"Accidental genius" and the secrets of Barack Obama's success

The reasons for Barack Obama’s success – and John McCain’s failure – have been succinctly summed up by, of all people, George W. Bush.

[Before you say “yes, but Obama hasn’t won yet”, fear not – I learnt the hard way about the difference between political chickens and eggs, some 25 years ago. My point is, Obama is ahead and is clearly winning the official campaign.]

Over the weekend, the New York Times Magazine featured this fascinating article, by Robert Draper, on John McCain’s continuing failure to find a compelling narrative for his campaign. It focuses heavily on the role of his chief campaign strategist, Stephen Schmidt. He was in charge of rapid rebuttal on Bush’s 2004 campaign. Schmidt recalls a meeting with Bush at a stage of the campaign, when things weren’t looking too good. Still, the president remained very confident.

“There’s an accidental genius to the way Americans pick a president, Schmidt remembers Bush saying that day. By the end of it all, a candidate’s true character is revealed to the American people.”

A bit later, Draper explains:

“What campaigns peddle is not simply character but character as defined by story — a tale of opposing forces that in its telling will memorably establish what a given election is about.”

The gruelling campaign of 2008 has given both candidates plenty of opportunities to tell and to live their stories, so that the voters can work out or, perhaps more accurately, gain an intuitive sense of whom they want to see in the Oval Office.

In promising “change”, Obama has found the ideal narrative for a disgruntled, discontented electorate, whose demographics are changing and shifting. A post-baby boom, biracial first-term Democratic senator certainly represents a new face, a new direction, a new sense of possibilities. (For instance, he promises that an “Apollo project for energy independence” will be his first priority in office.) His “change” story meets the needs of the voters he seeks. Obama has stuck to his story all year.

Whatever has been thrown at him, Obama has held his nerve. Time magazine’s Joe Klein, has written an insightful piece on Obama’s campaign and why he is winning. He describes how Obama has developed over this year, becoming more confident and steadier in his gut instincts. Klein concludes:

“Obama has . . . remained levelheaded through a season of political insanity. His has been a remarkable campaign, as smoothly run as any I've seen in nine presidential cycles. Even more remarkable, Obama has made race — that perennial, gaping American wound — an afterthought. He has done this by introducing a quality to American politics that we haven't seen in quite some time: maturity. He is undoubtedly as ego-driven as everyone else seeking the highest office — perhaps more so, given his race, his name and his lack of experience. But he has not been childishly egomaniacal, in contrast to our recent baby-boomer Presidents — or petulant, in contrast to his opponent. He does not seem needy. He seems a grown-up, in a nation that badly needs some adult supervision.”

McCain, by contrast, has failed to present a coherent, consistent story. Is he the straight-talking, maverick Republican senator who used to travel outside his party’s comfort zone on issues like taxes and global warming? Or the true conservative, who did a U-turn on Bush’s tax cuts?

McCain should have had a better chance when it came to telling a story about “true character”. McCain’s personal story, the reckless flyboy who was a POW and then a courageous patriot, has been part of American folklore for at least a decade. But Draper explains in detail how his campaign has agonized --and failed -- over how to turn the McCain “metanarrative”, into a winning campaign story. Why America should elect (as opposed to simply admiring) McCain?

Draper dissects the five – yes, five - McCain campaign narratives over the last year and says:

“In constantly alternating among story lines in order to respond to changing events and to gain traction with voters, the “true character” of a once-crisply-defined political figure has become increasingly murky.”

The campaign has seen some big dramatic set-pieces in which candidates have been able to act out their “true characters” – their integrity, temperament and judgement.

First, their choices of vice-presidential running mates. McCain’s hasty choice of Sarah Palin demonstrated his weakness as a potential president. As Draper tells it, McCain’s advisers were looking for a media celebrity; they did not stop to consider her inexperience or lack of knowledge about the issues. McCain met with her only briefly and seems to have fallen into the same traps. By contrast, Obama’s decision to go with Joe Biden was made quietly and carefully.

Palin put McCain into the lead in the first two weeks in September. [click here]. But she is now a drag on the Republican ticket. ABC’s pollster Gary Langer reported yesterday that 52 percent of likely voters now say that McCain's selection of Sarah Palin makes them less confident in his judgment.

Second, the way the two candidates handled the financial crisis at the end of September. McCain suspended his campaign, threatened to scuttle the first debate and caught a plane back to Washington to work with administration and congressional leaders to resolve the crisis. McCain’s advisers promised that their man would thrash out a solution -- and thereby advance his “character” narrative. But McCain’s contribution was risible. Says Draper:

"Scene by scene, McCain failed to deliver the performance that had been promised. ... [Given] a chance to show what kind of president he might be, McCain came off more like a stymied bystander than a leader who could make a difference."

To the consternation of some leading Democrats, Obama insisted on debating, as well as participating in the financial talks. McCain demurred. Klein says that:

“Obama’s gut steadiness . . . won the public’s trust and quite possibly the election.”

[See my earlier blog on how the cool, calm and disciplined Obama faced up against the “hot” and frenetic McCain]

Klein may well be correct. The financial crisis appears to have been a major turning point in the campaign. The RCP Poll Average of ratings shows that, at the end of September (when the crisis broke), Obama was just 2 percentage points ahead of McCain. This followed a difficult summer and McCain’s brief ascendancy following his convention. Obama’s lead climbed all through the first part of October to reach 7 per cent, dipped a bit in the third week, and is now back to 6 points.

RCP also shows that, over summer, Obama’s net “favourable” rating was between 18 and 21 points. After slumping in the second half of September, it recovered at the end of that month and has been on the up for most of October. His net “favourable” rating now stands at a steady 22 points.

McCain also had a net “favourable” rating, of between 16 and 20 points, over the summer. But at the end of September it collapsed, to 11 points. McCain’s net “favourable” rating has kept on falling and now stands at just 8 points.

Last week, the ABC’s Gary Langer also showed how voters seem to have become convinced about Obama’s character and competence, whilst McCain’s negative politics has failed to have the desired effect. Yesterday, he found that likely voters give Obama a 4-point lead on whom they trust more to handle an unexpected crisis, compared to McCain’s 17-point advantage after the Republican convention. Obama also has a big lead for having the best personality and temperament to be president; but then he has had big leads on that one all year.

The “accidental genius” works in Westminster-type elections too – even though it may be called “comparative credibility”. And our elections are becoming more “presidential” all the time. In 1992, British voters sensed that Neil Kinnock and Labour were not quite ready to govern. Tony Blair was unpopular in 2005 but still more credible than the main alternative. The same test worked for Australia’s John Howard, at least twice. Howard lost in 2007 when he lost touch with the electorate on the big issues and the Australian Labor Party found a credible leader.

Big long list of policies, anyone?

[Thanks to my sister Louise and my friend Redmer for putting me on to the NY Times Magazine article]

An end to Nixonland?

If Barack Obama wins the presidency, he may put an end to one of the most significant and malevolent political phenomena of our lifetime.

In his brilliant book, Nixonland, Rick Perlstein explains how Richard Nixon came "to power by using the anger, anxieties, and resentments produced by the cultural chaos of the 1960s." 

He defines Nixonland as the state of total political warfare over class and cultural conflicts.

A disgraced Richard Nixon left the White House in 1974. But Nixonland, pitting the “silent majority” vs. the “liberal elites”, ramming racial and cultural wedges through the electorate, remained a staple of American politics for thirty-odd years. Ronald Reagan told stories about welfare queens. In 1988, George H.W. Bush used convicted rapist Willie Horton as a metaphor to depict his Democratic rival as soft on crime.  John Kerry was swiftboated in 2004.  In each of those cases, Nixonland worked.  And conservatives have set the American political agenda for the last four decades. Democrats have occupied the White House only three times since 1968. Bill Clinton worked with this grain, not against it, especially on big policy issues like welfare reform.

Let’s not be too morally superior over the Americans. Nixonland has also oozed its way into the politics of other countries with which I am familiar. Margaret Thatcher shrewdly played the immigration card in the late 1970s. Later, she used crime and defence as wedge issues. (The Conservatives’ 2005 campaign was a case study in dog whistle politics.) 

Another long-serving prime minister, John Howard, tapped into Australia’s cultural divides. These tactics came to a head with the Tampa election of 2001. False reports that asylum seekers were throwing their children overboard in an attempt to blackmail their way into Australia, prompted Howard's notorious campaign slogan: "We decide who will come into this country." 

New Zealand readers may recall the National Party’s 1975 election campaign. For part of their tv ad on the cities (really about immigration), click here. The Nats’ (narrowly unsuccessful) 2005 campaign was also made in Nixonland.

Back to the US election. Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries marked another signpost. Nixonland cannot be separated from the politics of her 1960s baby boomer generation. It takes two sides to fight a culture war, after all. And Hillary Clinton played with the fire.  She told 60 Minutes that Obama was not a Muslim, “as far as I know”. Her “3 a.m. phone call” ad reframed the Texas primary as being about national security. 

Now Obama gets to take on the real thing. The New Republic’s Howard Wolfson says:

"John McCain, raised in Nixonland, calls Senator Obama a socialist, trots out a plumber to stoke class and cultural resentments, and employs his Vice-President [sic] to question Obama's patriotism by linking him to terrorists. Nixonland 101 -- and if its rules still applied, Senator Obama would be in trouble."

 

Wolfson argues that the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, and the economic turmoil have shattered the foundations of Republican dominance. America’s demographics are very different from Nixon’s time. 

"The old tactics aren't working and the American public is ready for change. Senator McCain seems old, and tired, as if he is speaking an ancient language."

With American conservatism in retreat and the baby boomers seeing their time passing, Barack Obama could have a unique opportunity to change the face of American politics. His speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention gave some early clues as to what his new politics may be about:

"there's not a liberal America and a conservative America — there's the United States of America." 

So did his major speech on race in March. Writing during the summer about Obama’s victory over Senator Clinton, Gail Sheehy said:

"Hillary’s campaign had failed to understand that America was in the midst of a national passage from the old-style confrontational politics of the boomer generation—a divisiveness perfected by both the Clinton and Bush administrations—into a new style of Netroots politics, open-sourced and inclusive, multi-racial and multicultural."

We can but hope.

McCain vs. his narrative - a quick update

Here’s a quick update on John McCain’s sterling efforts to wreck his own brand. To use the lingo, he no longer embodies his narrative – and he’s done it all by himself.

McCain was the meant to be the straight-talking, non-partisan breath of fresh air. Lately, he's looked more like a risk-taking, negative-campaigning Republican.

The original, "good" McCain seemed to turn up for most of the second tv debate. The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne jr. asked:

"Who is the real John McCain? Is he the man who used to tout himself as a problem-solver, or is he the desperate candidate who lurches from attack to attack?"

But since then ABC’s pollster Gary Langer has found that voters, by a 24-point margin, say that McCain is more focused on attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues. In August, that margin was just 3 points. And voters, by a 42-point margin, think that Obama is mainly addressing the issues, rather than going negative. Rasmussen Reports has found that Obama is seen more favourably than McCain.

The new figures follow McCain’s harsher attacks on Barack Obama and Sarah Palin’s accusations that the Democratic nominee has been “palling around with terrorists”.

Jafapete summed it up earlier this week when he invited the embattled Republican nominee to take a reality check.

"You’ve managed to screw your own brand, without so much as smudging your opponent’s. You were supposed to be the straight-talking, independent-minded, tough, honourable one, remember? The war hero who could keep a cool head in times of crisis. When people are losing their jobs, homes and pension savings, they expect a little more than vague fear mongering about rather tenuous associations with a couple who never actually harmed anyone, a long time ago. The voters think that you’re more interested in personality attacks than policies. And they’re right."

Cool Obama, Hot McCain

The importance of personal heuristics (mental short cuts) based on

presidential candidates’ (for which read, party leaders’) character and narratives is being highlighted yet again. Character and narrative are helping to tilt the presidential election contest Barack Obama’s way.

Just after the first presidential candidates’ debate – and McCain's abrupt and somewhat weird foray into Washington's negotiations
over a Wall Street bailout bill, followed by his unsuccessful attempt to postpone the debate -- E.J. Dionne jr. observed:

“McCain, once the candidate of tested experience, must now battle the perception that he has become the riskier choice, a man too given to rash moves under pressure. Obama, whose very newness promised change but also raised doubts, has emerged as the cool and unruffled candidate who moves calmly but steadily forward.”

The New York Times’ Patrick Healy has explained the two candidates’ actions over the bailout bill like this:

"Mr. McCain, who came of age in a chain-of-command culture, showed once again that he believes that individual leaders can play a catalytic role and should use the bully pulpit to push politicians. Mr. Obama, who came of age as a community organizer, showed once again that he believes several minds are better than one, and that, for all of his oratorical skill, he is wary of too much showmanship."

Some commentators who are less sympathetic to Obama have reached similar conclusions. Charles Krauthammer has noted that, with all the fundamentals favouring the opposition, McCain has little choice but to “throw long”. Each time, it has failed.

“[McCain’s] frenetic improvisation has perversely (for him) framed the rookie challenger favorably as calm, steady and cool.

“In the primary campaign, Obama was cool as in hip. Now Obama is cool as in collected. He has the discipline to let slow and steady carry him to victory.

Krauthammer’s key point is that:

“[Obama] understands that this election, like the election of 1980, demands only one thing of the challenger: Make yourself acceptable. Once Ronald Reagan convinced America that he was not menacing, he won in a landslide. If Obama convinces the electorate that he is not too exotic or green or unprepared, he wins as well.”

Since the convention Obama has altered the tone and style of his campaign, to be moderate in policy and temper; acceptable, be cool, and reassuring.

Barack Obama’s new persona carries some risks. For instance, he may not appear to empathise sufficiently with the deep anger and anxiety that many Americans feel about the economy. And McCain’s approach may yet be vindicated. Jafapete notes that McCain’s campaign director Steve Schmidt, who learnt his dark arts at the feet of Karl Rove, is a believer in the Boyd cycle, an approach to military engagement that seeks to overcome a superior opponent by means of rapid movements that disorient and confuse, and cause him to over-react or under-react. September may have been Obama’s month, but August was McCain’s.

There’s still a long way to go. As Jafapete says:

"Expect to overdose on fear and smear in the coming weeks. The celebrity ad worked a treat, and there’s plenty more negative ads where that came from."

Right now, however, both candidates have shifted the centre of gravity of (but not rewritten) their narratives – John McCain from warrior-in-command towards a feckless risk-taker and Barack Obama from unfamiliar outsider to calm, thoughtful decision-maker.

Myths, legends and why Churchill and Thatcher may be Nick Clegg's biggest challenge

What interesting times we live in! One thing that many voters say they don’t like about Gordon Brown is that he’s been in office too long. Now the PM says that “experience” is a good reason to trust him and many people seem to agree. David Cameron has spent nearly three years trying to be everyone’s little friend. But in yesterday’s conference speech, he presented himself as a Thatcher-style conviction politician, ready to take tough, unpopular decisions.

What’s really going on here is a lot of myth-making and story-telling. Well, it’s more than that. Both the Labour and Tory leaders are trying not to be “out-mythed”. And they are both trying very hard to change their narratives.

Check out this fascinating article by Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University. He writes about America’s “true” election campaign . . .

“. . . the deep campaign, the subsurface campaign, which concerns not just what the candidates say but who they are and what they represent -- what they
symbolize.

“The candidates become, in a sense, walking archetypes. To warm to a candidate is to align not just with a person but with a myth, an ideal.”

What makes the 2008 contest so intriguing, says Gitlin, is that it pitches against each other two archetypes: one familiar, one unfamiliar. John McCain is the rugged, plain-spoken, straight-shooting; a John Wayne, take-charge, warrior-in-command –type. Republican-leaning voters like that. Remember Ronald Reagan and both Bushes.

According to Gitlin, Barack Obama is the quintessential exotic outsider. He hails from exotic Hawaii, foreign Indonesia, “elegant Harvard” and “down-and-dirty Chicago”, all at the same time! He is also, in some respects, an intellectual and, yes, a celebrity. He scrambles the stereotypes, jumbles up the myths and symbols and represents the unfamiliar.

“So that’s the clash. McCain, the known quantity, the maverick turned lawman, fiery when called on to fight, an icon of the old known American story of standing tall, holding firm, protecting God’s country against the stealthy foe. Obama is the new kid on the block, the immigrant’s child, the recruit, fervent but still preternaturally calm, embodying some complicated future that we haven’t yet mapped, let alone experienced. He is impure — the walking, talking melting pot in person. In his person, the next America is still taking shape.

“The warrior turned lawman confronts the community organizer turned law professor. The sheriff (who married the heiress) wrestles with the outsider who rode into town and made a place for himself. No wonder this race is thrilling and tense. America is struggling to fasten a name on its soul.”

British politics may seem more sophisticated, the discourse more party- and policy-oriented and less personal. The voters are probably less credulous than their American cousins, their prevailing myths and legends more subtle and refined. Perhaps: the British sense of shared identity may be clearer, making the “culture wars” less important (amongst the dominant groups) than across the Atlantic.

We shouldn’t brush aside the power of archetypes too easily though. Previous prime ministers have evoked mythical symbols. Margaret Thatcher did Elizabeth I and Churchill at different times. John Major morphed from decent guy next door to hapless, almost comedic man-out-of-his-depth. Tony Blair was the charming, youthful, urban family man who would renew Britain; later, he was the doughty war leader, the Christian soldier who would boldly defend his island nation. And leaders are surely now more important than ever before in shaping voter perceptions of the UK parties.

If Gordon Brown has evoked any myth over the last year, it’s a dismal one: the stolid, over-serious, long-serving number two and pretender to the throne who finally becomes the king and fails utterly to rally the nation. You are more likely to find his archetype in Greek or Shakespearean tragedies – or perhaps, TV dramas and comedies -- than in the nobler pages of political history. People see it though: why else did Vince Cable’s “from Stalin to Mr Bean” gibe work so well?

David Cameron’s personal narrative has been remarkably similar to Blair’s. He has posed as the youthful agent of change who has made over his party and promises to do the same for the country. But many people still don’t see the plan, the end of the story. Nor is there a well-understood story of political struggle. Whereas Blair took on his party and won, with a symbolic triumph -- the end of Clause IV-- Cameron’s old Tory dragon has not been slain so much as chloroformed out of choice.

Since the nightmare on Wall Street, Gordon Brown has seized the opportunity to convert his existing narrative into a new archetype: the wise man; stead hand at the tiller, the calm and experienced manager of a crisis. The PM invited people to compare that with the “novice” David Cameron. (What a frame!) The ComRes poll in Tuesday’s Independent suggested that his new gambit could work, at least for a time.

Cameron tried to share some of the neo-Churchillian glow by looking stern and serious and publicly offering to help the government where he can. After all, Tony Blair’s original “have it all ways” brand of politics was born of good times and would be little use in a recession. But if all Cameron does is follow Brown, he risks becoming irrelevant and also closing off his political options for the future. His narrative could leave him behind meaning that a new one was needed. So, in his conference speech, Cameron evoked the myth of Margaret Thatcher, claiming that he has the judgment, character and leadership skills to rebuild Britain’s economy and society. The Tories loved it.

Whether that works for Cameron or not, Nick Clegg needs to gain a good part in this morality play. When it comes to archetypes and symbols, his options seem pretty limited. Past Liberal heroes? Even if they fitted, the likes of Asquith and Lloyd George wouldn’t be much help. A century on, most voters aren’t familiar with their myths or their rhetoric. Vince Cable, the party’s plain-speaking, well-respected authority on economic matters? Nick Clegg can’t plausibly claim to be someone else who is still very active in politics, though Vince is becoming part of the Lib Dem brand.

Nick Clegg’s best (and, I suspect, most likely) persona could be as a kind of outside, independent voice in the system, who looks out for “ordinary people” and demands financial policies that put them first. There is a parallel with Obama, in that’s not a familiar archetype. It could mean taking a few calculated political risks, but without stumbling down the path of cheap, anti-banker populism. What I am suggesting is that the Lib Dems should combine speaking up for ordinary people with sound thinking and straight talk on economic policy.

If you think that sounds too clever, remember that empathy with “ordinary people” is becoming central to the party’s brand once again. It also seems that Nick can embody such a narrative, with Vince Cable doing the same for the party’s economic credibility. And after all, something similar ending up working well for Charles Kennedy on Iraq (though Charles did not know that before he took the position he did). Maybe there’s a Liberal Democrat political myth, an archetype in the making. One vital, positive point is that we believe it.

Meet Nick Clegg, heuristic

Over the past week, there have been signs of major progress in the Liberal Democrats’ efforts to communicate with the outside world.

Let’s start with Framing Science, who cite a new survey on why people are planning to vote for either Barack Obama or John McCain. Obama voters are motivated by the promise of “change” more than anything else. McCain supporters are most likely to explain their vote with references to McCain's experience and qualifications.

Where the candidates stand on policies and issues came way down both lists. For instance, just 1 per cent of voters cited the environment or global warming as the main driver of their vote.

Framing Science says:

"It's often heuristics based on personal characteristics and narrative that matter, rather than the issues."

A heuristic is like a mental short cut. A couple of years ago, Dr Claire Robinson of Massey University in New Zealand, who specialises in political marketing and communications, explained how it works, in an e-mail to me:

". . . Narratives act as heuristic cues for low awareness voters. When people lack motivation or ability to decipher an issue, they rely on peripheral cues. "

She then talked about the part played by affective narrative – a story or brand that works at an emotional, intuitive level – and the crucial role of a party leader.

"Affective narrative[s] operate as a peripheral cue when people aren’t knowledgeable about an issue or party; they enable voters to follow gut feeling. Leaders also act as heuristic cues. If is often much easier for voters to relate on a personal level to ‘real’ people than abstract policies, especially if there’s some kind of narrative attached to the person as well. "

Dr Robinson stressed the importance of reaching ‘low awareness voters’, who are more likely to decide who to vote for late in a campaign.

"They are more likely to invoke heuristics . . . that enable them to reduce the time needed to process complex political information and make their voting decisions without much effort. These heuristics are frequently found in advertising messages, news stories, newspaper headlines, and billboard slogans. "

She has also found evidence that campaign communications are more likely to have an impact if the campaign is more intensive, competitive and receives more media coverage.

As I have argued many times, the Liberal Democrats have traditionally been muc better at providing detailed policies than these kinds of narratives and shortcuts -- though Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy both, in time, became electoral assets for the party. Having a lot of words is part of the party’s communications culture. Changing it will not be easy.

If a leader is a key heuristic, can Nick Clegg be an asset for the Liberal Democrats, just as David Cameron is an asset for the Tories and Gordon Brown is liability for Labour?

Last weekend, in a bloggers’ interview session, I asked Nick how he might embody a party narrative that is becoming centred on the concepts of “fairness” and “social justice”, as well as “changing politics”. Nick replied that he didn’t try to hold himself up as a “paragon of virtue” and added that he and his wife both earn well. Then he explained that he is not a typical Westminster politician. Nick was confident that people will be able to relate to him as a “real person” (my words not his), outside the political context.

Embodying a narrative is not really about being perfect manifestation of it; you simply need to illustrate or reflect the story in some way. It could be easier than Nick may think! In Thursday night’s edition of Newsnight, the American focus group meister Frank Luntz showed how our leader might embody the Lib Dem narrative. A focus group of floating voters saw Gordon Brown as indecisive and confused and David Cameron as Blair Mark II. But when they were showed clips of Nick speaking at conference about the “messed up” tax system and Gordon Brown’s lack of vision, the scores on the people meters shot up. Almost everyone had a positive reaction. Many said they will consider voting Liberal Democrat.

The comments that Luntz took from some of the floating voters about the clip on tax were especially interesting:

"It’s as if he didn’t have an angle to it – what he said, I believed him.”

“A lot more credible. He seems to be talking at a level people on the ground can understand.”

“. . . About the normally people basically paying more tax than the rich people. . . I really agreed [with him].”

“We don’t have any preconceptions . . . we’re starting from neutral ground . . .”

“. . . Whether he can ever deliver it is a different matter.”

There may not be an Obama-style story attached to Nick, but he could provide people with a quick way of understanding what the Liberal Democrats offer. Compare the above comments – yes, from just one focus group – with the findings of the 2008 Times-Populus conference poll on the Liberal Democrats, released last Monday, during conference.

On five out of eight measures of the main characteristics of parties, the Lib Dems are now regarded more favourably than either Labour or the Conservatives. For instance, 63 per cent say the Lib Dems are “for ordinary people, not just the best off”. Three voters in five say the Lib Dems care about the problems faced by ordinary people; a similar number see us as honest and principled. A majority say the party understands the way people live their lives. All of these ratings have leapt up in the last year. But two in three agreed that “it doesn't make any difference what policies the Lib Dems put forward because they have no realistic chance of ever putting them into practice, so ultimately they'll always be just a protest vote party at national level.”

So a Liberal Democrat narrative is taking shape – or, perhaps being re-established. It’s about empathy, understanding ordinary people and being honest. (Note how this is not the same thing as simply using he word "fairness" a lot) And it seems that Nick Clegg can embody the narrative.

There are two cavils, apart from the obvious counter-story, that we can’t win. One is that the party has a natural tendency to list issues and policies, rather than telling a story in interesting ways. There was a bit of that when we saw Nick Clegg last Saturday. The party’s post-conference party political broadcast, on Thursday night, was really anoter litany of policies. If we have a compelling story, we should take every opportunity to tell it.

The second is Nick’s low profile and, as he told the blogger-interviewers last weekend, that may take time to solve.

But at least there’s a story and someone who can tell it, in a way that people will listen and believe. That’s no mean feat.

After all the glitz, US voters don't get the full story

So, the Republicans and Democrats have finished their conventions. Which of the candidates, John McCain or Barack Obama, is telling the strongest story?

The answer is, neither.  That may explain why they are, in effect, tied in the latest opinion polls.

Since he first ran for the Republican nomination in 2000 – and got wasted by the Bush-Rove attack machine – McCain’s narrative has been about a straight-talking, maverick Republican who took on his own party, over taxes, campaign finance reform, climate change, environmental regulation, stem cell research and immigration. The message is that he could rise above party and clean up Washington.

By the beginning of this year, however, McCain had moved back to the right, for instance on oil drilling, to immigration to tax cuts for the wealthy. Hardly surprising, that’s where the votes were in the Republican primaries. Over the summer, the new, conservative McCain took on some of Bush’s team and got nasty, trying to paint Obama as an out-of-touch, elitist, snob – not “one of us”. This sort of toxic politics oozed through the Republican convention. McCain’s gang continued to play on what they see as voters’ resentment at liberal political elites who seem to look down on them. Paul Krugman has brilliantly dissected the sheer cynicism of this Nixonian ploy.

Then, in his (mediocre) convention speech on Thursday night, Americans mainly saw the old John McCain, speaking with quiet civility about fighting corruption, acknowledging that the Republicans “had lost the trust” of the American people and deploring “the constant partisan rancour that stops us from solving” problems. Senator McCain promised to reach out to “any willing patriot [and] make this government start working for you again” to use "the best ideas from both sides" and "ask Democrats and independents to serve with me.”

As E.J. Dionne jr. points out, the Republican nominee no longer embodies this narrative:

. . . because McCain has capitulated to the very Washington he condemned [on Thursday] and is employing the very tactics that were used ruthlessly and unfairly against him when he first ran for president eight years ago.

McCain is trying to run with these two different narratives by, in the words of the New York Times, “talking loftily of bipartisanship [while] allowing his team to savage his opponent.” The latter will be Sarah Palin’s one of main jobs, with her deliberate distortions of Barack Obama’s policies, eloquence and record. (McCain also questioned his opponents’ patriotism and Obama’s position on energy.) The logic is a bit strained but this gambit worked – just - for George W. Bush. How’s that for cynicism?

There’s more: McCain and co. will also try to bridge these two narratives by using an even bolder one: “reform”, which became the watchword of the Republican convention, appearing no fewer than 11 times in McCain’s own speech. They are trying to steal Obama’s “change” narrative. 

Where the story runs aground though is that it’s not exactly clear what McCain’s “reform” means. Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post says:

"In McCain's attempt to fire up the Republican base without losing his "maverick" image, calls for reform have come to mean a pledge to "change" Washington -- with little explanation of what that change would be or how that change would take effect. "

Is “reform” in Washington about programmes, systems, or governing style?  We haven't been told.  And:

"It does not appear to have much to do with campaign finance reform, immigration reform, reforming the selection and confirmation of judges -- all issues that McCain had something to do with and have helped define his career in the Senate."

The reason is obvious: these issues would drive wedges between McCain and the conservative voters, lobbies and dollars that he needs. And what would he do for people struggling with rising bills and worried about losing their jobs?

That leaves McCain’s story only half built. Successful narratives aren’t just about personal stories and records, which McCain’s speech emphasised. They are also about issues and policies, framed these days as “solutions”. The two need to work together, with the candidate’s (or party’s) persona making the policy narrative more authentic.

Obama should have the edge. His promise of change is more credible. He can embody that narrative. [click here] He is new to Washington, unlike McCain, and the Democrats have been out of the White House for nearly eight years. But his economic narrative has still not struck a chord with voters.

The conservative pundit Michael Barone believes that both candidates have a problem:

"The Obama convention contended that the Democratic nominees understood people's woes from personal experience and that their programs would provide economic security. But the substance of those programs -- refundable tax credits (i.e., payments to those who pay no income tax) and a national health insurance option -- are unfamiliar to voters, and their details can be hard to explain.

"The McCain convention's thesis is that higher taxes on high earners in a time of slow growth will squelch the economy (this was Herbert Hoover's policy, after all).

These assertions, too, are unfamiliar to voters. And, up to this point in the campaign, neither party has set out its programs clearly (or characterized the other side's fairly)."

On energy, the other big issue of the campaign so far, this is playing out in the much the same way.

Neither Obama nor McCain will prevail until they have got their narratives together, the policy and the personal.

Still, supporters of political parties in the UK shouldn’t be too judgemental. None of them has got the story mix right. Despite the progress that’s been made on policy stories this year, that includes the Liberal Democrats.

If you read only one thing about Barack Obama or John McCain or Sarah Palin this week, make it . . .

. . . this piece by Drew Westen, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.

Westen makes some pertinent points about the Democrats' need to create a brand for the McCain and Palin, before the Republicans put their own brand into voters' minds. And he provides some useful expalanations about how narratives and counter-stories change voters' perceptions.

Westen describes the 2008 Democratic Convention as “simply stunning, with multiple-base hits by many of the players and triples or homeruns by all its superstars.”

At the end of a highly excited summary of what happened in Denver, he says:

"In my book, The Political Brain, I argued that if you do exactly what the Democrats did last week--both inspire voters with your vision of what could be and raise legitimate anger or concern about what your opponent and his party have done or likely will do--you win elections. . .

"The convention reversed the momentum of a dreadful July and August campaign that made every standard Democratic error outlined in the book, starting with the campaign's stubborn refusal to brand McCain before he could brand himself or to respond to his successful efforts to brand Obama--as other, different, empty celebrity, uppity, narcissistic, and elitist."

But then Westen worries that Obama and the Democrats may fail to be tough enough with McCain and co. They need to fight fire with fire.

"We are supposed to be the party of science, yet we constantly practice political creationism.

(Ouch! Does that remind you of anyone you know?)

"A case in point is the way the Obama campaign appears poised to respond (or, more accurately, not to respond) to McCain's choice of a running mate, which they need to do immediately, before the start of the GOP Convention. Paul Begala has described how the narratives that sway the electorate are like constellations of stars in the sky. If your opponent picks and chooses just the right stars to place in the sky (and which ones to leave out, because they get in the way of the story he is trying to tell), he can create a constellation that shines like stars on a crystal clear night, whether that constellation is one designed to make his own stars twinkle or your candidate's stars flame out or obscured by cloud cover.

"It's a campaign's job to put the right stars up in the sky to create the constellations that tell the story it wants to tell about both its own candidate and its opponent. In the language of neuroscience, a campaign needs to connect the dots for voters to create networks of associations--an interconnected set of thoughts, images, ideas, metaphors, and feelings--toward each candidate that tell a compelling story about each, and to repeat that those stories enough times and in enough ways to make them "stick."

Westen explains:

"It is much harder to change an accepted narrative, particularly an emotionally compelling one, than to undercut it before it can take hold in the popular imagination. You don't want to let the other side blaze a neural trail in the wilderness (in this case, defining a political newcomer) that becomes the trail voters' minds naturally follow and then resist deviating from because it is the first and only story being told, without offering a counter-narrative that creates very different associations and activates very different feelings toward the candidates (in this case, toward both McCain and Palin).

"The constellation McCain would like to project this week is that this was a bold move of a maverick reformer, an effort to break the glass ceiling for women, an effort to bring executive experience to his team, and the elevation to prominence of a young, socially conservative reformer with a moving story of her commitment to the crusade against all abortions."

Westen offers three, hard-edged counter-stories to break McCain's constellation. And then comes the hard stuff.

"Palin may be a woman, but she does not share the agenda of any woman who voted for Hillary Clinton (and Democrats should speak out against the implication that she is picking up where Hillary Clinton, a woman of tremendous stature who could have assumed the role of commander-in-chief in a heartbeat, left off). Rather, the position she and others on the right have articulated [on abortion] gives every rapist the right to pick the mother of his child. That position is tantamount to a Rapist's Bill of Rights, which privileges the rights of rapists and child molesters over the rights of their victims. Those are McCain-Palin's "family values," and they are not mainstream American values. "

Later, he concludes:

"Palin's nomination is one that should put the nails in the coffin of McCain's candidacy in the wake of the extraordinary success of the Democratic Convention. It exposes both a poverty of judgment and a surfeit of hypocrisy and pandering to both the religious right and to the female center. But if the Democrats do not act before the GOP Convention, McCain's reckless move could become transformed by the media and then the public into the bold move of a straight-talking maverick with the foresight to catch a rising star.

"That's a story that should never be allowed to reach the moment of conception.”

Personal stories, truth and the art of political war

Leading Liberal Democrats heading to Denver, Colorado for the Democratic National Convention will be able to see how Barack Obama uses his personal story to present himself as the man of destiny, part of America’s unfolding history and, importantly, the man with a vision for America’s future.

The American political pundit Michael Barone notes Gallup poll data showing that nominees got a 5 percent or better opinion poll bounce from 14 of the 16 national conventions between 1976 and 2004. Bill Clinton got the biggest bounce (30 points) in 1992, but John “reporting for duty” Kerry actually lost ground in 2004.

No, personal stories aren’t just a schmaltzy American thing. Remember Margaret Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter from Grantham and then John “the boy from Brixton” Major, in the run-up to the 1992 election.

The interesting thing is how the stories will stand up under heavy fire. Barone thinks that:

"The Democrats can usually depend on the mainstream media accepting their narratives uncritically, while the Republicans can expect them to punch holes in their storylines."

He goes on to list aspects of the Obama narrative that the media may like to scrutinise.

Fair enough. But they also may like to take a more careful look at the personal story being spun by John McCain, whom the New York Times columnist Frank Rich has dubbed “the candidate we still don’t know”.

McCain’s story is that, on Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the religious right and sleazy influence peddlers, the hero who survived the Hanoi Hilton has stood up as rebelliously in Washington as he did to his Vietnamese captors.

But Rich says that with the exception of his imprisonment in North Vietnam, “every aspect of [McCain’s] profile in courage is inaccurate or defunct”. This extends from McCain’s carefully assembled image of the Republican maverick who criticises the Bush Administration to his links to the intolerant religious right and to the fact that “McCain’s top officials and fund-raisers have past financial ties to nearly every domestic and foreign flashpoint, from Fannie Mae to Blackwater to Ahmad Chalabi to the government of Georgia.”

So far, McCain is getting away with it, with very little media scrutiny.

Let's assume that Michael Barone is correct and Obama is also getting a free pass. Don’t worry, the Republican attack machine will not be so generous. In a brilliant piece in the Washington Post, Michael Kinsley shows how they do it:

"Most amazing among the principles of the Republican Way of War is: Don't waste much time and energy probing the enemy's weaknesses. Go directly to his biggest strength. "

In 1988, the Republicans turned Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis, who came from humble beginnings, into an elitist and George H.W. Bush, a privileged, preppie Ivy Leaguer, into a “good old boy”. In 2004, they attacked John Kerry’s war service in Vietnam, despite the fact that George W. Bush, not only had avoided Vietnam by joining the National Guard but had avoided much of the National Guard. In both cases, the media helped, if only through negligence in some case.

Kinsley suggests that in 2008, they will turn their guns on Barack Obama’s charisma and eloquence:

". . . as if popularity itself were a disqualifying factor and whoever draws the larger crowds is by definition the lesser candidate. "

This type of counter-story telling happens in the UK too. The Liberal Democrats are often accused of being “all things to all people”, lacking in real beliefs, and worse. The Lib Dems have been unequivocal on big issues – see Iraq, ID cards and nuclear power – and opinion leaders in others, such as Europe and climate change. The “wishy washy” tag often comes from Labour, who have been all over the place on nuclear power and the Conservatives, whose behaviour on Iraq gives cynical politics a bad name. But it works.

Obama’s fate may well depend on how well he responds to the attempts to cut down the centre pole of his personal narrative. Perhaps Nick Clegg and co might pick up some tips from Obama’s advisers?

One more thing: McCain machine is better than Obama’s at telling lies. If you don’t believe me, take a look at factcheck.org, sponsored by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. Hey, why don’t we have something like that it in the UK?

Clever frames, shame about the policies

Politics isn't just about getting the frames; it's about moving them too. If you can’t win on the issues being talked about, change the subject, and fast.

Framing Science explains this week how John McCain’s campaign has successfully framed “the economy” as being about “energy”. They quote one pollster as saying:

“The Republicans' biggest problem in this election is that they are viewed as lessable to fix the economy. When the economy is defined as job loss, mortgage foreclosures, high health care costs, that's Democratic territory. Obama wants to play on that field.

"McCain wants to define it as being about energy, because his being in favor of drilling is on the right side of the [opinion poll] numbers.”

That's an impressive bit of framing. But the policy is bad. Climate Progress and Tom Friedman (to name but two) have demolished the notion that allowing more offshore drilling will solve America’s energy problems.

In another example of the way he combines clever framing with bad policy, McCain has said:

“We’re not going to achieve energy independence by inflating our tires.”

Climate Progress points out that whilst nobody has said that, the US cannot possibly solve its energy and climate problems without efficiency measures. [The same applies in the UK] They take the Republicans to task for cynically and dishonestly mocking energy efficiency and conservation.

Worse, McCain uses other frames and symbols in a hypocritical, dishonest way. McCain says he’s all for “clean energy”. For instance, his latest tv spots feature lots of windmills. Tom Friedman set the record straight this week:

"Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill [which provides for renewable energy tax credits] was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year -- which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn't leave his office to vote."

The article details all the economic harm McCain’s votes have done to the burgeoning global industry. And there’s more, here.

As Joseph Romm says, some of the attacks on Obama’s energy policy -- in particular, his willingness to compromise on offshore drilling -- are unfair and inaccurate. But that doesn’t excuse Obama and the Democrats for failing to get their energy narrative together. And by framing the whole debate in terms of oil prices, politicians from both parties are dodging the real issue: how to achieve energy security and climate security in the post-oil economy.

Wanted: not one political story, but four

There’s a lot more talk about the art of political story-telling at the moment. For instance, CNN.com has an article by Paul Willis, who says that the US presidential election will boil down to whose story voters prefer, even more than where the candidates stand on the issues. And within the Liberal Democrats, there is more interest. A few local parties are inviting me to speak to them and run workshops on narratives and storytelling.

Two questions keep coming up. I suggest that both are really false dilemmas.

Paul Willis asks:

"Do you think you could be persuaded by a politician's story over their policies?"

I don’t agree that’s the choice you need to make. If it works, a politician’s (or party’s) own story should work with their stances on issues (or policies), to engage both the heads and the hearts of the public. The personal story will make the policies seem real and authentic; the policies (framed correctly) will provide the substance and exemplify the story.

That’s what Margaret Thatcher succeeded when telling her political story. She argued that the solution to Britain’s economic problems was based on hard work and thrift, with government limiting its own spending and borrowing; England’s middle classes would thrive when freed from the bonds imposed by state socialism and the trade unions. The grocer’s daughter from Grantham worked all hours and played the frugal housewife.

For all his strengths as a personal storyteller, this is what Barack Obama is not doing now. Drew Westen, author of the acclaimed book The Political Brain, says:

"Barack Obama has told one story: that he will bring change and hope. Many have argued, from early in the Democratic primary season, that his was a campaign of soaring rhetoric and words without substance. That charge has "stuck" in the minds of many voters, who say they don't really know who Obama is and where he stands. It's a peculiar charge for a candidate who has laid out detailed plans for every issue of our time. Try going to his website or listening to his wonkish policy addresses.

"But whereas the standard Democratic response is to throw more plans and positions against the wall and hope that they'll stick, that's missing the point: that Obama hasn't yet told a coherent, consistent narrative of who he is that weaves together the themes of his campaign with his own life history. The result is that he has left his race, his exotic history, and the smear campaigns aimed at defining him as "not one of us" to resonate with voters."

The other false choice is: whether to tell a positive story about yourself or a negative one about your opponents.

Drew Westen’s brilliant article explains why this is a blind alley. He discusses why many American voters still have an uneasy feeling about Obama and says:

"His campaign needs to understand why that happened, because it's the same thing that happened to Al Gore and John Kerry. It's about narratives.

"There is a simple fact about elections that has eluded Democrats in every presidential campaign they have lost in the last 40 years: that as a candidate, you have to focus first and foremost not on a litany of "issues" but on four stories: the story you tell about yourself, the story your opponent is telling about himself, the story your opponent is telling about you, and the story you are telling about your opponent. Candidates who offer compelling stories in all four quadrants of this "message grid" win, and those who leave any of them to chance generally lose."

Westen argues that Al Gore didn't tell any of the four; John Kerry told just one and lost when he failed to respond to the two major stories told about him: that he was a flipflopper and a fake war hero. Neither campaign told a coherent story about George W. Bush.

He goes on:

"John McCain is telling a story about himself--that he's a man of courage and conviction who loves his country. He is telling a story about Obama--that he's a man of none of those things . . . After watching Obama enthrall the rest of the world and the troops McCain claims Obama doesn't support last week, he is now in full attack mode, trying to tell a story about his opponent's greatest strength (that Obama is someone who can inspire people, and can even do so on a world stage, where McCain's master narrative had claimed a decided advantage). So now he is telling the story of Obama as an arrogant, uppity, empty celebrity."

Westen says that, like Kerry, Obama has offered American voters one story (“change and hope”) when he should have offered four. And he wants Obama’s team to be much faster and more forceful when in making a counter-response and to do more to define McCain so as to drive up his negatives (that is, tell a story about him).

Westen’s story quadrants apply in British politics. In 2005, for instance, Tony Blair told a story about himself and his government: that the economy was strong, public services were getting better and it was no time to risk a change. He had a story about the Liberal Democrats: that we were irresponsible and unrealistic in our spending promises. When we took Blair to task over Iraq, he told stories based on his personal courage (“the right thing to do”) and fears about world security. And when we called ourselves “the real alternative”, he claimed that, in voting for the Lib Dems, people could let the Tories in. All of these worked, to various degrees.

Now, two (related) questions:

Do the Liberal Democrats (nationally or in your area) have stories for all four quadrants of Drew Westen’s message grid?

And do our story about the party (and Nick Clegg) and our policy stories match with and embody one another?

More on that soon.

Barack Obama: not "one of us"

During the primary season, Barack Obama gave us an object lesson in how political narratives work, engaging both the heart and the head.

Now, after a slow start, the McCain campaign shows us how counter-stories really work; in the process, they might be proving something thoroughly unpleasant about American politics.

McCain’s latest slogan, “country first,” implies that Obama puts something else (himself? his race?) ahead of the nation. McCain charges that Obama “would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” His “Troops” spot claims that Obama, while in Germany, “made time to go the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops—seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras.” Then there’s the “Celeb”spot, with its intercut images of Obama in Berlin, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears. Framing Science has put up a McCain ad suggesting that Obama is the anti Christ!

New York magazine’s John Heileman explains it like this:

"The strategy behind all this isn’t hard to discern: Drive up Obama’s negatives and render him unacceptable to pivotal voting blocs. Thus the depiction of him as too young, too feckless, and too pampered to be president . . . the portrayal of him as precious, self-infatuated, and effete [and] the emphasis on Obama’s rock-star persona, designed to engender envy and contempt among the swath of Middle America for which hipness is no virtue but a sign of pretension."

In portraying Obama as a self-centred, elitist meritocrat, the Republican campaign has seized on lingering concerns about him. This is much more about emotions and instincts than words and policies.

Steve and Cokie Roberts say that the election will be decided over how Americans answer the question, is Obama one of us?

"As Peter Hart, a Democrat who conducts the Wall Street Journal poll with Republican Neil Newhouse, puts it: "Voters want to answer a simple question: Is Barack Obama safe?" The answer to that question draws on more evidence than years served, jobs held and positions taken. Voters want to know about a candidate's character, judgment and temperament. They want to sense his scars and his seasoning. And they learn these things through narrative, the stories leaders tell about their lives and troubles.”

They also point out that:

". . . to many Americans, Obama is still a stranger, an exotic and mysterious stranger with an odd name, a dark face, a weird pastor, a cheeky wife and a brief past."

The right-wing pundit David Brooks says that American voters cannot “place” Obama in any familiar social context. He paints Obama as a man who has always “lived apart” from American society. His advice to the McCain campaign:

"In the short term they have to try to define him [Barack Obama] as someone who thinks he's above everyone else."

So, the McCain people are saying that Obama isn’t “one of us”. That’s a powerful frame in politics: “us”. Normal. Acceptable. Part of the “mainstream”. Having the correct values. Patriotic. Like me. Not like “them” who are none of these things. And, yes, white. The notion of “us” can’t be separated from race.

David Gergen a spin doctor who has worked for Republican and Democrat presidents, from Nixon to Clinton, says:

"There has been a very intentional effort to paint him as somebody outside the mainstream, other, 'he's not one of us,'

"I think the McCain campaign has been scrupulous about not directly saying it, but it's the subtext of this campaign. Everybody knows that. There are certain kinds of signals. As a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' "

Last week, Democratic strategists were worried that Obama didn’t have a big enough lead over McCain. Now, they are worried that the election is a dead heat. (Jafapete has more details)

Obama urgently needs to take back control of his narrative. Part of the answer lies in re-telling his personal story, just like Bill Clinton, the “boy from hope”, did in 1992. Obama would do well to emulate Clinton’s mix of economic populism and embracing change.

But Obama has undermined his own story too. In the words of Dana Milbank, he has seemed more like a presumptuous nominee than a presumptive nominee over recent weeks. Obama connects best when he promises change and a fresh start and looks and sounds like both. New narratives on the economy and energy would help to show what change would mean.

John McCain's double talk express

So John McCain’s campaign is trying to run some counter-stories on Barack Obama. No surprise there. The weird thing is that they’re breaking the first rule of creating counter-stories: tell one, simple, consistent story.

There have been two John McCains running this year: the maverick Republican and the true conservative -- two narratives. And whether it’s taxes or abortion or offshore drilling, he’s spent the summer flip-flopping.

Now the attacks on Obama cancel each other out! For further details, have a look at Jafapete’s weblog.

Yes, you can have a political narrative but no, you can't own it

So the US presidential election moves from the gruelling primary election campaigns to a no doubt brutal general election campaign. A lot of the analysis about the Democratic contest boils down to one question: who created Barack Obama and who destroyed “frontrunner” Hillary Clinton? Looking ahead, the underyling question is: whose narrative is winning out: Barack Obama’s or John McCain’s?

Most of the debate around “what is our narrative?” still tends to gloss over one brutal truth: we don’t control our story. Nobody controls their story. One story can be drowned out by counter-stories, especially if the latter are simpler and more deeply rooted in the audiences values or prejudices. Most importantly, it is the political audiences who decide their brand perception of any politician or party. Whether it’s Labour, the Tories or the Lib Dems, the voters decide how they perceive us. Their brand perception is set when they think we have(n’t) satisfied their wishes or needs.

Those perceptions are influenced by a number of factors, including media coverage. That’s what makes a new study of the US primary elections by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University especially interesting. For the third time, they are examining the “master narratives” about the candidates’ character: personality, history, leadership, and appeal. The master narratives are important. The notion that Al Gore tended to lie and exaggerate or that George Bush was a compassionate conservative proved to be powerful messages. They shaped how the press covered the 2000 race and possibly influenced the outcome.

The study suggests that Senator Obama has not an especially easy ride, nor Senator Clinton a much tougher one, from the media:

"From January 1, just before the Iowa caucuses, through March 9, following the Texas and Ohio contests, the height of the primary season, the dominant personal narratives in the media about Obama and Clinton were almost identical in tone, and were both twice as positive as negative, according to the study, which examined the coverage of the candidates’ character, history, leadership and appeal—apart from the electoral results and the tactics of their campaigns.

"The trajectory of the coverage, however, began to turn against Obama, and did so well before questions surfaced about his pastor Jeremiah Wright. Shortly after Clinton criticized the media for being soft on Obama during a debate, the narrative about him began to turn more skeptical—and indeed became more negative than the coverage of Clinton herself. What’s more, an additional analysis of more general campaign topics suggests the Obama narrative became even more negative later in March, April and May."

Still, Senator Obama succeeded in projecting his desired narrative:

"The dominant personal narratives for Obama were ones he tried hardest to project, a sign that he largely succeeded in controlling his media message, particularly early on. The most common of all was the notion that he represents hope and change. This was followed by the idea that he is a charismatic leader and powerful communicator. Obama has also succeeded in getting substantial coverage that refutes one of his greatest possible vulnerabilities, the idea that his appeal is too narrow or limited to blacks and elites. These three impressions permeated the coverage of his candidacy. "

There was a catch though -- and we’ll hear a lot more about it over the coming months.

"The most prominent negative theme in the coverage about Obama was the claim that he is inexperienced."

Hillary Clinton got much or her desired narrative across too:

"Clinton had just as much success as Obama in projecting one of her most important themes in the media, the idea that she is prepared to lead the country on “Day One.” She has also had substantial success in rebutting the idea that she is difficult to like or is cold or distant, and much of that rebuttal came directly from journalists offering the rebuttal."

But her campaign had one big failing:

"The most prominent negative theme about Clinton was the idea that she represents the politics of the past."

Perhaps she faced an insurmountable obstacle as well:

"With Hillary Clinton . . . the public seemed to have developed opinions about her that ran counter to the media coverage, perhaps based on a pre-existing negative disposition to her that unfolded over the course of the campaign. "

I have previously blogged about the “two John McCains”. Sure enough:

"For McCain, one master narrative stands out above all in the coverage—that he is not a true or reliable conservative. More than five in 10 of all the assertions studied about McCain conveyed that idea, about six times as many as the number of assertions rebutting it. While this narrative—not conservative enough—might have been a problem for him in the primary race, it is harder to evaluate its implications for the general election. If McCain is seen as a maverick, someone not tied to President Bush, it will likely enhance his standing among independents and moderate swing Democrats. Yet lack of conservative credentials could also dampen turnout among some of the GOP base."

Now for the big question: in the Obama / McCain contest, when it comes to the voters, who’s winning the battle of the narratives? The answer is, neither of them.

"The analysis suggests that both Obama and McCain are heading into the general election battle with less control over their personal messages than they might like. In many ways, the coverage of the campaign has been dominated by a series of small storylines or boomlets of coverage that so far have raised unresolved questions but not yet framed an overall storyline—Obama’s friendships and core ideology, the meaning of his promise of change, McCain’s core ideology, his relationship with lobbyists, and a looming battle, largely quiet during the primaries, over the direction of the conduct of the war in Iraq. "

Now, hang on to your seat and watch the narratives and counter-stories fly.

[Thanks to Jafapete for the reference to this study.]

Learning from Barack Obama's original sin

Here’s another reason why the US Democratic presidential primaries are so closely fought and why just a few points separate either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton from John McCain.

OK, it’s all about narratives, the candidates telling their stories. It’s more than that – the contest is about how America wants to see itself.

Roger Cohen of The New York Times says that the US may now be ready to confront one of the darkest chapters in its history, its central conflict; what Barack Obama has called America’s “original sin” – slavery and segregation.

In so doing, Cohen reinforces an invaluable insight into what makes a political narrative work.

“It’s striking how the three contenders for the presidency offer different self-images for America. John McCain comforts the classic heroic narrative. Hillary Clinton breaks the male hold on that narrative and so transforms it. Obama transfigures it in another way by personifying America’s victory over its most visceral blemish.”

In Leading Minds (1995), Howard Gardner showed how great leaders’ stories have addressed “issues of personal and group identity” for their audiences. He showed how providing audiences with a way of reframing their thoughts and plans for the future, “where they have been and where they would like to go”, is fundamental to the effectiveness of any leader’s story.

Recent political history offers some good examples. During World War II, Winston Churchill told the British people how and why they would prevail against Nazi Germany. Margaret Thatcher told a story of reversing national economic decline and “making Britain great again”. Tony Blair talked in 1997 about a national renewal, a “new Britain”.

Gordon Brown delivers sermons about “Britishness” but he does not tell stories that connect people with his ideas and, most importantly, a vision for the future. David Cameron avoids stories about identity, doubtless recognising that his party may want to live in little England but the voters do not. Nick Clegg has started to tell the story of a “better Britain”, in which government leads the way in enhancing individual opportunities. That’s a welcome move. The next step is to play that into the stories that Liberal Democrat inclined voters believe already about their country. We need to understand what Roger Cohen calls their self-image of the nation.

McCain vs. McCain - a quick update

I have previously blogged that one of Senator John McCain’s big challenges is to decide which story he is going to tell about himself – the maverick or the true conservative. I argued that he couldn’t win by telling both and that he would try to, in effect, fuse the two stories, running as a straight-talking problem solver, better qualified and stronger on national security than Senator Barack Obama.

So far, McCain is hardly trying to shut down the maverick story. Also, he is telling a personal tale of honour and national service, to show that he is an American warrior who can be trusted on national security.

It’s working rather well. The latest New York Times / CBS poll says that 81 per cent of Americans – yes, four out of five, think the country is on the wrong track. Yet McCain, the candidate of a Republican Party badly tarnished by the Bush presidency, leads Barack Obama by one point and Hillary Clinton by three points.

One explanation is that nobody is showing up the basic conflict between McCain’s stories.

The Economist’s Lexington columnist contends that the Democrats’ “demolition derby”, Obama vs. Clinton, is ruining their chances of victory in November. S/he says:

“. . . rather than defining Mr McCain the Democrats are letting Mr McCain define himself.

"This might not matter so much if the senator from Arizona were a mere Bush clone. But he is more than that—a spunky maverick who has frequently broken with the Republican machine and earned admiration from moderates and independents. He is also using his time wisely. He has tried to look presidential by touring the Middle East and Europe (not without mishap, as when he managed to confuse Sunni and Shia extremists in Iraq). And he has tried to distance himself from George Bush's foreign policy by stressing the importance of global co-operation, calling for a reduction in stockpiles of nuclear weapons and pledging that he will do more to deal with global warming and malaria.”

And let’s not forget the crucial role of media narrative. Paul Krugman has previously written about Clinton rules, under which large sections of the media attribute sinister motives to just about anything the Clintons say or do. Now he talks about McCain rules:

". . . under which anything John McCain says, no matter how craven or dishonest, becomes proof of his straight-talking maverickness (mavericity?).”