McCain: I don't know how many houses I own.
'Bama: You own seven.
Incredible response time on this one. Only three hours from gaffe to advert.
Bob Harris had a pretty solid
post last month where he talked about word association.
Right this minute, psychology professor Drew Weston is discussing how to communicate progressive values (which the majority of the public shares on an overwhelming number of issues) by "shaping and activiating neural networks" in voters. It's sound science married to basic neurology — which is to say, really just good basic marketing — but it's also something the left is still learning.
Here: look at these six words:
Ocean moon glasses chair faith floor.
Now, name a laundry detergent at random. What's the first detergent that comes to mind?
Tide, probably, simply because of the preset association with "ocean and moon," etc. (Readers of Prisoner of Trebekistan will recognize this from the memory techniques I learned for Jeopardy.)
Simple, powerful, and (sadly for us all) poorly understood by lefties. Weston is now illustrating how the GOP has brilliantly done this for years, turning the positive word "liberal" into "latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, anti-American," etc. (Also probably the root of the impulse to call 300 activists meeting privately "elitist.")
And now Weston is now moving into how concise conservative messaging is, contrasting it with the muddled, unfocused messaging of progressives. (Using the word "progressive" now because the word "liberal" has been soiled in such an Orwellian fashion.) If you've read George Lakoff, this is nothing new, but it's stuff that every successful activist absolutely needs to understand.
And now he's demonstrating some specific reframes. On national security, for example, the proper frame isn't specific policy arguments, since they can't address either the underlying emotions or principles. The proper frame: "if we detain people without hearings, wiretap our own ciizens, and torture people on mere suspicions, the terrorists have won, because we have given up everything our country has stood for."
I hate that so much of our democratic process comes down to 30-second commercials, that there's so much overlap between picking the President and choosing a brand of paper towels. But pretending that's not the case isn't going to do anyone any good (Kerry reference goes here).
They're trying to paint Obama as an elitist because he went on a vacation to Hawaii, while THEIR guy doesn't remember how many houses he owns.
You want to win over the blue-collar voters, the ones worried about their jobs and the economy? Remind them who's the self-made man and who's the guy who married an heiress and owns 7 houses.
The best part, via
TPM:
"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.
For those of you who haven't kept track, the McCain campaign just recently cited McCain's POW years in explaining away the Miss Buffalo Chip gaffe, and in dealing with the allegation that he broke the rules and listened in on Barack Obama during the Rick Warren forum.
Hm -- responding to every single criticism with the same non sequitur?
Let's ask President Giuliani how well that strategy works.
