Hi Persuader,

Okay, so not only is there this economic crisis percolating, but there's an election coming up pretty darn soon. (I wonder if these two things have anything at all to do with each other. )

In the spirit of the season, I'd like to talk about the politician's most favorite past time: spin. No, I'm not talking about spinning classes you take at the gym. Those are incredibly difficult and the seats are painfully hard, if you ask me. I'm talking about the process of spinning a story (a political debate, a campaign speech, what have you) to put it in the best light for your side. The idea behind spinning is that everybody wants to put their slant on an issue.

I'm going to go back to the salad days just for an example here. I'm going back to a State of the Union address from many years ago -- I won't name names, but I'll say that the president at the time was talking about what to do with a surplus in the budget. (Wow, that was a long time ago!)

So in this address, he said that for the first time in history, we had an excess in our budget. His plan for the surplus was to "be responsible with the surplus" and not just dump it back into people's pockets to be spent. He wanted to put it towards Social Security and do the "responsible" thing by investing in American companies and in the American stock market.

Well, what happens after any political event? Well, depending on which network you're watching either one or both sides make comments and attempt to persuade you to think how they think (as opposed to you thinking for yourself). This presupposes that there are only two sides which I absolutely do not agree with.

After hearing the speech, we then get to hear the "opposing" side put their two cents in. When this surplus existed, we had a democrat as a president and the republican talking heads got up and said something to the effect of, 'The president says he wants to be responsible and he says that you can't be responsible. Do you mean to tell me the great citizens of this United States can't be responsible with their money? The president wants to control you. He wants to control how you spend your money and where you spend it.'

The basics of this are the frame of responsibility and what they do then is they try to knock that frame out and say, control freak, government interference.

Then the democrats come back with their own spin. And if you were going to spin it the other way, you would analyze the emotionally charged words the republican spinner used. How do they knock out control freak/government interference and put back 'for the people'?

They come back with their argument. One that may work is, well, you could certainly call that being controlling and trying to take control of the money, but by the same token, the citizens of the United States, while great and sovereign, have demonstrated that they're more willing to spend their money on other things besides long term savings. We've got an obligation as a government to deal with these people as they get older. '

The "two sides" can go on like that until they turn blue in the face. Who wins? Well, whoever is able to implant in your mind the highest frame and hold it there. And that's really what this is all about.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

"Hope is the expectation that something outside of ourselves, something or someone external, is going to come to our rescue and we will live happily ever after." -- Dr. Robert Anthony

Hi Persuader,

Seven hundred billion (plus) dollars. How did they end up selling it? Well, there was fear. There was scarcity. There was impending doom. And it lead to panic and more fear and more doom. They said if it didn't happen, surely we'd be ruined. They called it a bailout and when the public outcry was so strong that the house refused to pass it, they switched it to a rescue plan.

White House spokesman Tony Fratto told journalists who had been using the term (as were we all) "bailout" to describe the $700 billion package. "It's really unfortunate shorthand for a very complicated issue." The White House prefers the word "rescue."

Those in charge believed that they would be in a better situation if this were known as a "rescue" rather than a "bailout." Bailout sounds terrible. Rescue is safe. It gives you a warm feeling -- like coming to while on the operating table.

And then Senator McCain got on the framing bandwagon and said, "Well I think what happened is we didn't convince enough Republicans and Democrats…that this was a rescue package and not a bailout." Convincing and persuasion was in order because face value wasn't good enough.

I watched a bit of the CSPAN, the CNN, the FOX and the MSNBC while this was going down, as much as I could handle, and mainly from the perspective of, who's being more persuasive in this deal. (CSPAN wins because they have no pundits at all.)

Problem is, this is so complicated that you have to be an economist or financial advisor or banking expert to understand it. It's enough to make the common man's eyes gloss over except for the fact that the taxpayer wasn't having it because it was coming out of their pocket.

And now that there's been a "rescue" (not that we the people have been rescued, but that big banks and such have been rescued), it seems like it's not gotten any easier to understand.

The frame stuck, however, that this had to happen. The frame was that if it didn't happen, the world would crumble starting with "Main Street". The frame was that there was no way for the market to correct itself. The frame was that socializing the banks (in my opinion this is a form of socialism), was the only way for us not to head into a tailspin.

The real problem isn't in the framing of this. The real problem isn't the persuasiveness or lack thereof of the parties involved. The problem with this plan is not that it has been improperly spun. The real problem is that it won't fix the crisis.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuaders,

I'm sitting in a hotel room doing some research when I happened upon an article on politics. And while I typically am not all that interested in the Democratic party, this race has been different.

As I read it, I began to think of some things that I believe to be true (whether I like it or not). Here they are in no particular order.

The people in the United States are rather fed up with Republicans and with the way they are running things. (In my opinion this is too bad as I've always leaned toward that side - Libertarian actually.).

Whom ever wins the Democratic nomination will most likely become the next President of the United States.

Persuasion matters! Whom ever uses it the best will easily catapult above the other.

And in terms of persuasion, Obama wins hands down over Clinton.

If you want to watch powerful persuasion positioning, just watch what Obama is doing.

So do I believe he'll be the next President? If I had to make my answer based on persuasion skill, it would be yes, overwhelmingly. I believe he will defeat Hillary and between Obama and McCain, Obama should handily win.

The "tax and spend" policies of the far left my haunt us for many years to come, but they can't be worse than we've had with Bush at the helm. LOL

Of course, the real deal is also available. A politician with honor and integrity (believe it or not) and his name is Ron Paul. Unfortunately, from what I've seen, he believes that simply asserting the right position will make him win. He could benefit from some persuasion coaching but his message is amazing. But without real persuasion skills, I fear it is lost on the world. Not to mention that when millions of people have their collective hands out, they may well opt for the tax and spend left.

Ok, if you'd like to see what I read that started all this in my mind, here you go.

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/732748.html

Let me know your thoughts.

Kenrick