One reason Barack Obama won was because he allowed voters to project their identities onto him. For liberals, he was a liberal. For African-Americans he was African-American. For the children of immigrants his was the immigrant story. He was a community organizer, law professor, committed advocate and cool analyst. Barack Obama did not ask us to support him for who he was, but rather invited us to support him for who we want our president to be.
This is an important lesson for advocates.
Advocates come to their issues for a specific reason or reasons – they oppose the death penalty because it is morally wrong and oppose media consolidation because it undermines democracy. There are, of course, other reasons to support or oppose an issue; one can believe the death penalty is morally appropriate in some circumstances but that the strain it puts on the judicial system isn’t worth it, and that media consolidation has no effect in the quality of democracy but is bad for small businesses. But advocates often miss these other arguments, or worse dismiss them. As a result victories are harder to come by.
A former colleague tells an anecdote about an effort to prevent the expansion of an airport runway. One effect of the expansion would be the endangerment of a rare frog and another would be increased traffic. Supporters of the plan pointed to economic growth. The advocates were drawn into the debate by the frog. The argument became frogs versus growth. Anti-expansion advocates didn’t want to talk about traffic – they wanted to talk about frogs. Sure, traffic would get worse (possibly much worse), and sure that would be bad, but really what mattered were frogs. This approach, of course, ensured almost certain defeat. It’s like rock/paper/scissors – growth beats frogs, traffic beats growth – but the advocates kept throwing frogs. Advocates didn’t allow potential supporters to agree with them.
Smart advocates focus on the goal – electing a candidate, preventing the expansion of an airport – and find ways to allow the greatest number of people to agree with that goal for whatever reasons they want. Barack Obama didn’t care if you voted for him because he was taller than McCain, because Sarah Palin cut you off in traffic once, or because you conducted a detailed analysis of the candidate’s health care policies; he just wanted your vote. One reason the death penalty is contracting is because advocates (finally) let people oppose capital punishment because it doesn’t work as well as because it’s morally wrong. In my friend’s story, the runway was built because advocates only wanted to talk about frogs.
