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Political candidates spend a fortune to manipulate us into voting for them. Here are some tricks to watch out for.
The one-second strategy
You may think you’re not affected by commercials, mailers, billboards, and lawn signs---After all, if you’re like most people, in just one second, you toss the mailer into the recycling and turn away from the ad. But political operatives wouldn’t spend a fortune on them unless they work. Here’s how they do.
Even in that one second, you’ve seen the candidate, their name, and perhaps their slogan.
Looks. Looks matter. Consider, for example, our most recent presidents and their opponents: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, John Kerry, Al Gore, George Bush, John Edwards, Bill Clinton. Pretty boys all. Too, the quality of the photography can make a difference. You want to vote for the best candidate, not the best face and photographer.
The candidate’s name. Some names are more attractive than others. Because of name alone, a candidate named Lisa Love would gain votes over an Aloysius Dimwood. He could counter that in part by calling himself Al rather than Aloysius. Of course, none of this has anything to do with how well they’d govern.
The slogan. For example, it’s widely believed that the one-word slogans of “Change” and “Forward” helped Barack Obama win the presidency. Those words were selected by university professors specializing in the art of influencing people and validated by Madison-Avenue marketers asking focus groups to rate ithem.
Focus-group tested words
The more sophisticated the candidate’s handlers, the more likely the candidate is to suffuse their utterances, commercials, and ads with as many words as possible that focus groups loved: “a balanced approach,” "move us forward," "Get it done," “family friendly,” “a fair shake,” a bipartisan effort,” “good for the middle class,” “provide opportunity,” “a responsible proposal.” Conversely, effective spinmeisters coach their candidate to describe opponents’ proposals using words that have been focus-group tested to cause maximum antipathy without appearing mean-spirited, for example, "out of step," “risky scheme,” “backwards thinking,” “outside the mainstream,” and yes, “mean-spirited.”
Invoke the other extreme’s values.
The less centrist a candidate is, the more likely handlers are to train him or her to couch statements using the other extreme’s values. For example, if they’re a liberal candidate, they’re more likely to talk about making streets safer and government more efficient and to couch even their most liberal policy as based on American tradition and in the Constitution. Why? The spinmeisters know the candidate can count on the liberal vote. The goal of the campaign messaging is to persuade centrists to vote for the candidate and to reduce the likelihood of conservatives voting—If conservatives hate a candidate, they’re more likely to come out to vote. If they’re in just mild opposition, they’ll more likely stay home.
Skirting the question
When the media or a town hall meeting participant asks a question that could make a candidate look bad, candidates are coached to not answer it and instead, deflect by saying something related that skirts the question. For example, “Why has the deficit increased every year under your administration?” Answer: We are deeply concerned about fiscal responsibility and have undertaken a number of initiatives on that. (They then list one or two.) That didn’t answer the question but it was close enough that most listeners get fooled.
An October surprise
Political operatives spend years gathering dirt on opponents, the most damning of which they release right before the election, publicizing that instead of issues far more relevant to assessing who would more wisely govern. The result is that the a superior candidate can be drowned by one fact or factoid. For example, a month before the election, a candidate revealed that her opponent had offshored jobs. She’s now centering her campaign on that, which bears little on the overall question of who would govern better.
A better way
With elections usually won by just a few percentage points, all those machinations can make more difference than the candidates’ ability to govern.
It’s one thing to be aware of our getting manipulated but what’s a better way to decide whom to vote for?
The best single piece of advice is to consult VoteSmart.org. For 40,000 politicians, VoteSmart offers unbiased, just-the-facts bio, voting record, positions, ratings, speeches, and major funders. For local politicians not profiled on votesmart.org, consult the local voter information pamphlets, read media endorsements by both liberal and conservative media, and ask trusted friends who are not ideologues that always vote for one party but who evaluate candidates individually and intelligently.
And then do vote. Of course, your individual vote has almost no chance of affecting the outcome but informed votes, collectively, will result in selecting wiser leaders.
Marty Nemko's bio is in Wikipedia.
