With passing apologies to Gordon Gekko, the point is, ladies and gentlemen, that perception -- for lack of a better word -- pays off. Perception becomes reality. Perception works. Perception both mollifies and radicalizes the public. Perception, in all of its forms -- perception of life, of money, of knowledge -- has marked the forward motion of society. And perception -- you mark my words -- will not only save the Democratic Party, but that other malfunctioning organization called the USA. (1)
Want proof? "Read my lips." Whitewater. Elian Gonzales. Dot-coms. Enron. Saddam. Code Orange. The Scream. Flip-flop. Terry Schiavo. John Bolton. Filibuster.
In the last 72 hours since the Fantastic Fourteen thwarted the Senate floor shootout over the filibuster, folks on all sides have dissected the Great Compromise of 2005 ad nauseum. In an attempt to drive public perception, centrists cry, "It's a triumph!" Hardliners on both sides cry, "It's a sellout!" The truth is that a victory for the middle never pleases the "sides" except to the extent that both can use the outrage of compromise to whip their bases.
Compromise, you see, serves many masters. Conservatives can claim to be the standard bearers of the righteous right, while liberals can claim it as proof of the conservative crusade for total world domination. Both decry the mushy moderates as betrayers to the cause. Meanwhile centrists can claim the moral high ground of averting a constitutional crisis. All of this posturing is critically timed. A mere 18 months before the 2006 elections, the seeds of perception sown today will have enormous impact on the balance of political power in the U.S.
Since 1994, Republicans have been masters of the perception game mostly because they know that winning perception depends on serving a salient message arfully framed in warm, iconic images like God and country and doing so with discipline. Who can argue against "family values" or a "war on terror"?
Meanwhile, Democrats have offered splintered messages on dozens of micro-issues like the environment, abortion, labor, forgetting that they must help the Americans see those issues through the frame of a big picture. They forgot about the vision-thing.
Bill Clinton and his campaign architects knew that no matter how flawed and polarizing a candidate he was that all Americans could identify with a "boy from Hope." We're all that kid, working hard for the American Dream. That vision made us all feel like we could be members of the "haves" as long as we "don't stop thinking about tomorrow." That vision (and some shrewd politicking and policy brokering) inspired a decade of enormous innovation and properity.
Karl Rove knew it, too. He took another tremendously flawed and polarizing candidate and framed him as the "compassionate conservative," saying to voters you can trust him to be as careful a steward of those in need as he will be of government spending. It never mattered that it proved to be a bunch of hooey. The Democrats never acknowledged the power of that perception and utterly failed to frame the counter argument. Thus George W. Bush was re-elected as the candidate who has "got a plan" while his opponent was solidly framed as a flip-flopper.
In the game of public perception the golden rule is: frame or ye shall be framed. You either define yourself in the marketplace or suffer being defined by someone else. Jay Bookman, a great writer for the Atlanta Journal Constitution said, "In the marketplace of ideas, it doesn't matter that the product the Republicans are selling is toxic. If it's the only product on a shelf, the American people will buy it."
Right now, Democrats have been given a rare gift by that most talented and disciplined bunch inside the White House. Terry Schiavo was the first crack in the dam; the filibuster fight was the second. They over-reached, making even their moderate membership queasy. Republicans have never been more vulnerable to portrayal as the party of greed and misdeed. The public is waiting to perceive that.
(1) Satirized version of the Gordon Gekko soliloquy from Oliver Stone's Wall Street.
Recent Comments