Let’s talk about persuasion for a minute, shall we? Over here in Democrat-land we have a lot of fur flying between the supporters of Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton. That’s a good think to the Dog’s mind, but it has led to some testy back and forth between the Dog and people who he consider friends and allies in the goal of a more Liberal approach to government.
One thing that the Dog has noticed is that there is a lack of attempt to persuade going on with both sides of this debate. There is a lot of use of “Sec. Clinton is going to win because it is time for a woman president” and a lot of “We can’t afford another corporatist president”.
These tactics might make the person who offers this kind of argument (full disclosure, the Dog is one of them, that’s how he got thinking about this) feel good about themselves for “knowing” what is going on or what is going to happen, but if we’re honest with ourselves we don’t know, we think, we hope, we aspire to this knowledge. Sadly being right is not what any supporter of any candidate should be worried about.
No mater who one is supporting on the Democratic side of the primary season, the reality is we need more folks to come to our side of the argument if we are to have what we want, our preferred candidate as the nominee next year. Any kind of absolutist position with internal to the side assertions and assumption’s is, frankly, going to be counter productive.
As a supporter of Sec. Clinton the Dog really needs the folks who are passionate advocates for Senator Sanders. While the electoral math looks good for any Democrat, the reality is that to win Sec. Clinton needs their support and votes if she is the nominee.
On the side of Sen. Sanders, well, the polls are against him right now (he’s enjoying a good bump from his announcement) and he needs to take support from Sec. Clinton in a way that allows him to wrack up enough delegates to win.
Both of these situations call for persuasion in the form of finding out what the target of persuasion does not really like about their candidate (and don’t tell the Dog that you love everything about your chosen politician, that is just more absolutist talk that does not help!) and then be open to hearing how the other candidate is better in this respect.
To make this work, both of the above factors have to be there. There also has to be space to speak, without an over abundance of passion, about the issues. Hurling claims about this or that mistake, failure of vision or courage does exactly the opposite of what we all want, to persuade the doubtful.
Does the Dog have a solution to offer? Sure but it’s one that is going to be hard on all of us as the stakes get higher and the primaries from states start coming in. The solution is this; be aware of the target of persuasions point of view. Abandon the heavy handed sureness and be open to having to walk someone through the reasons they should support your chosen candidate. The reasons that you support that candidate are irrelevant and if they are presented as obvious knowledge they will fail to persuade.
So there it is boys and girls, a few thoughts on getting what each of us wants from the coming political season. It’s not that fun, it sure as hell is not sexy and it will have to be done again and again and again if you want your candidate to prevail but it is the business of retail politics and that is what we’re all doing in our social media and local town arenas.
The floor is yours.