Robi Ganguly’s Big Ideas

I haven’t written since my prediction about who McCain was going to pick as his VP candidate and no, it’s not just because I was horribly wrong . Instead, I’ve been having a lot of private conversations about this selection and come to a conclusion:

I was right.

Specifically, I was right when I wrote in my post about Biden’s selection as Obama’s running mate that:

I still maintain that from a pure #’s analysis, Obama picking Hillary means the election is over. It might not have been super practical, but it would have killed the McCain campaign. I personally never got the sense that they really disliked each other and couldn’t work together, but enough smart people have argued convincingly that I see that it could have presented real issues. That doesn’t diminish a key fact, however: Consuming the media is a successful strategy. The chatter about a Hillary selection after the Democratic National Convention would have continued all the way through the Republican convention and established the Repubs as an afterthought in many voters minds. McCain would have had to select Paris Hilton as a response, if he wanted to get some meaningful media time.

I’ll repeat myself: Consuming the media is a successful strategy.

10 years ago, I was living in Washington, D.C. and working as an intern at C-Span. I learned a number of important things there (like how to talk yourself into a hearing with Ken Starr…awesome), but one of the most important was just how few people actually CARE to watch the entirety of our political process. In fact, most of us don’t even come close to watching enough of the political process that we understand what’s going on, how bills are proposed, debated and voted upon. Nor do we watch the primaries, the speeches of the candidates, their full statements or anything else substantive enough to understand the nuance of a candidate’s platform.

This doesn’t stop us from going into the voting booths and pulling the levers, though.

So, how do we make these decisions, if we’re not devoting much time and energy to the self-education process?

• We read the headlines.
• We skim over short articles.
• We leave the radio on while we’re driving and pick up snippets.
• We turn the TV on when we walk in the door and catch bits and pieces as we do our household chores: changing, making dinner, checking email, surfing the web, making phone calls, taking care of the kids etc..
• We chat with our friends and those in our circle of like-minded folks
• We read the things that our network passes on, usually of a more humorous or fantastical nature – things that get our attention and are entertaining.

This information gathering process is haphazard. It’s rarely open-minded, it’s mostly self-selecting. It’s, objectively speaking, very limited in critical thinking and optimized for time efficiency, rather than being geared towards delivering clear arguments that enable us to come to a decision about our own beliefs and stances on the issues of the day.

The Republican Party has understood this for a LONG LONG time.

Going back to what I wrote about the possibility of a selection of HRC as Obama’s running mate – it scared the Republicans because it meant a total consumption of the news media. The agenda for what would be discussed in the mass media and subsequently, at the water coolers, would have been completely set by the Democrats.

When it didn’t occur, the Republicans saw their opportunity: they didn’t need to select Paris Hilton, they just had to find her political equivalent – Sarah Palin. Pretty, simple, good on camera, quick with the catchphrases (can’t you just see her saying, "That’s hot"??) and most importantly, NEW. After an 18 month election cycle, voters feel like their skimming of the race has told them all they need to know about Obama and McCain. But now.. there’s someone new. And not only that, the news media doesn’t know anything about her, so they need to investigate and dig and tell us everything they find.

Look what happened in the week following her selection. The news was CONSUMED with Palin. Awareness of her name went from nothing to 60, 70, 80% of the country. The conversation was owned by the Republicans. Just as they like it.

Now, of course, the financial crisis is so massive, it’s trumped any strategy the Republicans could put forth, but still, they’re working their best at managing the news cycle to their advantage.

Which brings us to tonight’s debate

According to Nielsen, last week’s Presidential Debate got ~50mm viewers. Putting that in perspective for a moment, we see that in the 2004 election, ~121mm people voted. Very simple math tells me this: less than half of the people voting in the election watch the debates (probably far less than half, if we assume that some of those 50mm people are not eligible to vote and that turnout this year should be higher).

So, if you know that less than half of the voters watch the debates, part of your strategy needs to be focused on the story that comes out of the debates that informs the rest of the voting population.

This is where the expectations game comes in: Just about everyone believes that Palin is going to do a poor job in the debates. The Republicans are very happy to have this happen. Why?

Because the story will almost inevitably be about how the candidates did, in comparison to their expected performances:

Biden is a knowledgeable, experienced, vocal guy. He’s a known entity.

Palin? She’s a total black box at this point. Will we see the Katie Couric performance from her?

Or maybe we’ll see the Convention speech that she gave?

Or, most likely, we’ll see the 2006 Alaskan gubernatorial debates performance. Which is to say, if you’re watching live, you’ll probably be a bit stunned at how she avoids questions and doesn’t address tough issues.

But, if you’re not watching it live.. you’re probably going to hear something like this:

"Palin holds her own, snags Biden on voting history, delivers zingers and was fairly poised. Flustered Biden has a clear mastery of the facts and policy, but seemed out of his elements at times, unsure of how to respond to Palin’s approach."

I’m getting a little specific here with the prediction, so it might not come out sounding like that, but my point to you is this:

Whether or not you watch tonight’s debate, you should pay attention to the wake of the debates.

The headlines and storylines that flow out from tonight’s debate through the mass media and information sources will be interesting and informative.

Your friends who are behind Obama are going to send you clips of outrageous Palin responses and ask how people can vote for Palin. Your McCain friends might keep quiet, but when prodded, reply that "she did all right, she handled herself well and you’ve got to admit, she really zinged Biden a couple times."

As you watch this stuff unfold, what I really urge you to do is to step back and ask yourself if your decision-making is due to the manipulation of the media and the news cycle. Are you letting yourself just skim and feed off of the wake of communications strategies? If the answer is at all yes, I suggest that you dig deeper and think a bit more critically before it comes time to pull that lever.

While you’re at it, tell your friends to do the same .

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