Advice to candidates:
"Decide who you are before your opponent decides who you are."
 |
| Amy Klobuchar |
Brief case study: Amy Klobuchar is trying to create a brand. We are watching a process at work to destroy it.
A dozen Democrats are attempting to create their political identity on the national stage. For most Americans, and for every candidate except Sanders and Biden, we are getting first impressions. Voters are building a skeletal framework for an understanding them.
Meanwhile, opponents are busy.
By the day of the primary elections in the various states in 2020, the marginal voters--those voters who will vote but who are not engaged activists--will know perhaps seven things about a candidate. Many won't know seven, some of what they "know" will be incorrect.
That is the reality. People vote in ignorance, on impressions.
Amy Klobuchar, is busy trying to get known. I ask readers to take a moment right now. What do you know about her without a Google or Wikapedia search?
For me:
***Identity: She is a white woman.
***Job: She is a US Senator from Minnesota.
***Age: She is somewhere in mid-late middle age.
***Politics: She is a Democrat.
***Memorable incident: She announced in a snowstorm, because we remember a photo of her with snow in her hair and because Trump called her "snowball" or "snowflake" or something.
 |
| Fox, hijacking first impression |
***Personality: Seems pleasant, but I read that there is some problem with her being mean to staff.
***Bearing and tone: she seemed confident and self assured, without being over the top, but not particularly memorable yet.
That is seven. I am still learning. For a lot of people, that is all they will ever know.
Beyond that, I make some inferences.
My impression is that she surely must be less liberal/progressive than Bernie Sanders, because she got elected in moderate Minnesota and she has not been described as a close Bernie ally--which I would have heard if it were so.
What about policy details, on health care, taxes, war and peace?
I am unclear, although I assume, based on her being an incumbent Democrat in 2019, and that I have not heard to the contrary, that she probably is part of the policy consensus.
 |
| Vanity Fair. Click |
If she stays in the news I will be able to add a few additional items, much of which will depend on her bearing and tone. I will connect--or not--with her emotional valence, whether she seems engaging and credible, whether she seems confident and self possessed, whether she can be persuasive and acts and sounds like a leader.
Opponents are at work, making sure that one of the first things we know about her is her supposed petty and cruel behavior to staff.
When a voter knows little, it matters what is embedded in the brand skeleton. Humans have confirmation bias. We see what we are prepped to see, and in this case haughty Senatorial privilege, something which undermines branding that positions her as a powerful person who fights for the little guy.
This is a dangerous idea to be part of the seven. It undermines a notion of "Minnesota nice" and it undermines her positioning as a person who can win votes of working people in the upper midwest.
When a voter knows little, it matters what is embedded in the brand skeleton. Humans have confirmation bias. We see what we are prepped to see, and in this case haughty Senatorial privilege, something which undermines branding that positions her as a powerful person who fights for the little guy.
This is a dangerous idea to be part of the seven. It undermines a notion of "Minnesota nice" and it undermines her positioning as a person who can win votes of working people in the upper midwest.
What can Klobuchar do? 1. It would help if it were simply not true, because then the charge may run out of fuel. This may be hard. Having staff do things that benefit oneself personally is undeniably bad for her political brand. 2. Do what she has done: redefine incidents as examples of her being hard on herself on behalf of the public.
But this could be fatal. Opponents may have gotten too big a head start creating early impressions.
I Googled "Amy Klobuchar" and got these six stories at the top. Four of the six relate to behavior toward staff. This isn't a good sign. First impressions matter.
5 comments:
I don't think any of this will matter much until early next year. Democrats need two things to win:
1. Coherent policies that address the top issues facing us: Health care, climate change, and income inequality. With the latter it can be shown that Trump's lies promised a solution to the growing privation of the majority of Americans.
2. A sustained direct assault on Trump and all of his enablers.
If all the hopefuls unite on these fronts, and play nice with each other. It won't matter who is the candidate.
I find it disturbing to see negative displays about strong Democratic women cropping up in the media and being spread around. I find myself wondering what that is about, who's behind it, and thinking, Hmmmm. I think the media is falling into the same traps as in 2016. Sad, very sad.
I note that Amy Klobuchar is among them and that CNN is 1/3 of the 6 items that were referenced. I think that is also telling.
This is not listed as one of the 7 things about Amy, but it bothers me a great deal She is supporting legislation that would make it illegal for some people or organizations to boycott Israel. Wyden supported this as well. It is not anti-Semitic to criticize what the politicians in Israel are doing to the Palestinians. I would want some answers to that. It is our civil right to boycott.
Amy would have a better chance of winning if she were gay.
Identity politics wins.
-Kamala-
I have no trouble boycotting Israel for its treatment of Palestinians so long as those proposing it were also promoting a boycott of Saudi Arabia for how they treat women, China for how they treat their Muslim minority, Japan for how they treat Koreans...... did I miss anyone? In the absence of all those, yes, choosing only Israel as a boycott target is, indeed, anti-Semitic.
Post a Comment