Not Red, Not Blue, Not Purple
by Nathan James
October 19, 2008

Governing requires many skills, but Presidential campaigns are dominated by just one: communication. As a communicator, I’m a political campaign junkie. And for us junkies, this year has been one long, fascinating, trip.

The 2008 race will go down in history for having proven false these three Presidential campaign truisms. All three offer lessons to communicators and marketers.

Polarizing campaigning win elections.

If you consume hours of partisan media such as FOX News, MSNBC, Rush Limbaugh, and Air America, you may still believe this to be true. But if Election Day results follow current polls, it is false. Americans still have enough sense to betray their party affiliation if it appears overwhelmingly in their best interests to do so.

Unfortunately, our country has to be in pretty bad shape for us to overcome our polarization. This year’s “Obamicans” are motivated by the financial crisis and the Iraq War; Reagan Democrats of 1980 were motivated by 21 percent mortgage rates, 18 percent inflation, and 52 U.S. hostages held in Iran for a year.

This is one of the few good things about crises: they shatter our self-conceptions.

If, over the next four or eight years, we manage to pull ourselves out of this mess, expect voter polarization to roar back into fashion, with evangelical Christians and progressive secularists again demonizing each other on specific issues at best tangential to their own or our nation’s overall well being. That will be too bad. But at least our economy will be in better shape.

Negative campaigning wins elections.

It’s often said that Sen. McCain – running for the same party as a President with record low popularity, and as a proponent of an unpopular war – had no choice but to try to cast doubt about Sen. Obama’s character. He hired Steve Schmidt – a protégé of Karl Rove, the evil genius behind the Bush campaign’s character assassination of McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary – to craft his attack campaign against Obama.

Schmidt’s efforts have not only failed, they have backfired, making McCain appear mean and petty at a time when Americans want leaders offering solutions. Obama’s attacks have been based largely on issues, and are a smaller percentage of his total ads. As a result, he has come off as a statesman by comparison.

Identity politics wins elections.

In addition to the likely election of the first African American President – indeed, the first African American leader of any Western industrialized nation – this election also offered us the second-ever female Vice Presidential candidate (a first for Republicans), and almost the first female major party Presidential nominee. And in the end, none of that mattered.

Though Gov. Palin’s pro-life values solidified McCain’s support among evangelicals, Republican foreign policy hawks and fiscal conservatives quickly came to view her as an unqualified risk. McCain’s gamble to attract disenfranchised female supporters of Sen. Clinton was revealed as a patronizing political stunt. Can anyone dispute that if McCain instead had selected his closest rival for the nomination – fellow white guy Mitt Romney – this would be a much closer election?

Likewise, had Obama not run this year, Sen. Clinton would be the Democratic nominee, and also would be heading for victory – but not because she is a woman. She would win because she, even more so than Obama, would be offering detailed policy proposals to enact change.

Finally, there is Mr. Obama, who in the early primaries portrayed himself as a symbol of America’s racial inclusiveness and hope. Notice he’s not doing that anymore. The deepening financial crisis would make any such personal appeal seem irrelevant. But more importantly, Obama’s success through the primary and general election campaigns has shown him that making a big deal about race – positively or negatively – is irrelevant to the American people at any time.

The end of identity politics is not just Obama’s achievement, or Sen. Clinton’s, or Gov. Palin’s, or Jesse Jackson’s and Geraldine Ferraro’s in the 1980s, or Shirley Chisholm’s in the 1970s. It is ours.

So there you have it: three campaign communication truisms now resting in the dustbin of history. What do all three have in common? They rely on cynicism and division. Therein lies our lesson.

Throughout my career, I have encountered many marketing and communication professionals who confess without embarrassment that people are sheep – ignoramuses waiting to be led, via irrational, emotional appeals, toward a decision predetermined by said marketer (or politician). This philosophic stance is not merely morally revolting; it is false and inaccurate. It does not work.

Rather, people use their minds and intuition to make the best choice. We lose sight of this in part because America has been so fortunate, at times it does not seem to matter which political party holds office, or which brand of toothpaste we buy. We trust in our government’s checks and balances, in the ruthless crucible of the consumer marketplace.

Sen. Obama is fond of saying that America is not red states and blue states; we are the United States. It’s a nice line, but it’s not true – and it contradicts the diversity of which he likely will be the most noted example in all of American history.

We are anything but united. We are the most diverse, differently opinioned collection of individuals on planet Earth. Yes, when threatened or challenged, we do come together for a cause. But most of the time, we are so free and privileged that we enjoy our differences as sport.

That is America’s promise, and our opportunity.

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