Drew Weston: What Obama Needs to Do in the Final Sixty Days:(author of The Political Brain)

[RedEarth]

What Obama Needs to Do in the Final Sixty Days: Avoiding President Palin

Drew Westen, Ph.D. is a clinical, personality, and political psychologist and neuroscientist, and Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University. He formerly taught at the University of Michigan, Harvard Medical School, and Boston University. Dr. Westen is the author of three books and over 150 scholarly articles. He frequently comments on political and psychological issues on radio, television, and in print. He is the author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, and is the founder of Westen Strategies, LLC, a political and corporate consulting firm. He has advised a range of candidates and organizations, from presidential and congressional campaigns to major progressive organizations, to Fortune 500 companies.

What Obama Needs to Do in the Final Sixty Days: Avoiding President Palin

So as someone who has been informally advising the campaign for nearly a year, but who has grown as frustrated and concerned as the dozens of fellow Democrats who have written me in increasing tones of desperation over the last week, let me suggest 10 more ways the Obama campaign can avoid yet another B-movie with an unhappy ending.

2. Stop playing checkers when the other side is playing chess.

Republican strategists play chess. They think six moves ahead. Democrats play checkers. They think one move ahead.

3. Don't confuse positive and negative messages with ethical and unethical ones.

There is no relation between whether a message is ethical or unethical and whether it is positive or negative. Sarah Palin told some wonderfully positive stories as tens of millions of Americans watched her and enjoyed her "spunk" and sense of humor. She told that great story about how she sold the governor's private jet on e-bay. It happened not to be true. Voters vote with their emotions, and if you misinform their emotions by refusing to speak negative truths about your opponent, you are misleading the electorate and endangering your candidacy.

Positive and negative emotions are largely independent in the brain, with different causes, functions, and circuitry. Try answering the following questions. First, do you love your spouse or partner? Second, in the last month, who has made you angrier than anyone else in the world? For most of us, the answer to both questions is the same. What does that say about positive and negative emotions?

In politics, if you leave voters' negative feelings about either you or your opponent to chance by refusing to define your opponent or hit back hard and swiftly when he tries to define you (the conventional Democratic wisdom--"voters don't like negativity"), you are ceding half the brain to the other side. You don't win elections with half a brain.

4. Attack the character of the attacker if his attack suggests bad character.

7. Flesh out the message of change with two or three signature issues.

Obama made a great start at putting the meat on the bones of "change" in Denver. I've been a strong advocate of running values-based, emotionally evocative campaigns that bracket "issues" within emotionally powerful messages rather than hiding our values in the fine print of policy prescriptions. The data are clear that candidates who think campaigns are a "debate on the issues" lose (the Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry approach). Obama tried the issues-based approach for months and then reversed course and starting making use again of his extraordinary capacity to inspire at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Iowa, which set him on the path to nomination. He and his team made just the right move in fleshing out the substance of his agenda in Denver without boring voters silly with 12-point plans.

What he has not done, however, which every successful candidate has done since Ronald Reagan, is to offer two or three "signature issues" that tell the American public where his heart, loyalties, and values are and illustrate the ways he would lead.


.........more.......

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/what-obama-needs-to-do-in_b_125051.html

...his article from 8/31/08

Brand First, Equivocate Later: The Message of Denver and the Importance of Defining McCain-Palin Before They Define Themselves

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/brand-first-equivocate-la_b_122855.html

[depakid]

1. I sure hope the campaign starts listening to the scientists

instead of the conceited consultants.

[AdHocSolver]

2. K & R! I have been posting about this "problem" with the Obama campaign for weeks now.

If Obama starts one more sentence with a friendly compliment for McCain or Palin, I am going to puke. Starting a comment with "John has performed great service to his country...etc., etc." totally nullifies whatever else you say afterward that is critical of McCain. Ditto for comments like "McCain has been my friend and colleague...etc., etc."

McCain is an opportunist, a flip-flopper, a Bush disciple and enabler, a wealthy elitist who has no empathy for the "average" person, incompetent, and possibly senile, and every statement that Obama makes about McCain and his campaign should reflect these truths about him. Obama should do it in a friendly way, with a "smile", but this has to be the theme, and Obama should avoid saying anything that would short circuit this crucial message. Like any good actor, you have to play to your audience.

Obama has been promoting his policy goals well in "simple" terms, without getting bogged down in wonkish details.

Palin was chosen to be a distraction from McCain. One gets the idea that she is running for president and McCain is an afterthought. This is not to say that Palin isn't dangerous. However, she has to be handled delicately. One claim McCain has made about Palin is that she broke the glass ceiling for women by being chosen as his running mate. However, this is not true as Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro for his VP running mate in 1984. Such a false claim needs to be exposed, along with numerous other discrepancies of the facts, in carefully crafted statements, that are planned out ahead of time, but worked seamlessly into published or spoken commentary.

Other claims made by Palin have to be dealt with also. One way is to cite sources that refute claims she has made about herself. For example her claims to have rejected earmarked funds, sold the "executive" jet on eBay, and similar statements she has made. For example, she could be asked to explain her claims when a newspaper article at the time (with the name of the paper and the date of publication) said something else. In other words, ask her to explain her getting her facts wrong. Do this on several significant items relating to the validity of her alleged credentials for the job, and bring her credibility into question.

The Obama people can prepare for the remainder of this campaign by reading any good book on interviewing a job candidate. However, remember that the primaries are over. You can take off the kid gloves. You are not running against other Democrats whom you don't want to offend. You are fighting for the body and soul of our country, and McCain and Palin are the enemy. We need protection against them as much as we need protection from Al Qaeda.

[bemildred]

3. Obama needs to continue to ignore these self-important airheads.

That's what he needs to do.

[dccrossman]

4. K & R

Kick

I wouldn't say I completely agree with the analysis, but it's an excellent discussion of the irrational decision-making of most humans.