hubbub

Annals of Communications: Clinton's Hubcap Strategy

Annals of Communications -- How Public Officials Communicate, and What Everyone Can Learn From Them

If you grew up in a 60's inner-city neighborhood -- I did -- you're probably familiar with the pitch.  A few tough kids knock on your apartment door and ask if you need hubcaps.  You say "no, I don't need hubcaps," and they answer, "um -- I think you do, mister.  Go look out the window."

I was reminded of the hubcap business this week when trying to make sense of the Clinton campaign's incessant attacks on Barack Obama's integrity, readiness, and most important of all, electability.  The real power of the hubcap pitch is that it is based on a simple but timeless economic principle:  scarcity.  Like the hubcap pitch, the campaign to cripple Obama creates a real scarcity in the Democratic primary -- if Obama is destroyed, the party's superdelegates will have no choice but to go with the only candidate left standing.   

But the resemblance doesn't end just there.  Like the hubcap pitch, the Clinton campaign against Obama is a clever act of misdirection that distracts the buyer (the voter) from the fact that a crime has been committed by the seller.   Might makes right in the ghetto, and perhaps that's true of intra-party politics, too.  The buzz is that there are many superdelegates who are way impressed with the Clinton campaign's ruthlessness and determination to win.   And I have to say, I am impressed, too.  But only in a way that a tenement dweller might feel when he realizes he's been mugged in the most clever of ways.  Impressed, but really pissed off, too. 

For many Democrats who support Obama, it may be very hard to get over that anger, even if the party elders do.  This is something that the elders will need to worry about, because the market for hubcaps may not be that great in November.   

Jhally Good

I am listening to/watching/learning from Sut Jhally, professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  Funny that it's Jhally's work that inspired me to re-engage on my blog -- he is a brilliant critic of the media industry, and its ill effects (yet he calls himself a teacher).  I have been quiet on this blog because I have been busy.  But I have also been on a too-long journey, examining my beliefs about the good and the bad that our industry does for people -- for individuals, for families, for cultures, for societies.  I thank the good professor for the awakening.

My first Utter

Mobile post sent by giorodriguez using Utterz. Replies.  mp3

Clinton/Post-Iowa: The Poverty of Mope

For me, the most remarkable thing about the Clinton-Obama battle since Iowa is the emerging study in contrasts. 

The Clinton campaign, as one Chicago writer has noted, admittedly has gone to the dark side and is now waging a negative campaign against her opponent.  In the meantime -- as many  Americans will soon learn (it's the cover story in Newsweek) Obama's campaign philosophy is a studied and  deliberate rejection of negative campaigning.   It's an approach that invites his supporters and critics to end dirty-politics-as-usual -- the political campaign equivalent of non-violent resistance.  As history has shown,  that approach works beautifully when the practitioner understands that resistance is not only a shield, but also a sword.   The more your opponents attack you, the better you look because you have called attention to the cheap weapons they are using.

But it begs the question:  doesn't negative campaigning work, regardless of the harm done to the attacker's reputation?  No doubt, negative campaigns do work -- sometimes.  But there are three things that make Clinton's attack on Obama very risky. 

First, you need to consider Obama's core base of voters.  As many journalists covering the campaign have noted, Obama's crowd is largely an educated, sophisticated crowd -- folks who are savvy enough to question or discount the argument in negative campaigns, or reject the tactic outright.   For a shocking dose of evidence of that phenomenon, see Frank Luntz's "focus group" on Fox (yes, the same Frank Luntz that has helped many a Republican to frame a tough campaign against a Democrat).   Second, while Clinton's attack has been Obama's alleged inconsistencies, one thing that he has done fairly consistently(no one is perfect) is to refrain from negative campaigning.  He's disciplined about resistance, and it's part of his brand.  What about Clinton's brand?  As John Edwards gamely noted during the New Hampshire debate, Clinton appears to have gone negative only after slipping in the polls.  The negative campaigning does not become her -- it's not the true Hillary -- and it looks desperate.

But there's a bigger reason why this particular negative campaign might not work.   Obama has struck a chord with citizens from different political persuasions.  While the New Hampshire debate neatly framed the Obama/Clinton contest as one between change and experience, the frame simplifies to the point it obscures the reality of Obama's appeal.  There are specific contours to the kind change that Obama is talking about:  the coming together of folks who have been long divided on sectarian issues, but are all in agreement that the U.S. must look at things fresh and perhaps rethink the divides that have made politics so ineffective and, yes, ugly.  And it's not enough for Clinton to say that she too is "for change."  The coalition that Obama is talking about is a different idea, and as more and more people who are telling the story (e.g., Andrew Sullivan, on the right) and participating in the story (e.g., Bill Bradley, on the left) agree, Obama might be unusually -- if not just surprisingly -- well suited to do something with this idea.  That's a tough thing to compete with even if it is naive, as Clinton complains.  My guess is that Clinton will continue to struggle unless she comes up with a compelling, competing idea of her own.

See also:  Katie Paine.

How Does the Iowa Caucus Work?

Ever wonder about this?  The New York Times has a great little video.

Obama's Got Game in New Hampshire

Wired says that Obama has better traffic than Clinton in New Hampshire.  Must be thrilling news to the digital set. 

Scoble vs. Facebook: Man Versus Machine

By now you have probably heard the news (and rants) about Robert Scoble's peremptory "disablement" on the Facebook network.   Seems like the company froze his account after learning he violated the "terms of  service" by using a script that grabbed his data so he could export it to other networks. 

Whether you believe that the data belongs exclusively to Robert, or whether some of that data belongs to Facebook and others, there's a bigger lesson for Facebook in this latest tussle in the blogosphere.   It appears that the offending note from Facebook was a machine-generated message (or faceless message from a real human being) to one of the world's most respected and influential bloggers.   In an age where even old-school business leaders are learning to speak with their customers in a human voice, Facebook left this important job to a "machine":  a cold, legalistic communique from corporate.  A phone call might have been a better idea.  Looks like there are several sides to this story that a real conversation would have cleared up.

Reminds me of an earlier breach in customer relations involving the editor of an in-world newsletter (the first of its kind) that covered EA's The Sims Online, one of the first virtual-world communities.  The editor of that publication (who retells the story in excruciating detail -- excruciating for EA, I am sure -- in a recent book) got a similar form-letter email when he was dismissed from the community (also for allegedly violating the  TOS).   The result of that action:  not good for EA. 

There's an old saying -- never pick a fight with someone who buys ink -- or stink -- by the barrel.   But if you must, give the job to a human being.   At least they can talk back.

Eight Things You Don't Know About Me

So, the great Collin Douma has tagged me among the next pay it forward's for the latest round of what you don't know about me meme.  I've done these a couple of times (I think), but never very seriously.  This time, I will try to be more serious.  I am in a serious mood, after all (post-holiday kick-ass mode):

1.   Before toiling as a PR guy, I worked as a ghostwriter and theater producer. I did fairly well in both vocations.

2.  I am the principal author of a two-volume treatise on insurance law.  Perhaps that  reminds you of a Woody Allen joke.

3:  I am a real first tenor, and on a good day I can still hit a B above middle C.

4.  I played the part of Paul McCartney on a special segment of Wonderama.

5.  My uncle is a well-known Latin-American music producer.  I could have gone in that direction.

6.  My first job out of college was teaching fifth grade at a Catholic school.  I am now an atheist.

7.  I regret that I never finished that graduate program at NYU in psychology.

8.  In practically ever job I've ever had, I've played the psychologist.  All the world's a stage.

***

So, who am I gonna tag?  Here are folks I trust will take the task as seriously as I have:

Peter Hirshberg

Don Thorson

Denise Vardakas

RJ Pittman

Shel Israel

Mike Prosceno

Deb Schultz

Jake McKee

The Wall Street Journal Needs Lots More Traffic

Read all about it here.

JPMorgan: Bet on the Net

Erick Schonfeld has a great short summary of a massive JPMorgan study about the dominance of tech stocks in the current era.  Key takeaways:

--tech stocks are agressively outpacing the S&P

--"Free cash flow at large Internet companies will keep going up, fueling M&A and share buybacks."

--online advertsing continues to grow.

What does it all mean, for you? Who knows?  But safe bet is that the Valley is not a bad place to be, especially if you don't mind changing jobs.