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When you’re speaking, own the space or it will own you. Move the microphone, step in front of the podium, if you don’t like the lights ask to have them turned up or down.

Successful advocacy requires creating a connection, it requires identifying with the audience and making the audience identify with and feel connected to the advocate. Anything that gets in the way of creating that connection is bad, anything that helps create that connection is good. That’s why blast emails to millions of people have personalized openings and casual subject lines. Treat space the same way you would treat mass email – to the extent possible break down artificial barriers between you and your audience and own the relationship.

Last night my lovely young wife and I attended a terrific event benefitting DC Scores, an after-school literacy, civic engagement, and soccer program in DC. In between fun food and a silent art auction we listened to speeches, a song and vocal performance from a local Grammy award nominated artist, and six of the DC Scores students performing their poems. The stage had a large podium with a microphone downstage right (a seriously large podium, it could have hidden a small refrigerator) and a microphone on a stand downstage center.

Virtually all the speakers and performers tried to contort their bodies around the mics. Other than the students and the professional performer all of the speakers worked from behind the (massive) podium. They chose to move away from the spotlight, away from the obvious focal point of the room, and hide behind a big box. Only one or two moved the mic to fit their own height and approach.

One speaker – who is a television commentator – stepped behind the podium, which dwarfed him, and leaned into the mic so his “P”s sounded like small explosions. He would have been better served by pushing the mic away from him so he could continue to lean forward and keep a reasonable tone. Or better yet avoiding he podium entirely. All of the speakers would have been better served by stepping out in front of the podium, taking the mic off the stand downstage center and using the space. Even the professional performer, who did use the mic in the center of the stage, left the mic stand at a height set for a fifth grader.

The event was terrific, the organization does great work, and the student poets were fantastic (several took the mic off the stand, all used the space, none accepted the set up as a set of obstacles to work around). But it could have been better and more powerful had the speakers stepped out from behind the Volkswagen sized podium, taken the mic out of the stand, and owned the space.

When you speak to a group take the stage, don’t be its victim.

Below is the final exam for the political rhetoric course I teach at GW. I've been told students have fun answering the question, I certainly have fun writing it.

What's your answer?

Modern Political Communication and Rhetoric
Spring 2012
Final Exam
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After four years at GW you launch into a successful career as a strategist, author and pundit. The work is fun and financially rewarding.

Over a lot of years in the political business you accumulate a lot of stories, some of which are funny, some sad, some that beg larger questions. And over the years you tell these stories to friends and family, and you make students at your alma mater sit through them whenever you come back to speak. And inevitably people tell you stories are moving and funny and make them think and you should write a book someday. And inevitably you believe them. But rather than write a book you decide to write a TV show (you after all were inspired to go into politics by “The West Wing”). You figure that the DC political show has been done to death, and that the lessons you’ve learned apply to small towns as well as Washington; what makes your stories interesting isn’t that they are about politics but rather that they are about people.

So you write a pilot about small town politics in the fictional town of West Plymouth and work some connections to get it read. It gets read and optioned by HBO.

One of the first challenges is finding a suitable location, a town small enough to make the point that all politics is local (really local), that is close enough to a big city to make it easy for the cast and crew to get to, and that is willing to be taken over for a few weeks by a production company shooting exteriors and establishing shots. You join a location scout and one of the show’s producers and go looking for an authentic and convenient town that can serve as West Plymouth.

About half way between Philadelphia and DC you find New Providence.

New Providence is perfect. There is a mix of the very old and very new, setting up obvious points of conflict between the old-timers and the yuppies. There’s a diner that serves locals and a “coffee and tea emporium” down the street that serves the same muffins but for twice as much. There’s a hardware store, a small grocery store, an antique store (used to be a consignment store, but you can charge rich tourists more if you call it “authentic” rather and “used”). A new-ager has moved in and set up a yoga studio. There’s a bar mostly populated by locals during the week and tourists for lunch on weekends. Completely randomly, the coach of DC United who also happens to be a painter has opened a studio and art gallery on Main Street.

The producers meet with city officials, cut a deal and pretty soon the town is taken over by TV crews. The crews leave within a few weeks and the town is back to normal. Part of the deal is that the true identity of the town is kept secret.

The show is a hit and runs for several seasons, sells lots of DVDs and is pirated like mad. Because it was your idea you have a cameo role in the show, turning up from time to time as the grouchy mechanic who runs a garage and tow service that seems to specialize in obscure and unreliable British sports cars.

Eventually all good things come to an end, including the show. You get a check from time to time but otherwise it’s one more random stop in your career.

Several years go by and you realize that you’re done with politics. It’s not that you’re bitter or disillusioned, you’re just done. The checks you got from the show eventually added up to a fair amount of cash, and you think “since the money came from the show and the show was based in New Providence, and I played a mechanic on the show, it only seems to make sense that I use the money to buy a garage in New Providence.” (That the idea makes sense is an indication of just how done with DC you are). You close your firm, you sell your condo, and you buy the old garage in New Providence that served as the garage in the show. Because all garages have a dog, you get a dog and name him Tock. You buy a couple of old British sports cars, and spend your days tinkering on your cars, tinkering on friends’ cars, and telling actual customers that you’re just too busy to take on any new work right now. You don’t tell anyone you’re the guy who wrote the show about their town and they don’t recognize you, to most folks you’re the guy who bought the garage and who has the great dog with a weird name.

New Providence is a good place to be, but could use some help. The high school could use some repairs and the athletic fields are a bit of a mess. The infrastructure is pretty old and the age is beginning to show. Nothing drastic, no bridges collapsing or anything, but things are getting frayed around the edges. You notice but don’t much care – you’re a little frayed around the edges yourself.

About a year into your new life HBO decides to run a reunion special of West Plymouth and issue the old DVDs with exclusive never before seen footage. As part of the package they want to reveal the actual town’s name.

The HBO executives argue that revealing the name of the town could be a huge boon – the town could put up a sign saying “Welcome to New Providence and West Plymouth” and list the name of the mayor of the real and fictional towns. They could rename a store or two after the names of the stores on the show, basically turn the town into a TV set of itself. New people would come and eat in the diner and buy commemorative t-shirts, all of which would mean more tax dollars to pay for needed improvements.

Not everyone loves the idea. Some folks argue that the interest will fade and New Providence will turn into another old empty lot when interest inevitably fades – it will be worse off than before. Besides, these are real people who live in a real place; they don’t want to be turned into props for some publicity stunt.

You don’t care one way or the other.

One morning while sitting at the diner, drinking cheap coffee from a chipped mug, you overhear two locals debating the issue. When one says he just went back and watched all the shows you quickly finish your coffee, tuck your Communicator under your arm (more on that in a moment), and duck out the door – you don’t want to be recognized.

But all good things must come to an end.

On the street you run into one of the HBO folks who immediately grabs you and gives you the fake hug that politicians and television producers seem to learn in some secret lab in the New Mexico desert. He pesters and prods you to help persuade the town to take the deal. He offers you more money and he flatters and annoys you into saying “I’ll think about it.”

As the producer heads for a $5 cup of hand squeezed organic karmically balanced feng shui all natural green tea with a hint of lemon and free range honey at the “emporium,” you shake your head and to head to the garage to see you can’t finally fix the speedometer on your 1974 Triumph Spitfire. As you turn the guy from the diner who just spent three days watching the damn show nearly plows into you. And of course he recognizes you. And of course he thinks you ruined his town. Your snotty, condescending, too cute by half, patronizing, absurd mockery of real America makes his blood boil. And that you decided to take on your own fictional role in his actual town just makes it worse. You owe it to him and everyone else in town to make the HBO people go away once and for all.

You see no choice but to get involved – better to have half the town hate you than all of it.

The final deal with HBO – the agreement to go public, votes on the new signs and marketing, new zoning rules that will allow a certain level of exploitation and inevitable tourist absurdity – goes before the city council in three weeks. The vote will follow the only scheduled open meeting between now and then. There are two options: pass the new rules or block them. There are no compromises to be struck or ‘third ways’ to be found.

The town has one paper, The Communicator, a weekly run by M.E. Sprengelmeyer. M.E. is a former reporter in DC who you know a bit from your time in politics. Like most reporters he got laid off, and like some he found a little town with a little paper that needed running. He writes about school sports and town events (when the New Providence FHA team won the state title, it was a very big deal), but mostly uses the paper as an excuse to write a weekly column about whatever occurs to him. M.E. also collects accordions (he describes himself as a self-taught rock and roll accordion player – tells people he found, and played, an accordion in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces when he was covering the Gulf War) and he is a hilarious poker player.

There are four members of the town council. The mayor votes to break ties. That means votes can be 4-0, 3-1, or 3-2 because a 2-2 vote would force the mayor to decide the winner.

The Council
Jeff Miller owns the one bar in town. It’s a local place, not fancy but mostly clean. The kind of place you can sit at the bar, have a burger and beer and watch whatever is on ESPN without anyone bothering you. There is a small stage for the occasional band or show, typically friends of Jeff’s or whoever M.E. can get to join an accordion-led jam session. Jeff sponsors a local little league team, does his part in the community, and is generally a low-key guy. He’s on the council because civic participation is a good thing to do, and to keep the rules from either getting too restrictive (he does sell booze for a living) or too weird. It’s the perfect local bar. No one is sure where Jeff’s from, he’s not an urban refugee like you are, but he’s also not a local who traces his roots back however many generations this town goes.

John Philip is one of those guys who traces his family roots back to the founding of the town. John owns the hardware store, and holds forth on all that is wrong with modern society to anyone who’ll listen. He’s the lead organizer of the Memorial Day events, he’s a veteran and his dad was among the first people in Hiroshima after the US dropped the bomb in WW II. He is the guy for whom the phrase “cut off your nose to spite your face” was invented.

Kim Deal is one of those people Philip can’t stand. She owns the “coffee and tea emporium” on Main Street that sells teas, coffee in presses and espresso machines that are over-engineered and cost more to repair than your car. There are artsy teapots for sale, some wind chimes and dream catchers, that sort of thing. She was a successful real estate agent in Washington, specializing in high end condos and luxury buildings; she tells people that she got tired of the money chase and the endlessly pointless small talk and pretense that is Washington (“people in Washington wear masks to hide their masks, it’s worse than a lack of depth or soul, Washington lacks even any meaningful surface…”) That her departure from DC coincided with the collapse of the condo market there is, from her telling, coincidental (“it was a sign, a blessing really…”) She calls herself spiritual but has a hard time explaining exactly she believes in. She has also maintained her real estate license and does a pretty good business selling and renting homes in New Providence.

Sarah Warren is a history teacher at New Providence high. Her son grew up in New Providence and graduated from New Providence high. Warren got involved in politics as an outgrowth of being an involved parent and because she thinks it is the sort of thing that history teachers ought to do. She was active in the PTA because her son was a student, she ran for the local school board to ensure that books weren’t banned from the school library and that “intelligent design” wasn’t taught in science classes. Serving on the City Council was the next logical step. To the extent she has a political ideology it is best described as “pragmatic progressive” (or in the eyes of some, “limousine liberal”).

Harry Mitchell is the mayor. He’s a good guy, runs the diner, and likes being called The Mayor. He likes the town and the folks who live there, likes throwing out the ceremonial first pitch of the little league season, and running the grill at the Memorial Day celebration. He likes to govern by consensus and is good at getting people around a table and affably working things out – “what this debate needs is a little pie, why don’t we move this meeting to a booth at the diner and we can figure something out” is his preferred (and often successful) approach. Mitchell likes being the mayor of a town in which that solution can work; New Providence is a big enough place to have problems, but small enough that they can usually be talked through to an amicable solution. As you might expect, he dislikes voting to break ties, he prefers to either support something early in the hopes the decision will be a near-consensus, or when the outcome is a foregone conclusion. He likes to be the reconciler, not the decider.
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What are you going to do, and why are you going to do it?

In your answer be sure to indicate who your audience is, and why; how you intend to approach the campaign, and why; and how you are going to frame the debate and why.

Focus on strategy and approach rather than tactics and tools – for example, if you are going to hand out fliers describe their tone, but you don’t have to write them.

Your ideas must be feasible and reasonable.

Last night I attended at local “budget town hall” hosted by DC Mayor Vincent Gray. I applaud the Mayor for openly and directly discussing the District’s finances with people in every ward and with students at Howard University. That said, I do have some unsolicited advice.

Listen to your staff. You have hired smart and experienced people to help you develop ideas and explain those ideas to your constituents. I am certain that much of my unsolicited advice repeats what they have been saying. You hired them because they’re good – listen to them for the same reason.

Listen to Aristotle. In The Rhetoric Aristotle argues that successful persuasion balances the credibility of the speaker (ethos), a reliance on facts (logos), and appeals to emotion (pathos). Contemporary scholar Philip Wander writes that technocratic realism and prophetic dualism help move an audience (Wander is writing about foreign policy, but the theory applies to this point as well). You establish your ethos early –your quick bio establishes you as a man of good will. You are great on logos; lots of charts and graphs. Missing is pathos, passion, an emotional connection. To borrow from Wander, you have the data (technocratic realism) but are missing the necessary cry for justice (prophetic dualism). Establish Washington as a shining city upon a hill. Cheerlead a bit.

Put the context before the data. You started with the specific and moved to the general, which made the audience assemble the parts to get to the whole – that was tricky given the large number of parts. I would have started with the whole, give the context first, then I would have gone into the details. Help me see the puzzle before you make me focus on the individual pieces.

Be positive. Rather than “not cutting” you should be “protecting.” They are the same thing, but the former sounds defensive and the second sounds like you’re being strong. Being strong is better than not being weak.

A logistics point on staff and seats. More folks attended than you expected (though if you’d added up all your staff and the number of event cosponsors I don’t think you would have been surprised by the numbers). People were standing in the aisles and milling around in the halls. At the beginning I would have asked the staff to stand, introduced them (collectively, not individually), said “these are the people who help me help you” then asked them all to give their seats to constituents.

You’ve got good ideas, these town halls are the right thing to do, you’re treating your voters like the adults they are, and you’ve got a good team helping you. Listen to that team and let them help explain your ideas to your constituents.

One of my favorite pieces of political wisdom comes from Michael Goldman, a Boston-based political consultant and an adjunct instructor at Emerson College when I was a student there: “Don’t just do something, sit there.” A corollary is: “Don’t just do something, sit there and think for minute – then do something useful.”

A recent online error that could have been a disaster for the first French online retailer turned into a boon for the site largely because the company didn’t just do something. Rather, the company thought about the situation and figured out a way to embrace the mistake and use it to the company’s advantage.

La Redoute had just launched when a naked man was spotted in the background of a picture of a group of kids on the beach. The traditional first reaction would be panic, followed by lots of statements about how La Redoute is deeply sorry for the mistake and really it’s a good company that honestly doesn’t secretly support pedophilia and has a strict policy of no naked people even our employees must be fully clothed at all times even at home and in the shower and we’re giving lots of money to charities that help the victims of child abuse and for the sake of all that is good and just don’t go to Amazon.com. La Redoute took another approach – they planted fake images in other photographs on their website and challenged users to find them. The winner of the contest would win, apropos of this starting with a naked person, a complete outfit. (A short video from AdForum on this story is here).

Before just reacting to what was in front of it, the company asked “what do we want?” They want people to visit their website, see their products and buy stuff. As the first online retailer in France, folks had to get used to visiting an online store and buying from one, they had to feel comfortable with the medium. A controversy over an inappropriate photograph could drive people away, which would be bad, making “oh please oh please oh please” a reasonable response. But the better response was to use the mistake by creating other mistakes to draw people in, “you thought the naked man was something, you should see what else we’ve got.” This drew tons of views of tons of pages – and tons of views of tons of items for sale. This, hopefully, translated into actual sales (and certainly did more for sales than begging forgiveness would have).

The lesson for advocates is clear: stop and think about your ultimate goal before acting or reacting. By taking a step back and looking at the larger picture you may find ways to take advantage what initially is an attack or setback. Their attack might be your point exactly. Embrace the naked man - and add a sea-monster.

The Sunday Washington Post featured a piece on the emerging relationship between DC Mayor Vincent Gray, a liberal Democrat, and U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, a “tea party favorite.” Representative Issa and Mayor Gray come from different backgrounds, bring different experiences to government, and have starkly different political views. But, as the Post notes, the two are developing a good working relationship on issues relating to the District of Columbia. The emerging relationship between Mayor Gray and Representative Issa is an instructive object lesson for advocates.

The article notes that last April Mayor Gray and several D.C. Councilmembers were arrested for protesting federal rules prohibiting the District from spending its own money to pay for abortions – an action that made headlines but no policy progress. “But,” as the article goes on to note, “Gray has quickly learned that those who build friendships inside the Capitol often hold the real power.”

Mayor Gray invited Representative Issa, the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has jurisdiction over the District, to a Washington Capitals game in December. According to the Post the two spent a lot of time talking baseball. They developed a relationship apart from their partisan disagreements (or maybe disagreements over the Padres and Nationals made the political disagreements seem trivial – either way they found something to talk about other than each other’s political positions). By developing a relationship the two found reasons to want to talk to each other – conversations didn’t have to be confrontational or dreaded, they could be actual conversations between actual people.

In the context of a relationship one can have tough conversations about points of serious disagreement – whether or not a California Congressman should be able to tell a D.C. Mayor how to spend his taxpayer’s money for example. And a relationship doesn’t guarantee that either side will get what they want, or that real divisions will fade away. But an existing relationship both opens the door for progress, for creative problem solving on the issue at hand. And the relationship makes it more likely the Mayor and the Chairman can work together on the many issues about which they agree.

A headline grabbing protest virtually ensures no progress can be made on the issue at hand, and makes it far more difficult to have positive problem solving conversations about other, less contentious, issues. If you’re the guy who screamed at me in the street about topic “A” I am unlikely to welcome a conversation about topic “B”, regardless of what it is. But if you’re the guy I had a beer and talked baseball (or soccer, or books, astronomy, or whatever) with I am more willing to talk about “A” and also talk about “B”, “C” and “D.”

Politics, like everything else we do, happens through relationships. The best advocates cultivate, maintain and nurture relationships. It makes success far more likely than ranting, and it is just the right thing to do.

Earlier this week three former students who work for three different US Senators dropped by a graduate course on strategic communication theory I’m teaching at the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University.

In answer to the question, “what gets your attention? What makes you focus on one issue, group or advocate over another?” the alumni agreed that local wins. One alum said she keeps a hand written list over her desk of criteria for evaluating ideas: Is it important to constituents? Does it benefit the home state? Is it important to the Senator? Is it good public policy? In a perfect world an idea is all four, but ours is not always a perfect world. If an idea will help the home state or important groups in the home state – regardless of whether or not it is something about which the Senator is personally passionate (he may care, and he certainly cares about his voters, but our passions and the passions of others do not always align) – it is something worth at least investigating if not pursuing. If an issue is good public policy broadly, but has no direct or specific impact on the home state, or is something about which the Senator is not personally passionate, it may be an idea saved for another time or suggested to another office. Another alum rattled off a series of small-town and suburban papers that matter more to him than The New York Times or Washington Post.

Anyone who has worked on the Hill has had a similar list (written or not) and researchers have long noted this legislative filtering (see for example Policy Dynamics, ed. Baumgartner and Jones).

The lesson for advocates is clear: Go Local. It’s nice to be in the Times, it feeds the ego and makes funders happy. But it may not matter as much as being in the East Valley Tribune or the Toledo Blade. You may read RedState or the Huffington Post, but the folks who matter in Hamden, CT or Redlands, CA don’t – they read local blogs and local papers. Go to where they are. Make your issue the solution to local problems or challenges in Appleton, WI or Yakima, WA. Find advocates and spokespeople from the hometowns of the Senators and Representatives you’re targeting. Make your ideas their ideas, make what is good for you good for them – and thus good for the policymaker you are working to persuade.

This isn’t easy. It requires separate campaigns for each policymaker, which requires largely boring time consuming work. It’s a lot easier to pick up the Wall Street Journal to see who to call or to email your friend at the Post. Funders prefer to be in the papers they read, and it’s great to get emails from friends complimenting you on your quotes. But the point isn’t what’s easy or expected or fun. The point is what wins. And local wins.

Teaching in the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University is the most fun thing I do for money. Making this semester more enjoyable than most is that former students regularly drop by a graduate class I’m teaching. These former students raise issues they are facing at their offices, weigh in on the readings and offer the best and worst advice they’ve ever received.

The best “worst advice” answer came from a recent alum who said the worst advice he ever got was “be yourself” – though he didn’t elaborate on who job-seekers should be if not themselves (Nicholas Cage? Justin Beiber?).

Last night’s best “best advice” came from a 2006 graduate, Adam Conner: be nice. Adam said that nine out of ten people who call him want something. Adam, of course, is not alone. We are most likely to help those we want to help, people we like. Most people who ask for things are competent, probably at least minimally qualified and could do a decent job. Many are very skilled and experienced. DC is full of people like that. To stand out from that pack you have to be nice. Be someone people want to talk to, want to go a baseball game with, want to have a drink with.

There are some basic and (hopefully) obvious tips:

Pay attention.
Be in the conversation that’s going on, not the one you practiced or hoped for. Actually talk to the person you’re talking to, not the title or job that person happens to occupy.

Listen.
Don’t nod and smile anticipating your next question or answer; hear what the person is saying and respond to that – don’t just run through your checklist of questions or the ‘five things to ask three people in one minute’ or whatever the last thing you read in an airline magazine said to do. If the person you’re talking to says “I’m happy to talk but I don’t have a job I can offer” don’t end your conversation by asking for a job.

The person you’re talking to is the most important person.
Make sure the person you’re talking to knows he or she is the only person you want to talk to. Don’t look over their shoulder to see if there’s someone more important or interesting, if you’re invited to a party or event don’t ask who else will be there.

Make friends before you need them – and be in touch when you don’t need them.
This is Washington, inevitably there will be people you forget about until you need a favor. But try to minimize those times. Cultivate friendships and relationships, the rest will come. Don’t be the person who only calls when you need something.

Be someone you would want to talk to.
You know what makes you fussy in a conversation, you know the sorts of people you like and are happy to help. Be one of those people.

In other words: be nice.

For a number of years I’ve been involved with a successful non-profit in Washington, DC. The organization has a waiting list for participants, the founder and several of the executive directors over the years have won regional and national honors and the program is well known and respected among local media and policymakers.

I mention all this because last week I got a call about a new brochure for the organization. There is a local program that brings senior executives together and provides pro-bono management and communications support to non-profits. They decided to offer services to the organization I’m involved with, and what they decided to do was create a new brochure.

Good brochures involve things like clear messaging, which in turn requires things like the group that puts out the brochure have a clear view of what it does and who it is. The process of constructing a brochure can help an organization that is trying to define itself and get a clear vision of what it is and where it wants to go – a lot of good a brochure does is done before the brochure goes to press. And of course a brochure can help spread the word, may result in some low-dollar donations and is generally a good thing to have.

The organization with which I’m involved doesn’t need to define itself, or promote itself among potential participants, policymakers or in the local philanthropy community. What the organization needs is money. Not the “hold a happy hour and pass the hat” sort of money, the cost of a very nice house sort of money.

Which brings me back to the brochure. Quick, what’s the last brochure you received? Do you remember what you did with it or as a result of it? Now, what was the last non-profit, advocacy or political organization you gave money to? Why did you donate? Final question – think of the group to which you write the biggest checks, why do you donate there? Brochures can do a lot, but they can’t raise serious dollars. Raising serious dollars requires grant writing and major donor cultivation – it requires the answer to the last question: why do you write big checks? (I’d bet a dollar to your favorite charity the answer isn’t “because I got a brochure”).

A brochure is a tactic, an element or tool that most organizations ought to have. A brochure isn’t a political victory or social change. The organization I’m involved with needs money, so when offered free outside expertise they should set that expertise the task of getting money. The organization may also need a brochure, but they don’t need to waste precious elite resources on it; it’s the sort of thing that could be assigned to a good intern (in this case a good enough brochure is good enough).

The best organizations figure out what they need most, figure out the most efficient means getting it and do that.

The current issue of The Economist features a piece on new state laws allowing gambling and loosening restrictions on alcohol and fireworks sales. The article, “Live free and pay more tax”, laments “This trend is not, sadly, the result of a sudden renunciation of paternalism by state governments. Rather, it stems from the states’ dire fiscal straits…”

In addition to engaging in classic lamenting winning behavior (“sure we’re winning, but not for my reasons and I want my reasons!” – something not a lot of professional athletes whine about, on the pitch a goal is a goal no matter who scores it or how it goes in) the article is a case study in issue framing.

Policy scholars such as Frank Baumgartner note that issues are multi-dimensional – gambling is equally about taxes, freedom, entertainment, and a host of other things. The dimension of the debate determines the range of possible outcomes, legitimate arguments, experts qualified to speak to those arguments, legislative committees and bodies in which arguments are heard, and so forth. Further, once a dimension is agreed upon, the debate is basically over. In this case, states are broke and if the debate is about getting more revenue from new tax sources, the answer is to make more things legal so they can be taxed. The serious political debates therefore are over meaning, what something “is” (in Political Language and Political Reality Murray Edelman writes, “If there are no conflicts over meaning, the issue is not political, by definition”). If you win the meaning you may not win the debate, but if you lose the meaning you will almost certainly lose the debate.

That such is the case is (hopefully) not news to anyone reading this blog. But it still serves as reminder of the power of policy framing. I expect that had arguments to sell recreational explosives been led by civil libertarians because the government is not to be trusted and the individual exists to express his or her freedom, the arguments would have failed (if you were a legislator would you sell fireworks to people who had disdain – at best – for legislators?). But because the arguments were about funding teachers and cops, the arguments succeeded.

Win the frame, maybe win the debate. Lose the frame, lose the debate.

And when you win, don’t complain about it.

Yesterday I filled out an online survey about interacting with Congress. The survey was being conducted by very reputable folks, and was targeted to people who make a living interacting with Congress. The group was conducting a similar survey with Congressional staff. The goal is to learn how Congressional staff receive information, what they find persuasive and generally what sorts of tools they use to make decisions about policy, to learn what advocates do to influence Congressional staff and point out where advocates could do a better job.

In exchange for expressing my thoughts on postcard campaigns (nearly useless) and meetings with constituents (useful) I will receive a copy of the final results – something I am very much looking forward to. As a former staffer I think I know what moves staff, but mostly I think I know what moved me when I worked on the Hill.

The survey asked predictable questions – do PAC or campaign contributions help persuade staff, are site visits in the district persuasive, how useful are roundtable policy briefings – that sort of thing. Notably missing was a question about whether or not the staff or Member of Congress cares about the issue.

Every question assumed the staffer or Member of Congress wouldn’t want to meet to discuss an issue, or wouldn’t vote a certain way, unless some external force made them: “we got 100 postcards, we need to do something…” “Their PAC maxed out last cycle, we need to meet with them…” “The lobbyist is an old friend of the Congressman’s, we need to respond…”

Not given as an option was “want.” There was no room for “this group is doing something important to the Congressman, I want to meet with them….” “This company is creating jobs in the district, I want the Congressman to visit their site…” “This issue is why I came to Washington, I want to do something…”

The best advocates can resort to need if necessary, but are far more successful if they rely on want. The best advocates find out what the staff or Member wants to do, and aligns the issue with that desire. Don’t make a policy maker need to meet with you or take action on your issue – find a way to make them want to meet or act. Relying on political brute force is difficult, unpleasant and may not work. Creating political partnerships is more fun, and typically more successful.