How Not to Win Votes

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy? Instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say, I like ever American I’m speaking with were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the tax payers looking to bailout. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy– Helping the — Oh, it’s got to be about job creation too. Shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation.

It’s even worse when you watch it!

I’ve mentioned before that I am a PR flack, and part of my job involves media training, writing “talking points” or “sound bites” for executives giving interviews and making sure people clearly communicate what they want people to hear in 100 words or less. Because of this, I am bookmarking Sarah Palin’s interview as a classic example of what not to do when you’re dealing with the media.

It was clear coming out of the Republican Convention that McCain was going to rally the troops by declaring war on the media, specifically the left-leaning New York Times. It’s a tried-and-true approach, especially for a campaign that doesn’t seem to have a central theme (a serious problem). The media is regarded by the public somewhere between child molesters and personal injury lawyers on its best days. But there’s another old saying: Never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel.

If you’re being interviewed by the media, you better have your act together. At the very least, you have to give the appearance that you have command of whatever it is you’re talking about. To drill the point home, there are a few talking points you need to hit on and make sure the interviewer and (most importantly) the viewer can chew on. And most importantly, it’s gotta look authentic and believable. People see through staged events like photo ops but remember people who wowed them (Obama six months ago) or made them cringe (see above).

So the McCain team faces a very tricky task of excoriating the media while trying to acquiesce to it at the same time by granting limited interviews where they can control the situation as much as possible. By shielding both candidates from the media, they could give the appearance of scorning an often reviled establishment. But ignoring the media won’t stop it from reporting about you, and absence can lead to speculation – particularly with an unknown commodity like Palin. “Why does she ignore us?” the media speculates. Is she not press-savvy? Does she have something to hide?

The truth now appears to be she (a) was being media trained by someone far worse than I am, or (b) is an utter nitwit. I think it could be both. First, look at how many times she repeats the buzzwords that someone told her to rattle off. Health care reform, shoring up the economy and job creation all appear twice in one paragraph. Even weirder was this sentence:

So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans.

Wow, that’s an entire platform right there! But review it to see how carefully this has to be done to be effective. Would anyone here argue that health care reform, reducing taxes, reining in spending, tax reductions (same as reducing taxes, actually) and tax relief (ditto) are bad things? Of course not. But does it make sense in the realm of that amazing answer? Does it make sense at all? No way. This is why so many people dislike politicians and don’t watch Meet the Press and similar shows. The politicians get asked questions and never answer the question. They stick to their message, although most do it much better than the moose hunter here.

When I media train anyone, we go over and over potential questions and rehearse the answers until I’m satisfied the person can authentically speak without sounding like a robot. Some people, however, are just not good at it. Some freeze under the pressure, while others have a bad habit of turning a short answer into a long story. But I’ve never had someone just randomly spout out the talking points without at least sorta answering the question, and I’m proud to say none of my students has ever come across that badly on television.

RIP Jack Falla

Part of having a blog is that you can write whatever you want. So I am taking time this week to eulogize a mentor of mine you probably don't know, unless you are a journalism or sports journalism major at Boston University’s College of Communication. This past Sunday, Jack Falla suddenly passed away of a heart attack at 62. Jack was not just a teacher but also a mentor, advisor and very good friend.

Jack was someone who also was able to devote his life to the two things he was passionate about – writing and teaching (although he would call the latter “coaching” to use one of his endless sports metaphors.) Many people write well. Jack was an incredibly gifted writer who was able to become a sports journalist, and was on staff for Hockey News and Sports Illustrated in the 1980s. He then started to freelance and teach at BU. He also loved hockey, so he decided to build a hockey rink in his backyard. After some humorous trial and error it worked, and he rebuilt it every winter.

I was one of the few who did NOT have Jack for sports journalism at 8 a.m., but rather a regular writing class at COM in 1989. I picked his class by chance and it changed my life. Not only was Jack one of the best teachers I ever had, but we became friends and kept in touch long after graduation. I had lunch with him less than two months ago and he was exactly the same – an all-around great guy. His premature death has left me extremely sad, but I truly am a better person (and writer) for having known him.

To this day, I remember much of what Jack told me. In one of my first assignments for him that was maybe 400 words, he told me to cut 20 words out. When I finished he said, “Now cut another 25 words out.” I got through it and he said, “How many of those were adjectives and adverbs?” They almost all were. I never forgot that lesson, plus his loathing of exclamation points and love of sports metaphors. There are many good writers, but not all of them have the skill to teach writing well. Jack did.

Throughout the years Jack served as a reference, mentor and drinking buddy. He never said no to anything. When I found an athlete who I thought had a great story I told Jack, fully confident he would send out the word to his minions in the sports world who would be interested in the story. Naturally he found someone, and the athlete was profiled in the Sunday Globe. When I was applying to grad school a few years ago, I put Jack on standby as a reference in case one of my former bosses couldn’t pull through. Sure enough, my old boss went AWOL and Jack delivered a reference even though he had taught me over 15 years ago. That’s the kind of man he was; always willing to help out and eager to swap stories.

After Jack’s book Home Ice, I learned much more about Jack’s rink and his family. His love and care for them was evident throughout its pages. Of course I will be reading his new book Open Ice with a heavy heart, but he told me at our last meal together how pleased he was with it and he was very proud of some of the essays inside.

It’s been said that you can tell a man’s worth by what he leaves behind after he passes away. Jack leaves a stadium full of professional and amateur sportswriters and others who all seem to have identical memories of this amazing family man, teacher and coach. I can truly say my life is better for having known him well. And for his sports journalism class, there are currently three writers in the Boston Globe sports section, one Yankee writer at the Daily News, on columnist at the Chicago Tribune, four PR directors at four different professional sports franchises and one PR director for the NHL that are alumni of Jack’s classes. And those are just the ones I know about.

If you’re looking for a good read this fall, do yourself a favor and purchase either Home Ice or Open Ice. Even if you don’t skate, the stories will make you laugh and warm your heart.

Here are additional eulogies on Jack from others at The Boston Herald, BU's Daily Free Press, The NY Daily News, the Metrowest Daily News and The Boston Globe. Almost all were written by former students like me.

Abstract Distractions

So you thought the Democrats were going to run away with this thing because they are featuring a smarter candidate who lies less than the other guys and because the current economic and international climate favors them, right? That’s just what they said in 1968, 1988, 2000 and 2004. And you thought Sarah Palin was going to knock John McCain out for good, correct? Democrats have attacked VP candidates from Richard Nixon to Dan Quayle, with absolutely zero effect. No wonder the polls are tied. This is going to be a lot closer than anybody thought.

If your political opponent is kicking your tail, the best way to change things in your favor is to distract everyone with an issue or topic that will focus more attention on you. With the media and the American public having the collective attention span of a five-year-old, McCain’s Hail Mary desperation pass of Sarah Palin has (so far) been brilliant. How can the Democrats possibly compete against an attractive 44-year-old mother of five whose oldest child is heading to Iraq, young baby has Down’s Syndrome, and whose daughter is knocked up? Now THAT’S a distraction!

Much has been written about how the women who now love Sarah Palin are totally at odds with her politics. This is completely unimportant. Most Americans are uninterested in the nuances of politics and often vote for a candidate based on likeability, appearance and whoever makes them feel better about their families and their future. Where those candidates stand on their political positions is secondary, although whichever candidate explains it in a way that resonates best with voters has the edge. This is one of those regrettable but true facts about our culture – and one the Democrats just do not get.

You can see Democrats and the media (who still want Obama to win, although Palin is a great story that they won’t drop) repeatedly trying to catch her on issues like earmarks and abortion. I hate to tell both these groups the obvious, but abortion has never been a major factor in any recent election, and most Americans have no clue what an earmark is. And attacking her experience and job history won’t work either since that will draw inevitable comparisons to Obama’s weaknesses there.

Worst of all for the Democrats, they now seem to be obsessed with Palin and try to trot her out as red meat at every opportunity. That may work with partisans who will vote for them anyway, but it comes across as mean-spirited to many women and independents that they should be attracting. And when Palin started to get in trouble, the GOP trot out the “lipstick on a pig” distraction. Of course they knew it wasn’t directed at her, but that was unimportant. It was a way to get into the Democrats’ head, again.

So how do the Democrats get out of this? That’s easy – create a distraction of their own. Obama won the nomination by being an atypical, charismatic candidate who was short on specifics but terrific on getting viewers to bond with him on a visceral, gut level (kind of like what Palin is doing now!) He’s since been transformed into running a typical, cerebral Democratic presidential campaign that always goes down in flames. He needs to go back to the emotional candidate who reminds viewers of the past eight years and stirs them into action. And one who is absolutely, completely undistracted by Sarah Palin.

Dave's 2008 NFL Forecast

Last year, I predicted the Patriots would be undefeated but would fall to my hometown favorite team, the New York Giants, in an upset for the ages.

OK, that didn’t quite happen. I think I had the Giants third. But did anyone see any of those things happening? That’s why football is so great and these predictions are so goofy and fun.

Here’s my picks for this year. As of today, I am 100% confident I’m right. In fact, I’m going to do just as well this year as last year! Teams are picked in order of finish, with two wild cards and my “dark horse” pick for either most improved team or at least the team that will get some traction going.

NFC EAST
1) Dallas: The sad thing is Adam Jones, or Pacman Jones, or whatever his name is, may be just what this team needs. Of course with Terrell Owens still aboard and Jessica Simpson nearby, the good news is Dallas may replace the Patriots as the team America loves to hate.
2) NY Giants: Wild Card Team. The entire offense is back. The defense, er, is not. Justin Tuck can fill Strahan’s shoes, but filling Osi Umenyiora’s will be tougher. Some questions also remain at linebacker, but I have confidence in defensive coordinator Steve “Spags” Spagnuolo.
3) Philadelphia: Always a threat, but Donovan McNabb goes down for a month whenever he stubs his toe. The Eagles did upgrade their secondary with Asante Samuel, but those guys aren’t supposed to win the game for you.
4) Washington: I see promise in QB Jason Campbell, but I don’t think the Skins have the receivers for the West Coast offense the new coach wants to put in. The learning curve will be too steep for Washington to advance in the NFC East.

NFC CENTRAL
1) Green Bay: Favre is gone, but overall this team is way more balanced than the Vikings, especially on D. Solid cornerbacks in Harris and Woodson, great LBs in Hawk and Garnett and Aaron Kampman is a monster. If Aaron Rodgers doesn’t make too many mistakes and the running game holds out, there should be no problems repeating.
2) Minnesota: Wild Card Team. Lots of people are picking the Vikings as their NFC Champion. They may win this weak division but I’m not sold on QB Tavaris Jackson, who was way too weak to get a team out of the first round of the playoffs. There’s promise with Jared Allen and Adrian Peterson is the real thing.
3) Detroit: Every year I rip GM Matt Millen for being dumber than a box of rocks. Last year the Lions started 6-2 and I didn’t panic. Sure enough, they finished 7-9. So what happens? Millen fires offensive coordinator Mike Martz, whose downfield scheme was perfect for the underachieving WRs Millen specializes in drafting. He also continued his seven year trend of ignoring defensive needs. Look for 2007 to be the high point of Millen’s career.
4) Chicago: Picking Kyle Orton to start over Rex Grossman at QB is like picking Newark over Camden as the best city in New Jersey. The only thing worse could be the rest of the offense.

NFC SOUTH
1) New Orleans: Last year everyone picked the Saints to win it all. Then they started 0-4 and finished 7-9. Injuries decimated the team, but now Deuce McAllister and Mike McKenzie are healthy and the Saints made some great free agent pickups with Jonathan Vilma and Jeremy Shockey. I’m not saying they’ll be champs, but I am saying bounceback.
2) Tampa Bay: This team seems to have the same players that won the Super Bowl in 2002 – Joey Galloway, Warrick Dunn, Derrick Brooks, Ronde Barber, etc. So how old are they now? The only new guy is QB Jeff Garcia, who is older than all of them.
3) Carolina: I like coach John Fox, but too much is riding on QB Jake Delhomme. If his elbow holds out the Panthers might finish 9-7, but WR Steve Smith is unhappy and DE Julius Peppers is way past his prime.
4) Atlanta: Let’s be charitable and call this a “rebuilding” year for all involved. I predict their coach won’t quit in the middle of the season, and next year’s very high draft choice will have an impact in 2009.

NFC WEST
1) Seattle: There’s two reasons Seattle has won the West for four years running. One is that Mike Holmgren always puts together a solid, if unspectacular, team that plays hard. Second is that the rest of the division is REALLY bad.
2) Arizona: Dark Horse Team. For a while the Cardinals have reminded me of a fly stuck behind a small sheet of glass in the middle of a field. There’s freedom around it, but it keeps banging into the glass. I admit it doesn’t look good when Kurt Warner beats out Matt Leinart for the starting QB, but the Cardinals have signed long-term contracts with talent like Larry Fitzgerald, Adrian Wilson and Anquan Boldin. Edgerrin James may have lost a step, but the Cardinals should surprise some teams and have no reason for finishing under .500.
3) St. Louis: RB Steven Jackson is one of the best in football, which is good because nobody else on the team can score a thing and the Rams have ignored the defense since the Greatest Show on Turf.
4) San Francisco: The good news is Mike Martz is out of Detroit. The bad news is he’s in San Francisco, trying to make lemonade out of QB J.T. O’Sullivan and WR Isaac Bruce (he’s 35) and no offensive line.

AFC EAST
1) New England: No duh. But don’t look for 16-0 this time. The Giants and Baltimore showed how to rattle the Patriots if you have a relentless pass rush and keep Brady running. A weak AFC East keeps the Patriots on top, but every team wants to beat them this year – real bad.
2) NY Jets: Dark Horse Team. Just when you thought the Jets were cooked the cavalry rides in. So how’s the rest of the team? Mangini plays a 3-4, and new defenseman Kris Jenkins will play nose tackle. Nose Tackle! The pass rush isn’t bad either, and Favre actually has Lavernaeus Coles to throw to.
3) Buffalo: No team has gone longer without getting to the playoffs than the Bills, but you can’t blame them for lack of effort. Buffalo actually has a good D with Aaron Schobel and Marcus Stroud and Marshawn Lynch is a solid RB. But there’s too much talent elsewhere to keep the Bills from nine wins.
4) Miami: I think Miami will win five or six this year, if only because Parcells will throw the fear of God into them if they stink up the place. Chad Pennington is an upgrade, but there’s too much to still be done.

AFC NORTH
1) Cleveland: Yes! This is the year for the Brownies. I’m not sold on QB Derek Anderson but Cleveland has drafted well and the team is loaded on offense with Kellen Winslow and Braylon Edwards. Both offensive and defensive lines are tight. If everyone stays healthy, this team could go far.
2) Pittsburgh: Wild Card Team. And if Cleveland stumbles, the Steelers will drive ahead. Pittsburgh has settled into a solid, grind-it-out team that does everything well but nothing great. Lots of weapons on offense, but except for Troy Polamalu the defense is not as great. Pittsburgh also has a very tough schedule this year.
3) Cincinnati: On paper they’re better than Tennessee, but this is a mentally beaten team that is getting hosed by its front office. Problematic troublemakers abound. The offense is good, but defense has never improved. QB Carson Palmer and coach Marvin Lewis deserve better.
4) Baltimore: Good defense, mediocre offense. Haven’t we been saying that since this franchise began? Rookie QB Joe Flacco will learn on the job, mostly on his back or running for his life.


AFC SOUTH
1) Jacksonville: I believe this is the year the Jaguars finally make the leap from good to great and finally knock the Colts down a peg. The defense is frightening, although they let up too easy on the Patriots last year. David Garrard was the right move at QB, and the offense has Maurice Jones-Drew and the ageless Fred Taylor. If the stars are aligned right, the Jaguars are ready to rumble.
2) Indianapolis: Wild Card Team. Sure, the Colts remain a very good team, but age and injuries are beginning to creep up on them. Peyton Manning, Jeff Saturday, Marvin Harrison, Dwight Freeney and Bob Sanders are hurting. Tony Dungy’s last year could be the last roundup.
3) Houston: The Texans are slowly becoming respectable, and may even break .500 if they were in an easier division. The defense is coming along nicely with Mario Williams and DeMeco Ryans, and WR Andre Johnson is a legitimate deep threat. But QB Matt Schaub is not yet over the hump.
4) Tennessee: I like the defense, especially Albert Haynesworth and Kyle Vanden Bosch, but QB Vince Young remains a work in progress who either plays better than anyone or horrendously. And he still has nobody to throw to.

AFC WEST
1) San Diego: Coach Norv Turner is still overrated, but he finally won some playoff games last year. And just like last year, it will be hard to screw up with a team as talented as this one. Remember that in last year’s AFC championship they played without QB Philip Rivers, RB LaDanian Tomlinson and TE Antonio Gates, all among the league’s best. Keep the injuries down and there may be a new AFC champ this year.
2) Denver: Denver is not a good team, but will finish second due to the scrap heap of remaining teams here. No defense except Champ Bailey, no offense except Jay Cutler throwing to Brandon Marshall spells another 7-9 year, or worse.
3) Oakland: The Raiders are out of the cellar, but that’s due more to the Chiefs falling than their growth. JaMarcus Russell will finally show the world whether Al Davis didn’t overpay somebody for once.
4) Kansas City: Even the Chiefs are calling this a rebuilding year. That’s code for “don’t bother showing up at Arrowhead.” Herman Edwards left the Jets for this?

More Partisan Hypocrisy

Am I the only one to remember that Republicans are supposed to be the party of “family values?” It used to be they were the party that attacked unwed mothers, parents who couldn’t stop their kids from sleeping around and getting knocked up, and celebrities as poor role models – from Murphy Brown to Barack Obama.

It remains too early to see what Sarah Palin will do to the GOP, but it seems to have transformed the party overnight into an all-welcoming clan that now embraces teen pregnancy (Sarah Palin’s, but not Jamie Lynn Spears!), mothers who work full time with an infant child (Sarah Palin, but not middle class mothers!) and denounces sexism (Sarah Palin, but not Hillary Clinton!). If I was Bristol Palin’s father, I would find the guy who impregnated my daughter and lay the smack down. But now the kid, instead of being investigated for statutory rape, will be showcased by the family values party as someone who is taking responsibility. The flip flopping is the worst of political grandstanding and reeks of desperation. The question is whether the American public will buy it.

I wonder if McCain picked Palin completely on his own without having anyone on his staff or the GOP doing a simple background check on her. If you view the blogosphere, you’ll find more things the mainstream media naturally has not touched. Here’s what was on the daddy-to-be’s MySpace page. Here’s info on a Jews for Jesus preacher that speaks at Palin’s church. And here’s Palin's support for the Bridge to Nowhere, a huge earmark of pork that McCain denounced.

Maybe there’s something Machiavellian about all this. I still maintain through my post below that most people don’t regard the VP too highly when they’re casting a vote. And McCain definitely knew he had to take the attention off Obama after last week, and since this pick was announced I have heard nothing about Obama in the mainstream media. It’s a classic diversion. When you’re losing a propaganda or PR war with an opponent, your best bet is to create a distraction to get the attention off your adversary and onto you.

I always thought McCain would pick Romney for his VP slot to fire up the new GOP religious right-wing base, which basically votes on abortion, creationism, gay marriage and nothing else (to be fair, there’s plenty on the left that vote the same way). He picked Palin instead, and succeeded in firing up the base but may have alienated too many others (here’s a CNN poll showing where those three issues rank to most voters – less than 2%). But those are the folks who show up on Election Day. To date, the Democrats still cannot mobilize their base the same way, and that’s why I think the final result will be far closer than most people think.