This morning I did what is almost certainly my last turn as a guest on XM Radio’s P.O.T.U.S. ’08. While listeners might not have loved hearing Aristotelian analysis of Senator Obama’s infomercial at 7:45 this morning, I had a lot of fun talking about it. POTUS is the only radio program I have ever been on that encourages guests to use complete sentences and present complicated ideas. P.O.T.U.S. is well worth a listen.
Aristotle offers one way into last night’s 30-minute commercial for Barack Obama. In the speech Obama balances logos (facts) and pathos (emotion) and builds his ethos (credibility, perceived quality of his character). This last element, persuading voters that he is “presidentialâ€, that he is a man of strength and prudence, was arguably the most important.
But that’s only one way to look at the speech. Another way, that I did not discuss this morning, is through the balancing of idealism and realism. Scholars have noted that successful persuasive efforts often mix appeals to soaring ideals with nearly mind-numbing details.
The appeals to idealism – hope, justice, honor, freedom, and so forth – provide a reason for us to care. They draw us into an Important Story that compels us to want to act. But on their own, they’re empty.
Appeals to realism, details, are the stuff of policy. They’re the wonk-speak, the strings of numbers and bullet-points of a plan. They tell us the person doing the speaking knows what they’re talking about. The content of details matters less than their existence – that Senator Obama claims his health care plan will save the average family $2,500 rather than $2,300 or $2,800 isn’t the point, the point is that there is a credible-sounding number next to his claim. Realism on its own is dull and uninspiring. Candidates who list plans or sound like technocrats don’t give us a reason to care.
It is when the two types of appeals are combined that they have the most power. And this is what Senator Obama did in his infomercial. He started with amber waves of grain, talked about the American dream and showed kids waving flags. Then he listed policies. Then back to pictures of families and towns, then back to the list. One then the other and back again over the course of 27 minutes. This construction gave his vision grounding and his details life.
Smart advocates use the same approach. Policy proposals that speak to higher ideals and have specific, doable steps to get there can be powerful. Too often advocates are either all Vision or all wonk. The best advocacy campaigns use both – they use the vision to get and keep the attention of policymakers and activists, and use the wonkiness to make the vision real and get policymakers to act. The best campaigns know that success relies on selling both the sizzle and steak.
