Falling in line
I posted the quote a few days ago that Democrats fall in love with their candidate, Republicans fall in line behind theirs. Well, I’d just like to say that I think we did a spectacular job falling in line during this convention. At the CDA messaging training (see Flashback), Parag followed this quote by telling us that the average American thinks about politics for five minutes a year. And those aren’t five consecutive minutes, so it’s important that our message be consistent and repeated often.
It really struck me during this convention how many speakers said essentially the same thing. I don’t know if that’s a result of heavy speech-editing by the Obama folks, or if the speakers really are committed to staying on message. Either way, it worked. Of course, there were some highlights (Kucinich’s spirited “Wake up, America!” comes to mind) but the overall impression was one of the same speeches, over and over again. McCain = more of the same. We support our troops. We can’t afford another four years. We need healthcare. The economy sucks. Bill Clinton left Bush in great shape, Bush drove us into the ground. Iraq was a mistake, but we support our troops. We want equal pay for equal work. There are a lot of Republicans and Independents voting for Obama because they know we need change. Did I mention, we support our troops?
Gosh. I could have given a speech at this convention! Those were the basic ideas reiterated by almost every speaker. I guess we’ll see whether it worked over the next few months.
