Should be interesting to see Obama's address tonight. He seems to have simplified his messaging down to jobs and deficit reduction - I guess it's never too late to get it right. Why it took two years to steer the ship in this direction we'll never know, but at least it seems to have turned.
I think tonight's speech will set the tone for his presidential re-election campaign in two years time. He's got a tough road to haul as the question at election time is always the same "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
While the answer for most Americans would be yes (since two years ago the world was falling in to a proverbial abyss), Obama got elected on 'Change you can believe in' and so how he is evaluated will be slightly different than most presidents.
People won't just be asking whether they are better off, but also whether he delivered on what he promised - bipartisanship, ending the wars, closing Guantanamo Bay, controlling lobbyists, enabling fiscal prudence, and investment in education, innovation and jobs - in essence change.
So the president has to surround his 'jobs and deficit' speech with a laundry list of accomplishments that satisfy the change criteria. That would include changes to healthcare, getting BP to cough up $20B and overhauling financial regulatory reform.
But to be honest, I don't know if it's enough to rejuvenate the faith of the American people. Unemployment is near 10 per cent, those working are not keeping pace with inflation, and all-in-all the world isn't that much different than it was two years ago other than the banks are back on their feet.
So here is the $64,000 PR question... does Obama frame his time in office so far as a success, a poor performance, or a work in progress? A tradition politician would lead with the successes and frame everything else as a work in progress. And I think that's what Obama will probably do.
But I think there's a huge opportunity for Obama to use a different messaging strategy. I think what might work well (thinking two years down the line) is for Obama to open up with
"Government is still broken. Yes, we stopped the ship from sinking, but we've still got holes in the boat and we are not repairing them fast enough. We are not working together efficiently enough. We are not bringing down unemployment fast enough. And we are not investing in Americans enough. While we've had some tremendous successes, we've also failed to produce the level of change that I came to Washington to achieve."
I think given the suffering that most Americans are going through, this kind of blunt, tell it like everyone knows it is, theme would reinvigorate the American populous.
I think if he emphasizes his successes too much he sets up the scenario for losing his election in two years. Let's face it, people don't care about nuance and complexity, they don't equate 'better off' with 'not as worse off as you could have been' - it's just not how people think. Better off is always measured against the best days of their lives, whether that was five years ago, 15 years ago, or 40 years ago - and the truth is that most people do not feel better off in that context.
And if Obama makes the traditional mistake of ignoring people's pain and emphasizing that things really aren't that bad because of a laundry list of accomplishments, he will become seen as officially 'part of the system', as opposed to the agent of change that got him elected in the first place.
Should be interesting to watch. I hold out hope that Obama will take my tact and reinforce his personal brand of agent of change and man of the people. He's a brilliant communicator and so I'm giving it 50/50 odds that he goes this way.
I think tonight's speech will set the tone for his presidential re-election campaign in two years time. He's got a tough road to haul as the question at election time is always the same "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
While the answer for most Americans would be yes (since two years ago the world was falling in to a proverbial abyss), Obama got elected on 'Change you can believe in' and so how he is evaluated will be slightly different than most presidents.
People won't just be asking whether they are better off, but also whether he delivered on what he promised - bipartisanship, ending the wars, closing Guantanamo Bay, controlling lobbyists, enabling fiscal prudence, and investment in education, innovation and jobs - in essence change.
So the president has to surround his 'jobs and deficit' speech with a laundry list of accomplishments that satisfy the change criteria. That would include changes to healthcare, getting BP to cough up $20B and overhauling financial regulatory reform.
But to be honest, I don't know if it's enough to rejuvenate the faith of the American people. Unemployment is near 10 per cent, those working are not keeping pace with inflation, and all-in-all the world isn't that much different than it was two years ago other than the banks are back on their feet.
So here is the $64,000 PR question... does Obama frame his time in office so far as a success, a poor performance, or a work in progress? A tradition politician would lead with the successes and frame everything else as a work in progress. And I think that's what Obama will probably do.
But I think there's a huge opportunity for Obama to use a different messaging strategy. I think what might work well (thinking two years down the line) is for Obama to open up with
"Government is still broken. Yes, we stopped the ship from sinking, but we've still got holes in the boat and we are not repairing them fast enough. We are not working together efficiently enough. We are not bringing down unemployment fast enough. And we are not investing in Americans enough. While we've had some tremendous successes, we've also failed to produce the level of change that I came to Washington to achieve."
I think given the suffering that most Americans are going through, this kind of blunt, tell it like everyone knows it is, theme would reinvigorate the American populous.
I think if he emphasizes his successes too much he sets up the scenario for losing his election in two years. Let's face it, people don't care about nuance and complexity, they don't equate 'better off' with 'not as worse off as you could have been' - it's just not how people think. Better off is always measured against the best days of their lives, whether that was five years ago, 15 years ago, or 40 years ago - and the truth is that most people do not feel better off in that context.
And if Obama makes the traditional mistake of ignoring people's pain and emphasizing that things really aren't that bad because of a laundry list of accomplishments, he will become seen as officially 'part of the system', as opposed to the agent of change that got him elected in the first place.
Should be interesting to watch. I hold out hope that Obama will take my tact and reinforce his personal brand of agent of change and man of the people. He's a brilliant communicator and so I'm giving it 50/50 odds that he goes this way.
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