Sound advice from the OTHER Clinton campaign

[GilloD]

http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2008/04/21/a-message-to-pennsylvannians-from-bill-clinton/

Oh snap.

[APF]

So... vote for John McCain rather than the Democrats trying to scare voters over the economy, over Iraq, over health insurance, over fuel prices, over...

[FlameOfCallandor]

What happened to John Kerry in 2004?

[APF]

Part of the problem is, everyone frightens voters--and for good reason; if you don't frighten voters with what the other side will--or won't--do if elected, the inherent suggestion is, your policies aren't important enough to affect people's lives.  Further, Bill Clinton was also campaigning in a time of relative peace and prosperity.  Even in this cycle, the "hope" candidate is running a campaign whose message is, "America is all fucked up and has been all of your life until I came to change things."

[FlameOfCallandor]

Part of the problem is, everyone frightens voters--and for good reason; if you don't frighten voters with what the other side will--or won't--do if elected, the inherent suggestion is, your policies aren't important enough to affect people's lives. 

The president shouldn't have the power to affect peoples lives to a point where they need to feel fear.

[APF]

Part of the problem is, everyone frightens voters--and for good reason; if you don't frighten voters with what the other side will--or won't--do if elected, the inherent suggestion is, your policies aren't important enough to affect people's lives. 

The president shouldn't have the power to affect peoples lives to a point where they need to feel fear.

Maybe you should use the fear of a too-powerful Presidency to scare voters into supporting your candidate.

[FlameOfCallandor]

Part of the problem is, everyone frightens voters--and for good reason; if you don't frighten voters with what the other side will--or won't--do if elected, the inherent suggestion is, your policies aren't important enough to affect people's lives. 

The president shouldn't have the power to affect peoples lives to a point where they need to feel fear.

Maybe you should use the fear of a too-powerful Presidency to scare voters into supporting your candidate.

Thats what motivates me.

[Mandark]

That clip is actually Clinton stumping for Kerry in '04.

Every candidate is going to say things will be worse if they don't get elected, so that's fair game if that's how you're defining fear.

But stoking an emotional, visceral fear of other groups of people is usually a bad, bad thing to do.

[APF]

If that's stumping for Kerry, it really doesn't make any sense.  I don't think you can argue Kerry ran a "hope-based" campaign.  The best you can say is, Kerry didn't say America would be struck by terrorists if the Republicans stayed in office--but with a major plank of his campaign being, America is less safe and more vulnerable to attack post-Iraq, even that's only a half-truth.  The charges of fearmongering from Dems that election were overblown, especially with so many people saying, this was the most important election of a generation, because Bush is destroying the country, destroying the environment, destroying civil liberties (he's listening to your phonecalls!!!), destroying the Constitution, etc.  Fear can be rational--as you say, it's "usually" a bad thing to use, implying "not always"--and Kerry's entire campaign was based on demonizing the crooks and liars in the White House--how was that not a fear-based campaign?  Not to mention the fact that Dems strike fear into the hearts of old people and blacks two weeks before every election.

Even running a "hope-based" campaign means you have to play on the fears and insecurities that exist in current-day America--otherwise, what exactly are you hoping for?  Obama's campaign f/e is simultaneously positive and negative: America's an awful awful place, but now I'm here to fix everything.

[AdmiralViscen]

"Nailed it."

But at least he doesn't have an ad with Osama and WTC in it.

[Mandark]

Yeah, fear's a necessary tool, if you're defining it as an aversion to bad stuff.

What I was trying to do was draw a line between that and the stoking of real, immediate terror that triggers some of our worst tendencies.  I think it does override reason and empathy when people are made to feel that their very survival may be at stake, and it's doubly worse when the perceived threat is a minority or foreign people.

[APF]

Here's the thing... If you're not speaking to something people inherently believe--at least in part--your message isn't going to resonate anyway.  Then the question is, is this purely emotional, or is there some core message behind it that people accept the premise of, and therefore is valid to discuss.  If your stoking of those fears is wrong on the merits, then people can call you on it; if their calling you on it fails to resonate with the electorate, then there's something there--politically at least--and then we're back to the, it's necessary and useful part.  Especially if you feel there's some issue that needs solutions, and you have those solutions.  Otherwise you're arguing a patronizing, anti-democratic perspective, wherein the electorate can't be trusted on matters of great importance, as they're too easily manipulated by political hucksters who don't have their best interests at heart.  But then again, we don't have a popular vote re: whether or not to go to war, for example.  We vote-in representatives who have that power.

[Mandark]

This isn't about the the electorate's ability to make their own choices.  My concern is for one group using the political process to make decisions where the costs are borne by another group.  Old subject.  Tyranny of the majority, constitutional limits on government, yadda yadda.

Without the proper checks in place, it's very easy for a minority, immigrant, or foreign people to get curbstomped by democracy.

[APF]

If you're not talking about the electorate, then why are you talking about fearmongering?  Aren't you talking about, as you say, checks-and-balances and limiting governmental power?  Looking at what you're typing, it seems like you're saying you want to avoid government officials acting on their own fears (and/or the fears of their constituents) in an irrational manner that disenfranchises the powerless.  That's a fair point I don't think anyone could disagree with, but it also seems tangential to a discussion on political campaigning.

[Mandark]

I am talking about the electorate, or at least the majority.

I was saying it's not about people not knowing their own interests, it's people having political power over others and abusing it because their ignorance has been filled in by fear and hate.

Which sounds like hippie talk, but "those other people are out to get you, and we need to strip them of their rights/round them up/deport them/kill them" is a really popular meme in politics, even in stable, economically developed democracies.