Messaging and Communications: Thoughts and Lessons from an Obama Campaigner

Communication is arguably what defined the 20th century more than anything else. With a background in history, I am prepared to make that argument. You may disagree, saying that conflict, peacebuilding, globalization, science, medicine etc. are what define the 20th century. But the thing that really bridges, fuels and results from these other options is communication.

So it doesn’t come as any surprise that communications continues to be critical in politics. We live in the age of mass communication, of advertising, and of selling a product through the message more than the product itself.

A couple of weeks back I worked as a communications aide to Mike Schreiner’s campaign for the Green Party of Ontario. Someone asked me what my background was in communications. Beyond writing about GPC communications, articles, the Green Party’s newsletter, and donation asks here and there, I admitted I don’t really have any training in the field. But I added what I still believe is the single most important aspect when it comes to communications: getting it. Last night I attended a lecture by Dr. Drew Westen, a trained psychologist with political interests who worked on the Obama campaign and that belief was reaffirmed.

There is no doubt that just about everyone has a say about how messaging should be done. It’s what makes messaging discussions some of the least productive, yet most riveting, I have ever witnessed. The reason is that mostly people are telling you what they would buy. They will tell you that the best way to get a message across and sell the product – whether it’s a consumer product or a politician – is how it could be sold to them. It normal - it is easier to know how I would react to a message than how others would.

But that misses the whole point of getting it. And a first step of getting it is realizing that you probably aren’t your message’s target audience. It was great to hear that from a professional last night.

One thing that really stuck with me from the lecture is the idea that good politicians sell themselves within the context of a good story. Why? Because people get stories. Studies indicate that by the age of six, children develop the terminology and mental structures to be able to recognize and tell stories. They understand protagonists, antagonists, the battle or challenge, that it is overcome and that there’s a lesson/value to be learned. In other words, they get the basic components of what makes a story.

Consider too that the 21st century will be the first ever century in which most information probably isn’t passed through personal recollection and you realize just how important stories are to people and how deeply imbedded they are in how we react and perceive issues.

This all reaffirmed something that I have been thinking about for quite a long time: we have the people and party to tell stories - whether it’s about candidates or the party. Think about your candidate, and why you are green and what it means to be green - those are good stories. Framed with the context of values, they are politically potent.

Weston maintained that there are four important stories in a campaign: what you say about yourself – who you are, what you care about etc.; what your opponent says about him/herself; what your opponent says about you; and what you say about your opponent. When considered and framed properly, they can be the ingredients of political success.

Another principle that Westen spoke of was that “if you don’t feel it, don’t use it.” While I have written before about value-based messaging, Weston spelled it out clearly. Human behaviour is motivated by emotion: we are drawn towards the things and issues that we have associated with in the past, that we associate as good for us and for our families or our values. We are drawn away from what would be bad for us, our families and against our values.

Communication/messaging in politics isn’t about the issues. It’s about the message. In fact, not even the votes a party receives tend to be about the issues. In the U.S., for example, almost all voters make their decision based on whether the candidate is Democratic or Republican or how they “feel” towards the candidate: comfortable, anxious, worried etc. Of course, issues will feed into feelings, but certainly not as much as how they are communicated.

But I think it’s safe to say that a lot of the communication we see in our party is academic in nature. Consider my example of messaging the carbon tax – and ask yourself how many people know why carbon is a bad thing, versus say, pollution. We have smart people talking about smart things. What we need more of is have smart people talking about things our audience cares about and feels for in a way moves them.

All of the prerequisites are there for the Green Party: a good story, values, and issues that can really touch Canadians. How we use these will determine our success, not unlike the way communications shaped the successes of the 20th century.