Political Marketing 101: Let Voter Make the Buying Decision

Great salespeople know the secret: it’s really hard to sell someone something they don’t think they want or need. The best way to “make a sale” is to create a situation where a potential  buyer (the voter) make a decision that they really want what you’re selling; in fact, they decide they absolutely have to have it.

It’s the same with political campaigns – or ought to be. Candidates on the stump tell a particular audience what they think they want to hear. Certainly there are exceptions but generally they are trying to connect on the most superficial levels.

For several years now I’ve been developing a theory and I’d like your help in proving it can work.

Imagine if a candidate didn’t make the typical speech. What if they just asked you a series of questions and using your answers asked another and another…and another? What if at the end they had shown you that you were in total agreement with them and that they actually saw how what you proposed could work – and more importantly, benefit you?

Do you think that would be more effective than listening to promises and seeing no way that the promises could be accomplished? I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to make me prove it.

Here are just a few ideas for starting the conversation. You are free to ask about any of them or any other issues that matter to you.

• Reducing the size of government
• Improving education
• Fixing social security
• Balancing the federal, state or local budget
• Eliminating the national debt

Just post a comment like:  Why should we eliminate the Federal Department of Education? I’ll respond and we’ll start a dialogue which, I believe, will have you arrive at the conclusion I hoped you’d get to.

Again, I need your help in proving my theory. Tell your friends and followers to join in as well. If I’m right you’ll be able to pass this valuable marketing lesson on to the candidates you support at every level of government.

Who knows, it might actually be a way to restore the Constitutional Republic we were given by the Founding Fathers and have done such a wonderful job of screwing up.

The New Anti-Capitalist Conservatives

Wow, who would have ever believed that Republican candidates for president would be spouting anti-capitalist populist rhetoric?

Now, I’d better clearly state that I’m not a Romney supporter. Lots of questions about his conservative principles and his belief in original intent of the Constitution. Still….

Newt Gingrich says he’s not anti-capitalist, not anti private equity funds, not anti Bain Capital. He just thinks that Mitt Romney should have to explain the decision he made at Bain Capital, how the decisions were made and who was hurt by the decisions. Hey, Newt, he only has to explain them to his Board of Directors and his investors. Who else did you have in mind? Should you get to approve what Bain Capital did? If you were president would Bain Capital have to get your approval before they closed a plant? Would you get to approve how much money Bain made on a decision and weigh it against the pain it caused a local community? Would you have the power to block it if the profit versus pain ration wasn’t to your liking? That sounds more than a little statist and certainly not the voice of a “true conservative”.

And, now you Governor Perry! What make a decision or a deal “vulture capitalism”? So far as anyone can tell you’re just using the term for populist political expediency. Capitalism by its very nature has a winner and a loser in just about every deal. If a Texas-based company invented and marketed digital cameras would you tell them to sit on the development because it was going to cost thousands of workers at Kodak their jobs? Would you prefer to still be using those heavy, clunky black telephones we grew up with? How many people are losing their jobs because we’re all toting touch-screen cell phones and wi-fi tablets around? Oh, and one more question Governor, how many people will be negatively affected when you close those two…err…three Federal departments?

How can voters believe that either of you are true conservatives when you attack the very basic tenets of the free enterprise…entrepreneurial…capitalist system? How can we trust that you’ll reform Social Security or Medicare when there’s no way on earth to do it without causing anyone any pain?

You sound awfully Obamaesque making impossible promises where we cut and balance the budget, pay off the debt, go back to adhering to the limited government envisioned by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution…and none, absolutely none of the “little” people will get hurt.

How, Speaker? How, Governor? Unless you can explain that you haven’t destroyed Mitt Romney. You’ve destroyed your own candidacies.