Henke asked us to consider what policies we should advocate and support. I've spent some time outlining a theme for a new set of items we can go forward with: the Agenda of Equal Opportunity. Although I would much rather talk about substance than rhetoric, I wanted to take a break from the policy discussion and discuss campaign messaging.

Max Borders has a quite comprehensive four part series on the "Art of Persuasion," analyzing the importance of merging rational policy discussion with critical ideas in communication: emotional wedges, metaphors & models, typology and imagery. What also caught my attention was a December 15 Roll Call op-ed from pollster David Winston, responding to fellow pollster Stuart Rothenberg, rejecting attack-based campaigns:

The truth is, voters don’t want to hear why the other guy is bad. They want to know why you are a better choice. People want hear how candidates will govern, how they will solve problems and what they really stand for.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) put it this way: “Wal-Mart doesn’t get ahead by attacking Sears but by offering better value.” In the past two elections, Republicans failed to win over voters because they failed to tell them how they would address their concerns.

The GOP has spent the past 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to drive up Democrats’ negatives. Sometimes they succeeded, but rather than solidifying the GOP’s majority coalition, over time, this self-defeating strategy made it permanently vulnerable. Republicans found themselves with razor-thin victories, no mandate to govern and growing unfavorable ratings.

Don't get me wrong. There is still value in opposition research and compare-contrast messaging. But Winston is right in that a campaign's opposition, or attacks on an opposition, can't be the foundation of a campaign's message. In fact, an attack-based campaign is really a campaign that's playing defense instead of offense. This seems counter-intuitive, but the reality is that campaigns founded on attacking their opponents means that they either have nearly nothing substantive to say about their guy, or their opponent's message is better at resonating with voters. Or both.

The extension of Winston's point is this: campaigns (and candidates) can tend to get too intellectual or quite anti-intellectual, and the GOP's problem in the past few cycles has been the latter. Campaigns need to formulate and execute a messaging strategy that's not ten steps below the voter nor ten steps ahead of the voter. Rather, campaigns need to outline a substantive agenda, and find a way to communicate that agenda that's only one step above the voter.

In an earlier post, I briefly went over some "Rules of Debate," describing my time as volunteer debate coach at a local high school in Alaska. (I debated in high school and college as well. Yes, I'm a nerd.) I taught my students that in any debate of any format, great substance always has to come before great style. Great style should never make bad substance good, but it can greatly enhance good substance. Let's go over some pointers that I've previously given to my debate students and see how they can apply to campaign messaging. (Continue reading below the fold.)

Disclaimer: I don't intend on this post being some sort of cookie-cutter strategy. I know that messaging depends on the audience and that all politics is truly local. This is why voter indentification, voter persuasion and GOTV efforts need to be integrated now more than ever.

BACK TO THE BASICS: THE RULES OF DEBATE

Rule #1: Always be on offense; never be on defense. Even better: get your opponent to be on the defensive. My students often want to defend their own points during a debate round before they attack their opponents'. This is a failed strategy, but not for the reason you think. Sure, it's important to contrast yourself with your opponent. But debates are not won over debating the answer to one question; they're won over debating the question itself. Instead of accepting your opponent's assumptions and perspective of the world, challenge them; never accept your opponent's framework of the debate.

This rule is vitally important for campaigns, and is also the reason why I've been promoting the use of the Agenda of Equal Opportunity. It should no longer be acceptable for Republican candidates to accept the liberal framework that progressive outcomes should be the end, and any means to get there is justified. We have to argue that it's equal opportunity that government can provide so that individuals can be empowered to determine their own outcomes.

Rule #2: Assume that your "judges" have no higher than a 5th grade education. Debaters should neither be too intellectual or a complete ten-word message robot. High school debaters have to put the debate in terms that any judge can understand. The best way to formulate an argument is to follow the goal-policy-principle model. Begin with a simple goal that everybody can understand, explain the policy in as much detail as you want, and emphasize the principle and tell how it can achieve a certain outcome.

How can this work in politics? Let's pretend I'm a candidate for the state legislature concerned about local schools. Here the message: "(Goal) I believe we can have the best schools in America. (Policy) We should recognize that different students learn differently and provide more options for parents. We should integrate more technology into the classroom. We should reward good teachers and good teaching habits while punishing bad teachers and bad teaching habits. (Principle) Money can't buy us better schools. But providing opportunity and competition can." The audience doesn't necessarily listen to the policy. But they do pay attention to the beginning and the end: the goal and the principle. Crafting these messages based on a detailed policy agenda can help voters understand the core beliefs, values and goals of candidates.

Rule #3: Write the "ballot" for your "judge" through a controlled offense.

As I wrote in a previous post, a controlled offense is something that describes a great basketball team. For NBA fans out there that will understand me, the Phoenix Suns and Golden State Warriors like to run up and down the court a lot because it puts the opposing defense on their toes all the time, making them tired. But that can lead to an uncontrolled offense that is prone to turnovers and bad shooting streaks. On the other hand, the LA Lakers, with Phil Jackson running their famous Triangle Offense, use a controlled formula that wins them games consistently. Good debaters have a set of tactics, short term maneuvers that can give them an advantage at any time during the debate. Great debaters have a comprehensive strategy, a plan for winning the debate and being prepared for every attack, every response, etc.

In political campaigns, convincing voters of your framework of the world (Rule #1) and coming up with agenda items and messages tethered to each item (Rule #2) means coming up with a message strategy (a combination of a message calendar as well as set of responses to everything that can come up during the campaign) that can lead to a strong closing argument for undecideds in that final month, week, or 72 hours. It's not impossible to merge the strategy of message control and discipline with the strategy of nuancing the message to different audiences and changing times during the length of the campaign.

COMPREHENSIVE AND COMPREHENSIBLE ARGUMENTATION

So it's not enough to try to come up with messages that can appeal to the average voter. Those arguments need to be put into the right setting and the right perspective.

Framework #1: Temporal Argumentation

It's usually important to explain how a policy will impact a voter now and tomorrow: the short term. But part of my Agenda of Equal Opportunity proposal deals with policies that will also have long term impacts. Many debaters, and campaigns, try to frame different issues in either the short term or long term. Rather, both have to be done. For a debater, putting things in a temporal perspective allows you to separate argumentation in a way that makes your contentions completely independent of each other, making your opponent do more work. For the political campaign, explaining how one's policies can be beneficial for the voter's generation as well as his/her children's generation makes that message all the more powerful.

Framework #2: Stakeholder Argumentation

For debaters, who does the issue affect? Who affects the subject/object of the issue? Stakeholders give the judge a sense of cause and effect within the subject matter at hand. This point seems intuitive for campaigns, but it's a little more complex. When it comes to broad based reform packages involving things like education and health care, it's very important to note how each socioeconomic sector of society is affected by the status quo and how changing the status quo matters to each sector. Ideally, coming up with "equal opportunity" agenda items can appeal to different classes, races, and geographies without spurring class warfare, racial tension and geographical differentiation. But with something like education reform, it's important to note how students vs. teachers. vs. administators vs. parents are affected. Even within the student grouping, how are gifted children affected vs. children with special needs? This is especially important for candidates in diverse districts to make sure that agenda items and messages can be molded (but not carbon copied) in different neighborhoods of that district.

Framework #3: Cost-Benefit and Risk-Reward Analysis

This is something almost no candidate is really good at. Candidates propose the benefits and rewards of a policy without truthfully going over the costs and risks. Candidates also attack their opponents based on exaggerated costs and risks without giving any analysis to the benefits and rewards. For debaters, the fact is that both sides of any debate have valid arguments, and the only way to measure the “correctness” of a side is to look at the costs and benefits of taking (or not taking) certain action. This is a great way to concede that your opponent has valid arguments, but that the risk of not taking your side is much greater than any reward you gain from you opponent’s side (or vice versa). Although we can't assume that voters have higher than a 5th grade education, the fact is that voters do understand that there are risks and rewards to every decision. Honestly laying out costs and benefits to any plan (yours or your opponent's) can give a campaign the higher moral ground within the policy debate, giving the voter a certain amount of respect for their intelligence.

CLOSING THE DEAL: COMBINING THE LOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL APPEAL

Here are a few other communcation tidbits that have worked for past campaigns and could work for future campaigns:

• Ask your opponent tough questions. In high school debate, opportunities for cross-examination are available during a debate round. Unfortunately, they aren't available in a political campaign. Don't attack from the outset. And don't let negative campaigning be the basis of any candidate's campaign. But an effective way to contrast one candidate with another is for that candidate to ask questions. "Why do you believe that outcomes are more important than opportunity? Why do you believe government can provide better health care than the market? Why don't you support an all-of-the-above energy strategy? Why do you believe more money will solve the problem you're trying to fix?"
• Use analogies, stories, and examples to back up your arguments, not as foundations for arguments. Ultimately, "Joe the Plumber" can't be the foundation of a campaign's message. The message has to go beyond the question "Joe the Plumber" asked, and Obama's answer. As Max Borders explains, "Models are able to pick out specifically functional correspondences between the literal (source) domain and the figurative domain." John McCain was very good at telling stories during the Rick Warren forum, and although it might not have helped enough in the end, it would've been nice to see more of those stories tethered to principles in order to have a simple conversation with voters instead of talking over voters' heads.
• Be honest with the voters. This is where a messaging opportunity can come in with the Agenda of Equal Opportunity. "We can't promise you a job, quality health care, a good education, etc. Government shouldn't be in the job of making promises. The only promise government should keep is to fight for freedom, accountability, and the rule of law." I truly believe that most voters would rather be empowered than given a government handout, and if Republican candidates would start being honest (rhetorically and intellectually) about our principles, we would be in better shape.

WHY MESSAGE PLANNING (AND THESE HIGH SCHOOL DEBATE POINTERS) ARE IMPORTANT TO FUTURE CAMPAIGNS

With the earlier disclaimer in mind, and with the full knowledge that campaigns are very dynamic and must adapt to changing situations and ephemera that is thrown at them in each news cycle, planning an policy agenda and a long-term communications strategy is more important than ever for campaigns in future cycles. Why?

• Voters are tired of attack-based campaigns. And while negative campaigning might work at the margin, the fact is that there can be a more nuanced way of comparing and contrasting candidates. Contrasting agendas, world views, and principles will give much more respect to the voter than running along with what status quo GOP campaigns have been doing.
• In that light, voters do want their intelligence respected. Yes, this seems like a contradiction to Debate Rule #2: don't assume that anybody has higher than a 5th grade education. But, by using temporal and stakeholder frameworks, and by using well-thought out questions, you are indirectly asking voters to think just a little bit, making them repsect the candidate.
• Grounding a campaign with a solid agenda and a solid message off of that agenda is necessary for advanced netroots and grassroots outreach. With so much discussion about the "Long Tail" in Web 2.0 circles, coming up with a comprehensive messaging strategy can give any campaign the ability to craft and mold the basic message to different and smaller segments of society so that you can pick up a vote wherever you can get it. This does require that voter ID and voter persuasion departments of a campaign be integrated. But this would be the "non-pandering" way to reach out to different constituencies.
• It gives incumbents an ability to defend their record while still being on offense, while giving challengers the ability to formulate a counter-solution to things proposed/voted on by their opponent. This point can't be more clearly stated. Anchoring a campaign with an agenda and message gives candidates the ability to uplift himself or herself substantively and politically. Even if a candidate loses, and least he or she loses without pissing off too many people, and gives that candidate a chance at running again.
• A message strategy gives candidates just enough discipline and just enough flexibility throughout the long timespan of a campaign. A lot of campaigns are known for being too disciplined and structured or too free-wheeling. Setting a policy agenda and a message calendar can give a campaign the trajectory to win on election day while also dealing with things that inevitably come up that change the direction of that trajectory to victory. You can't shift a campaign that has no foundation. Using the policy and communications strategy as the pivot point can give any campaign the ability to gingerly shift where it needs to when different items change the political environment.

Obviously, this is not comprehensive, and I'm sure there are campaign consultants out there that would add to this list or would disagree with parts of this list. The main point? Campaigns can be simple and intelligent at the same time. But it takes creativity and hard work before kicking off campaigns, things that candidates and campaign managers sometimes don't do or refuse to do. Thoughts?