Interesting...
Verbatims
The story I am about to tell may sound apocryphal but it is something that I actually overheard this morning, November 3, 2004 and 9:30 AM while waiting for my plane to board in Phoenix, AZ. There was a young man seated with his back to me shouting into this cellphone, "The numbers are just incredible. You won't believe this. I hardly believe it myself, but I saw it with my own eyes. There's never been verbatims even close to this. Wait until you see the Verbatims!" This being the morning after the election, before any concession, the topic piqued my curiosity. He continued. "The verbatims in Ohio, their just amazing. Dave (I think that was his name) will be sending out a memo to cover all this."
The fellow, a man in his late thirties, trim, with white shirt, but no tie, then moved himself to a different bench. But I moved myself closer and listened some more. "Our numbers are incredible. We did it! The verbatims are so high! 'They' had nothing. The only thing was something from Moveon up in Wisconsin. That had a little traction. But 'they' were nowhere. But ours kept coming up. Especially, 'Swiftboat, and ____ and ____."
I couldn't catch the other two items, nor am I sure of his boss' name. However, it was now obvious to me what he was talking about. He went over to another man and I could hear him saying similar things about incredibly high verbatims. My curiosity even more aroused, I actually followed him as he went to an adjacent gate to board. The sign at the gate said, "Washington, DC."
Still hoping for some last shred of good news I went over to a TV monitor and there was a flash on CNN, "Kerry concedes."
If we want to know why it is that we lost, in spite of an array of endorsements and a continuous stream of bad news for Bush, here it is, provided by the enemy in at the core of its operations. It's the verbatims!
This is a bitter lesson. We failed on the verbatims. We spent a roughly equivalent amount in advertising, but in spite of Bush's clear disadvantages, it wasn't enough. The difference is that we have failed to infiltrate the verbal mindset. Most likely this is all about exit poll data. It's about reasons for voting that are verbatim quotes from TV ads. But if we're wondering what went wrong on November 2, 2004, we have it from the highest authority: our verbatims barely registered.
With all the artistic and media talent that the Democrats could bring to bear, the best we managed to do is just to put them out there. We had concerts, we had fund raisers, we had phone banks and canvassing. But passion is not enough in this day and age. Politics is not about Political Science, History, or even being right. It's about the art of advertising. And on this score, the rating of our advertising is hardly on the chart.
The key to victory is to learn from our mistakes.
Its not about any one man, the "evil genius" of Karl Rove or any one person or even organization. These people have zeroed in on the key factors of media management. If we're not looking at the Verbatims to see if people exiting the polls actually parrot certain advertisements as their own reasons for voting one way or another, we're not doing our job. But even if we are. We need to do a whole lot more to catch up.
Further implications
My source seems to be saying that this election was unprecedented. In what way was it unprecedented: In popular vote margin? No! In regional sweep? No! In the clarity of issues? I don't think so. How many Bush supporters expected that his first move would be to overhaul Social Security. I'd doubt he'd have won on that! THE BIG NEWS HERE IS THAT HE WON ON THE VERBATIMS. In other words, he had an unprecedented turnout of people parroting the words in his advertisements.
Why were the verbatims so high. Obviously, the GOP already knows something about exit polling for verbatim quotation of their advertising. They ask the voter how did you vote and why did you vote that way. When the reason pops up as a verbatim quote from an ad, that's considered a hit. Apparently, there have never been verbatim hits even close to this in their previous polling. Even these insiders find it hard to believe. So what was different about this election? We don't know the answer (though the GOP may). Was there something unusual about the ads? Subliminal messages? A new production technique? THESE THINGS NEED TO BE INVESTIGATED - AND FAST!!
In 1966 Bob Dylan said, "Something is happening here and you don't know what it is. Do you Mr. Jones." Well, we can ask the same thing now of all those who thought the case against Bush was so air-tight. But we don't know what's happening here - do we? The best way to find out is to realize that there is a mystery to resolve. It's not a matter of assuming the other side's positions as being "somehow right." We need to trust our own judgment, and we need to ask, "What happened to make the judgment of so many Americans on November 2, 2004, so horribly faulty."
There is another disturbing implication here. Regardless of the push polling techniques, the possibility of fraud, of tampering with unverifiable touch screen devices, there is an ugly fact here. An overwhelming portion of the United States electorate have been turned into automatons and parrots. They are not thinking for themselves but they are letting what is coming out of the television do they're thinking for them. The situation is too urgent to try to change the culture, but we have to focus on what we are dealing with.
Most important of all: We are in a new political game. Politics is not a matter of following the law, but of influencing opinion. The defeat of Gore/Clinton's BTU tax and Hillary's aborted medical task force (Harry and Louise), teach us that political advertising is no longer a seasonal profession. If we want to save Social Security and stop our tax code from turning into a banana republic system of exploitation we need to start advertising effectively now. It's the verbatims stupid!
Philip Richman
[email protected]
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