The New Prince

by Dick Morris

  Billboards, bumper stickers, buttons, or any campaign advertisement that spreads a candidate’s name without also giving his message are dangerous. Name recognition opens a file in the voter’s mental hard drive. A politician must take care to fill it quickly with specific positives. He may even have to slow the spread of his name recognition so that his substantive recognition can keep pace.

  It is not enough for a candidate to stress his compassion or integrity as he acquires name recognition. These generalities will not provide sufficient immunity once the negatives start to rain down. Only concrete achievements or positions will do. Specificity is key.

  When an opponent runs a negative ad attacking the candidate for raising taxes, voters will not remember the warm, feel-good positive advertisement that a candidate ran to introduce himself a few weeks before. Such an ad will provide no inoculation against the tax charge. But if a candidate has established a firm issue identification, such as opposing utility-rate increases, voters will remember his position when they hear a negative ad attacking him. “Too bad he voted for higher taxes,” they might say after seeing both positive and negative ads, “but at least he’s good on utility rates.”

  Chapter 33

  How to Be Noticed in a Crowded Room

  WHEN AN ELECTED OFFICE is vacant, the line of candidates is usually as long as those at Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando. Like debutantes at a ball, candidates try to single themselves out by attracting special attention.

  In recent presidential races, each candidate has tried to advance his “unique selling proposition.” In the 1996 Republican presidential field, for example, Dole sold himself as the man of character, Phil Gramm as the true conservative, Pat Buchanan as the truer conservative, Lamar Alexander as the outsider.

  Each chose his theme to position himself against his opponents. Dole ran on character to stress Clinton’s scandals; Gramm and Buchanan wanted to contrast their doctrinaire conservatism with Dole’s inconsistent ideological record; Alexander sought to play off Dole’s and Gramm’s roles as Washington insiders. But Steve Forbes eschewed negative comparisons and used a positive idea, the flat tax, to distinguish himself. He finished strong in the early Iowa and New Hampshire primaries because voters appreciated his proposal.

  Forbes’ message succeeded because it was easier to believe than the messages of his opponents. If Steve Forbes says he is for a flat tax, there is no reason to doubt him. But if Dole claims to be of high moral character, and Alexander says he’s an outsider, and Gramm and Buchanan claim they are ideologically consistent, how are we to know if they are telling the truth? By leading with adjectives or attributes, rather than introducing themselves over an issue as Forbes did, these candidates handicapped themselves at the start of the race.

  Forbes’ message also did well because it did not require that a voter dislike anyone else in order to be moved by it. To appreciate Dole’s message about character, voters had to dislike Clinton. Only if voters were turned off by Dole’s constant political repositioning would the Gramm or Buchanan attacks work. But there was no prerequisite price of admission for a voter to accept Forbes’ message.

  Forbes ultimately failed because he chose the wrong issue—a big idea like flat taxes. Its limited popularity doomed his campaign. But by positioning himself on an issue and introducing himself to the voters through an issue, not through an adjective or an attribute, he had the right idea.

  Some candidates figure that if they spend enough money, they can get the voters to believe good things about them. But it rarely works out that way. Unless an ad carries a message that is directly relevant to the lives of each voter, few will pay it much heed no matter how many times it airs. But a message that carries the right issue, one that appeals to the personal needs and concerns of a voter, is always wanted, always welcome. A candidate with a good issue can dominate a crowded race even if he is outspent by 3-to-1 or 4-to-1.

  New proposals quickly grab attention and find deep resonance in the electorate. Candidate Clinton’s stress on the need to prepare to compete in the global economy and the importance of welfare reform served him well. So did Eugene McCarthy’s opposition to the war in Vietnam, Reagan’s support for tax cuts, and Carter’s pledge to restore integrity to government. These affirmative issue positions carried their candidates far and successfully distinguished them from the pack of candidates early in the race.

  In a crowded field, a candidate must search for issues that radiate intensity rather than just breadth of support. An issue must have enough resonance with voters to induce them to single it out above all others as most relevant to their lives.

  When a candidate faces opposition from single-issue constituencies, he can often gain the upper hand by using new ideas to counter those that are ideologically entrenched, but so frequently repeated that they have lost their punch. New ideas can defeat old, established positions if they are good enough. A candidate with a good issue can even lure away those who back his strident, single-issue opponent.

  Jimmy Carter’s call to restore integrity to government and “give America a government as good as its people,” won over George Wallace’s base in 1976. George Bush’s call to continue the Reagan agenda pulled away enough of Pat Robertson’s Christian base in 1988 to win the nomination. Bill Clinton’s proposals on welfare reform and education drew support away from the populist reform appeal of Jerry Brown.

  You just have to find the right issue.

  Chapter 34

  Managing the Dialogue

  ELECTIONS ARE DEBATES between candidates over issues. The ebb and flow of the argumentation, more than the amount of money each side spends, more often than not determines who the winner will be. Managing the dialogue of a political campaign is the most important task there is. In today’s politics, paid television advertising is, by far, the most effective way to win the issue debate at the core of a political race.

  Pounding Your Issue Home

  Once you’ve chosen the issue on which to base your campaign, never let it go. Push it to the forefront of the race by making it the centerpiece of your paid television advertising.

  Don’t begin your campaign with a biographic ad introducing yourself to the voters. They don’t care. There is plenty of time to tell them who you are. Begin with issue advocacy, which compels voters to pay attention because it is their problem (high taxes), not your problem (low name recognition) that you are addressing. Voters are not especially interested in who is going to run for what next year. But they care passionately about how to solve their most pressing problems, so they’ll listen to issue ads when they won’t listen to biographic commercials.

  Today’s sophisticated electorate sets high standards for what will move them in a political commercial. A good ad should function on two levels: the rational and the emotional. The spot must identify a key problem and articulate a practical, workable proposal to fix it. Each ad must overcome public skepticism and tap into the deep reservoir of hope that animates our people. To be effective, advertisements cannot cut corners on the facts. They must be factual and realistic in order to work. Pollsters need to test the arguments in the ad and see how they stand up to rebuttals and counterattacks. Does the argument move voters and do they stay moved once the other side has spoken?

  But even as the ad creates a factual basis for acceptance, it must also pack an emotional message. Good visuals are very effective if they enlist the emotions of the voters. Republican media expert Bob Goodman said, “I only know about four things when I create an ad—love, hope, hate, and fear.” Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic media creator, addressed these emotions in the Clinton campaign when he framed an advertisement backing a ban on assault rifles around the true story of a police officer who watched his partner die in a hail of assault-weapon fire.

  Sometimes, the visual should tell a story. In Clinton’s welfare-reform ad, consultants Bill Knapp and Marius Penczner teamed with Sheinkopf to tell a pictorial story of a little girl peering out her front window, waiting
for her father to come home. When he appears in the driveway, lunch bucket in hand, his daughter runs to greet him on his triumphal return. The advertisement tells the message—work over welfare—in its soundtrack and, on a parallel course, in its visual. The emotional impact of this juxtaposition was extraordinary.

  The key is to keep the viewer intellectually and emotionally occupied. The competition for his attention is steep: the ham sandwich and beer in the refrigerator in the next room. Media consultant Stuart Stevens says the “visual literacy” of the voters, their ability to absorb the meaning of picture messages in a few seconds, has increased dramatically. “Remember the way the old movies used to show a guy leaving his house, getting in a cab, paying the fare at the airport, boarding the plane, relaxing in his seat, descending the stairs at a foreign airport, getting in a cab, and getting out at his hotel?” Stevens says. “Now they just show the scene in one city and then the scene in the next one. People get it that he traveled.” The corollary of Stevens’ insight is that media that tells voters what they have already figured out on their own is redundant and boring. Advantage: ham sandwich.

  In fact, ads should be a bit obscure and tense, keeping the viewer riveted while the scene unfolds. In one ad for Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Don Sundquist, also prepared by Penczner, the candidate proposed drug-testing parolees. “If they’re using drugs, lock them back up,” Sundquist says in the ad. “Because if they’re using drugs, a robbery is sure to follow.” While Sundquist spoke, Penczner’s visual told its own compelling story. A gaunt, pale actor with a day’s growth of beard, dressed in an undershirt and filmed in black-and-white, walked down the street holding a neatly folded brown paper bag. The suggestion that he had just been released from prison and was carrying his clothing was obvious. A van pulls alongside and an arm reaches out to beckon. It seems to say, “Come here, I’ve got some drugs for you.” As the parolee glances nervously at the van and hesitates in his gait, a police car cruises by behind him. The former inmate thinks again and walks on. In his vacillation, we see the dilemma, the temptation, and the dangers, but also the positive possibilities in parole. Drug-testing was the obvious answer. The visual requires concentration. The ham sandwich has to wait.

  The gimmicks media creators use include handheld cameras; their shaky images seem to generate a tension that holds the viewer. The faint suggestion lingers that the camera is catching the scene as it takes place, unguarded and real. Partial shots of the candidate’s body: his hands, his wedding ring, his shoulder, part of his face, all create a tension within the viewer, who wants to see who it is that is being filmed. Like the chiaroscuro in the paintings of the masters, the mystery compels attention.

  But visual techniques come and go. No sooner do creative media people invent one video stunt than viewers spot the manipulation and begin to guard against it. Their antibodies begin to form shortly after the ad starts to run. In a year or two, the technique has lost its appeal. The roaches have developed an immunity to this year’s roach spray.

  For too many media creators, the visual and the form are everything. They could care less about the actual proposal the candidate is making. More into style than substance, they constantly squeeze the message into fewer and fewer words, cutting back the arguments it needs to work. In the 1984 presidential race, when Gary Hart was under fire for a lack of specificity in his issue proposals, his media creator admitted that he found it difficult to answer Mondale’s taunt—“Where’s the beef?” It turned out the media man had never read Gary Hart’s book, which was full of beef. He was so little concerned with Hart’s substantive ideas that he never had taken the time to read the book. The image was everything.

  Every candidate must remember in developing his positive ads that he or she faces a dual threat. From outside, he must make a case that satisfies the press and is so rooted in accuracy that his opponent has no rebuttal. But from within his own campaign, he must face the equal danger that his message will be lost in the creative zeal of his consultants.

  Striking First

  All campaigns end on election day. But they can start whenever you like. Start early. Very early. Today, for example, would be a good time.

  Most elections are decided long before election day. In seven of the thirteen post-World War II presidential races, the contest was over before Labor Day (1952, 1956, 1964, 1972, 1984, 1988, and 1996). In four of the remaining races, the contests were close only because one side started out very far ahead and either blew, or almost blew, the lead (1948, 1968, 1976, and 1992). Only in 1960 and 1980 did the election’s outcome seesaw until the very end, in one case to a photo finish, and in the other it suddenly tipped to Ronald Reagan, the challenger. Down-to-the-wire finishes are a lot more likely in horse-racing than in politics.

  So, the advice “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes,” is wrong.

  In Clinton’s come-from-behind win in 1996, he started his campaign’s TV advertising eighteen months before election day. By February of 1996, ten months before the polls opened, Clinton had locked in the big lead he held throughout.

  The only thing in politics one can’t replace is lost time. Begin early. Set up your theme at the outset. Force voters to cope with your themes, your issues, your proposals, before the other side can inject theirs.

  In a race against a reasonably popular incumbent, don’t open with negatives attacking him. Negative ads tell the voter that your candidate, the challenger, is only right for you if you don’t like the incumbent. They say that if you do like the incumbent, you can’t vote for our man. Most victorious challengers need a great many votes from people who still like the incumbent but just like the new candidate more. Positive ads win such voters. Negative ads drive them away.

  Some candidates want to hoard their money until the end and resist early spending. They don’t understand the essential equation of modern political finance: %=$. Good poll numbers (%) equal more campaign contributions ($). Early media, which endows your candidacy with an aura of likely success, stimulates campaign contributions. Most donors are opportunists and all donors like to win.

  Sometimes, insurgents can ambush incumbents, doing little until right before election day and then springing a surprise offensive. In 1990, candidate Paul Wellstone successfully used these tactics to defeat Republican incumbent Senator Rudy Boshwitz in Minnesota. But such efforts usually require a silver bullet that can take out an opponent with one shot. Silver bullets are rare. So start early.

  Disarm Your Opponent by Agreeing with Him

  It is not a God-given requirement that every candidate must disagree with every position his opponent takes or demean all of his adversary’s achievements. Agreement and praise are two of the most devastating weapons in any politician’s arsenal. Only when an issue is joined by an opposing point of view does it become fodder for a campaign. When both sides agree, the issue becomes a sideshow, no matter how seminal it may be to the belief structure of one of the two opposing camps.

  It is each candidate’s right to articulate that with which he disagrees in the program, policies, or achievements of his opponent. If he chooses to criticize any aspect of his opponent’s record, then it becomes legitimate ground for debate. But if a candidate sidesteps the issue or praises and agrees with his adversary on it, the issue loses its impact on the election.

  Where an opponent has a clear area of superiority, it is best to bypass it by “hugging” your adversary on that particular issue so there is no distance between your position and his.

  When Ruth Messinger ran against New York’s Mayor Rudy Guiliani, she faced an incumbent who had had great success in reducing dramatically the city’s crime rate. She should have avoided the crime issue entirely and pounded away at Giuliani’s shortcomings: education and job creation. If she had praised the mayor’s crime record and said she’d keep his police commissioner on the job, the entire race would have been fought on the grounds of her critique—jobs and schools—not on Giuliani’s strength. Instead, Messing
er was tempted by the blatant police brutality in a Brooklyn precinct house right before the election, and criticized the mayor’s police and crime policies. That statement may have gained her a few days of good press. But it let the crime issue into the election and permitted Giuliani to win in a walk.

  Similarly, in 1996, Clinton agreed with Gingrich and Dole on making welfare recipients work, time limits for welfare, balancing the budget, cutting taxes, reforming government regulation, cutting the size of the federal payroll, and the death penalty. By “hugging” them on these key points, he forced the focus of the election to shift to the areas over which they disagreed: Medicare and Medicaid cuts, education and environmental programs, family-leave laws, gun control, abortion, and so forth.

  The battle for control of an election is a battle of the issues against one another for saliency. Each side has issues the public cares about on which it will likely do the better job. The key is to make your strength more relevant to the voters than that of your opponent.

  For example, Reagan defeated Carter in 1980 because diplomatic and military toughness in the face of the hostage crisis was the key issue. Had compassion been more central, Carter would have won. In the same vein, Bush defeated Dukakis in 1988 because crime was the most important difference. Had helping the poor been the fulcrum, Dukakis would have been elected.

  The job of each candidate is to maximize his issue’s chance to dominate the dialogue by presenting it in the most compelling way and underscoring the extent of his disagreement with his adversary. On the other hand, his task is also to minimize the likelihood that his opponent’s issue will come to the fore by narrowing his disagreements with his opponent in these areas.