No doubt, the financial meltdown that began in the middle of September helped seal John McCain's fate. But in electoral politics, stories don't write themselves. One of the major mistakes Democratic candidates have often made is to assume that voters will connect the dots for themselves (e.g., about the draft-dodging W attacking the war hero Kerry) or that the media will do it for them. In this case, Obama wisely chose not to let facts speak for themselves (as they clearly had not done two months earlier when McCain succeeded in spinning a stunningly successful Obama tour of Europe and the Middle East into a beauty pageant allegedly bespeaking Obama's narcissism, empty celebrity, and appeal to foreigners). In a speech in Colorado on September 16, Obama began to tell a story about the financial crisis and John McCain's place in it that would have made it difficult for McCain to take a coherent position on the economic crisis even if he had one to offer:
Now I certainly don't fault Senator McCain for all of the problems we're facing, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. Because the truth is, what Senator McCain said yesterday fits with the same economic philosophy that he's had for 26 years. It's the philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down. It's the philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise. It's a philosophy that lets Washington lobbyists shred consumer protections and distort our economy so it works for the special interests instead of working people.We've had this philosophy for eight years. We know the results. You feel it in your own lives. Jobs have disappeared, and peoples' life savings have been put at risk. Millions of families face foreclosure, and millions more have seen their home values plummet. The cost of everything from gas to groceries to health care has gone up, while the dream of a college education for our kids and a secure and dignified retirement for our seniors is slipping away. These are the struggles that Americans are facing. This is the pain that has now trickled up.
This passage is effective in both its narrative coherence--it tells the story of how we got to this point, who was responsible, and why McCain could not possibly be the one to lead us out of it--and in its emotional resonance. It begins with magnanimity and a sense of fairness, not attempting to blame the entire crisis on McCain but making clear his complicity in it and his ideological commitment to the causes of it. It uses language like "common-sense regulation" that appealed to a populist public that knew it had been swindled and was no longer buying Republican lines about government as the problem. It took the abstractions of a Wall Street meltdown and a credit crisis and turned them into the experience of everyday people: "You feel it in your own lives," he told his listeners, and described how the hope of a "dignified retirement for our seniors" was slipping away. You can picture the people he is describing, and they could picture themselves, their parents, and their grandparents.
At the same time, the nation watched as the two candidates showed what they were made of in confronting the economic meltdown, and the Obama campaign lightly reinforced what voters were observing in McCain with their own eyes with words like "erratic" and "out of touch." McCain had tried to make Obama's judgment and experience a voting issue. It had not worked for Hillary Clinton, and it wasn't likely to work for McCain, but the contrast between McCain and Obama's response to the unfolding economic crisis completely undercut the attempt to make voters anxious about Obama's judgment. Instead, what voters accurately perceived, using what the political scientist Samuel Popkin described as "low-information rationality," was one candidate who careened from one posture to another in a desperate attempt to appear presidential and another candidate who seemed calm and steady in the most stressful circumstances--precisely what voters mean by presidential. Nearly a week after Election Day, six out of ten voters reported that they had no idea what Obama would do to get the country out of its financial mess, but they had the confidence he could do it. McCain had succeeded in making voters anxious about a McCain presidency on the issue that worried them most, whereas Obama had allayed their fears.
At the end of the campaign, Obama returned to a positive message that emphasized his values and his personal biography in just the way that empirically wins elections but that Democrats have been slow to embrace. His 30-minute message to the nation on the eve of the election was a model of how to win hearts and minds. It was not a discourse on the fine points of policy, but it was hardy devoid of substance. It was an emotional argument for his presidency--a message that embeds reasons within an emotionally compelling narrative. He wove together his own life story with the stories of four Americans and their families who were facing precisely the kinds of problems the rest of the nation was facing. His narration was moving, personal, and laden with the values he shares with his fellow Americans (personal responsibility, hard work, compassion, fairness), yet woven into its fabric were bulleted plans that described his vision for the future and what he would do as president that emerged in brief text overlays on top of the emotional message.
Moving Voters, Moving Forward
Voters are neither rational nor irrational (although at times they can be both). They vote with their values as well as their interests, and a good candidate and a good message appeals to both.
Candidates and campaigns needn't choose between reason and emotion. A good message is one that draws people's attention, gives them pause to reflect on what has happened and what we need to do, and moves them to act.
Candidates can incite and channel both the hopes and concerns of the electorate without wallowing in the gutter of demagoguery. Barack Obama would have been derelict in his duty as a candidate if he had not made clear that John McCain's answer to the collapse of the economy--radical deregulation--was also the cause of it. Like other mammals, we evolved both positive and negative emotions for a reason, and the reasons are not redundant. In recent history, bad candidates have won elections by demagoguing fear and hate, but good candidates have lost elections by failing to elicit negative emotions about candidates who should have made the electorate anxious or angry. Just as reason versus emotion represents a false antinomy that has hamstrung Democratic and progressive thinking, strategy, and messaging for decades, so does positive versus negative campaigning. You can lie by offering false hope (e.g., promising to lower taxes dramatically while balancing the budget) just as you can lie by offering false fears.
Messages matter. Compelling narratives, carefully crafted one-liners, and pithy phrases are no substitute for carefully thought-out policy positions if you want to govern well. But carefully thought-out policy positions are no substitute for compelling narratives, carefully crafted one-liners, and pithy phrases that capture the essence of your values or vision if you want to govern at all.
And there is nothing as powerful in politics as a powerful messenger. This time, this moment, the American people found that messenger.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
