milopa's blog

On Friday night I participated in an art opening at the The Foundry Gallery in Washington. Four of us who have joined the Gallery in the past year were featured in the main room and foyer, while other Gallery members had pieces in two other rooms. (For the art mavens in the crowd the current show runs through the end of February and I will have a solo show at Foundry in May).

A lot of people came through the opening - we went through two cases of wine and serious amounts of Costco cheese. Some of those who came were friends of the artists, others were there as they cruised the “First Friday” openings of Dupont Circle galleries (a number of galleries in the area hold openings with wine and cheese from 6 – 8pm on the first Friday of every month), others read about the opening in the paper, and towards the end a large Meet Up group came by. By one standard the show was a hit.

Two pieces sold, neither by the four of us on whom the show was focused. One was a small and relatively inexpensive collage and the other was a small and relatively inexpensive abstract; both very nice pieces but neither the purported main point of the opening. A lot of folks admired the work by the four of us in the main show, and several complete strangers said nice things to me about my art, which was very flattering. But no one wrote a check for our art, which is the primary point of a private gallery. It’s nice that we can meet new people who say nice things, but the goal is to move product.

As we gathered empty wine cups and put away reception tables I was reminded of a lot of political efforts over the years. Groups will put hold press conferences or put on events and work very hard on building a crowd to demonstrate success. A big turnout helps define the event as successful. Lots of bodies are a proxy for, or evidence of, power.

But as the art opening example demonstrates, there may be strength in numbers, but numbers are not necessarily strength. There were lots of art enthusiasts at the opening, but not many art buyers. Had we had half the attendees but sold twice as many pieces the event would have been more successful. If only a dozen people had shown and they bought out the show, it would have set records for success.

Hundreds of Washington, DC residents marching for full Congressional representation for the District is pretty pointless – legislators don’t care what DC residents think because we can’t vote for them and of course don’t have representation in Congress. A Republican Representative from Kentucky doesn’t care what hundreds of students states not named Kentucky think about his votes.

Bodies aren’t winning. The right bodies, doing the right things (buying art, voting) are winning.

Recent surveys indicate that Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a likeability deficit. Such a notion may make many cringe – “I don’t want a president I can have a beer with, I want one who can lead…” – setting aside the fact that neither President Bush (who passed the beer test while Kerry did not) nor Governor Romney drink beer, and that President Obama has held a beer summit - the notion of likability mattering is as old as Aristotle.

In The Art of Rhetoric Aristotle wrote, “a speech is composed of three factors – the speaker, the subject and the listener – and it is to the last of these that its purpose is related.” (1358b). And elsewhere, “persuasiveness is persuasiveness for an individual” (1356b). As such what matters is the opinion of the person whom the persuader is trying to persuade. In the case of candidates that means the voters needed to win (not all people, not all voters, the voters needed to win; in policy campaigns that means the people with power to block or create the change sought by the advocates).

Aristotle said persuaders rely on three proofs - ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos is the credibility of the speaker, pathos is appeals to emotion and logos is appeals to facts or reason. In bringing goal and ethos together, Aristotle wrote:

But since the objective of rhetoric is judgment (for we give judgment on political issues and a court case is a judgment), we must have regard not only to the speech’s being demonstrative and persuasive, but also to establishing the speaker himself as of a certain type and bringing the giver of judgment into a certain condition (2.1, 1378a, emphasis in original).

For a speech to succeed it has to persuade someone who needs persuading. A critical part of that success is what the person who needs persuading thinks about the speaker as a person. Success relies on us feeling a connection to the speaker, the speaker has to be someone who “gets” us, with whom we feel a level of compatibility (for the Kenneth Burke fans in the crowd this can be read as the roots of identification or consubstantiation).

Of course “likability” matters – one of the three legs of the stool of persuasion is whether or not the audience feels a connection to the speaker. Great facts or heart wrenching stories from someone we don’t trust don’t work.

Romeny’s “likability” challenge is basically an ethos challenge. Some number of the voters he needs to get the nomination, and later win the general election, simply don’t believe him, the don’t see him as a man of good character, they don’t connect with him a gut, personal level. (The good news from Romney is that Gingrich’s ethos gap a yawning maw in comparison).

The lesson for advocates is clear: your data, your stories, your passion, will fail unless they are presented by someone those you need to persuade find credible on the subject at hand. The messenger matters.

(The quotes for this post came from the Penguin Classics print publication of The Art of Rhetoric, translated by H.C. Lawson-Tancred).

Chad Ochocinco isn’t a dumb guy – he’s on his way to the Super Bowl, he’s a very savvy on social media and even guest lectured at Emerson College on the topic. And according to Politico, last night he tweeted his thoughts during the State of the Union address from @ochocinco.

The New England Patriots’ wide receiver offers valuable lessons for advocates.

Two Tweets quoted in the Politico piece remind advocates that no one is paying as much attention as you are – Ochocinco noted “Anybody notice the guy over Obamas left shoulder doesn't seem very happy and he's not smiling. He's not clapping with joy.” and while he liked the speech he wanted to know “how did he manage to memorize so much material?” Anyone reading this post is giggling – of course it was Speaker Boehner (as someone Tweeted to Ochocinco, which led to him Tweet “@SpeakerBoehner Just read some of your tweets and you seem pretty angry kind sir. I can see you on tv but you're not smiling. Hope you're ok.”) and of course the President used teleprompters.

Recall that Ochocinco doesn’t live under a rock and he’s not an idiot. Anyone who plays a sport at the top level can’t be a fool and football is not a simple game. He also has more than 3 million followers on Twitter – which itself doesn’t make him smart but does indicate he is interacting with lots and lots of people. Chad Ochocinco lives in the media stream, he’s constantly trading in information and ideas.

Most Americans interact with media far less than Ochocinco does, and like the wide receiver most don’t know – or care – who Speaker Boehner is. A lot of folks watched the State of the Union address, but precious few can remember the shout-out your program got (or didn’t get). Fewer still knew who most of the people in the room were. Most couldn’t pick Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) out of a lineup or tell Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) from Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX). This is not a condemnation of many Americans, most people have more pressing issues to worry about like keeping (or finding) a job and paying the rent.

It’s easy to get caught in the DC/advocacy world in which many of us work – fretting about a quote in Roll Call or an apparent slight in a subcommittee hearing. Those things can be important. But it is also important to remember that you probably know everyone paying attention. What happens in Longworth stays in Longworth, mostly because almost no one in Las Vegas cares.

Your task as an advocate is to navigate the insular and important insider world of Washington – but never to mistake it for the broader, noisier and at least as important world that Chad Ochocinco and his 3,000,000+ followers live in.

Thanks to Kate Wright, one of my graduate students in the School of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University for flagging the Politico piece.

I am often asked to talk to people who want to build a career in Washington and I almost always say ‘yes.’ There is a lot of good advice to given - I’d love to hear the best advice you got or give, advice you wish you’d taken and wish you hadn’t, and any other words of wisdom you’d like to share.

Below is some of the advice I usually share. Most of the ideas are stolen from the many people who were, and continue to be, generous with their time and advice to me.

Before offering whatever wisdom I can offer, I start with two caveats:

All advice is equally bad. There are a lot of ways to succeed or fail, and all advice should be taken with several grains of salt.

Advice can be as much about the giver as the receiver. Advice often falls into one of two categories: “I am a huge success, follow in my footsteps and you too will find happiness”; or “my life is a disaster, for the love all that is holy do not do what I did.” We can’t do otherwise; all we know is where we are, the experiences we had and how we make sense of it all.

With that, a couple of big themes:

Washington DC isn’t a small town, it’s a big house. (Credit for the line goes to Jill Schwartz). I am surprised when I go somewhere and don’t run into someone I know; this morning I met with the nephew of a friend who wants to work on environmental policy and I ran into a friend with whom I’m trying to set up lunch for a client. Because this is such a small town, if you’re a jerk the person you want a job or favor from probably already knows it. Similarly, if you’re a good, smart, interesting person they probably already know that as well.

Politics is an industry built on relationships, that’s what we do here. So build and maintain relationships. Not just work relationships, but actual relationships about actual things you actually care about. This network will help you get jobs, celebrate your successes and help you manage your failures.

It’s not enough to be smart and hardworking. Everyone in DC is smart and hardworking, politics attracts those people. You also have to be someone with whom others want to work, you have to be reliable and honest. You have to be someone worth working with.

Luck matters. Both good and bad luck – you may get a great job with a guy who is indicted a week later, or you may call a friend to talk about sports and have him say “tomorrow’s my last day, do you want my job?” (a slight variation of that is how I got to Washington). If you’re smart, work hard, and build and maintain relationships, the luck will come.

Practice humility. To steal a line from Charles du Gaulle, “the graveyard is full of indispensable men.”

On December 31st a lot of us commit to working out more, watching TV less and eating better. By March 1st we’re on our sofa watching Pawn Stars reruns and eating cold cereal out of the box (or in my case, that was yesterday). The organizational equivalent is the strategic plan. Advocacy groups commit to focusing on a handful of core activities rather than taking on everything that could be done, investing time in staff development and keeping an eye on long-term success. Within weeks advocates have agreed to participate in three more coalitions, have put off the internship brown bag program and have turned their attention to the latest news cycle.

In yesterday’s New York Times, John Tierney offered advice on how to keep New Year’s Resolutions. In addition to offering clues on how to be sure you go to the gym next week, the piece offers good advice for advocates. Several of the ideas are below.

Set a Single Clear Goal
“Raising awareness” is not a good goal. Advocates want action, not awareness (I’m aware I ought to eat better but I don’t – see the above about the sofa – and if I am aware of your position I might disagree with you). “Advancing the issue” is too vague; is “advancing” passing legislation? Getting editorial support? A rule? Tierney recommends setting a specific goal, “lose a pound a week” for example. For advocates that could be “legislation introduced by January 31”, “10 cosponsors a week, 100 by June 1” or “a favorable editorial or article a week;” clear, measurable advancements. Similarly don’t set a range of massive goals, pick one or two things and focus on those. It takes too much individual and institutional time and energy to do more than a few things at once.

Precommit
Tell your staff and supporters what your goal is – announce that you are holding yourself publicly accountable to the outcome.

Keep Track
Track your success. Every Friday I send a memo to my clients saying what I have accomplished over the past week, and what I will do the next week. This puts me on the hook for certain behaviors (precommitting), gives me clear action items and lets me (and my clients) measure progress. If you track your money you tend to spend it more wisely – the same goes for time and effort.

Don’t Overreact to a Lapse
This is the answer to those who read the above about publicly announcing goals and then failing to meet them. Getting 90 cosponsors rather than 100 is not failure, it is most of the way to success. Figure out why you missed the goal, adjust and move on.

Reward often
When I worked for Senator Kennedy we got a gold star if the Senator liked a memo we wrote. This silly little reward that most of us left behind in first grade was proudly displayed on our computer monitor. Treats work, and get folks to work for more treats.

Earlier this week I posted a syllabus for a graduate course in strategic communication. Below is a syllabus for a political rhetoric course I am teaching in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. I've taken out some of the logistics and left the meat of the course and the schedule. There are two weeks of readings "TBD" - what should they be?

"The world is still in want of clear-headed citizens, tempered by historical perspective, disciplined by rational thinking and moral compass, who speak well and write plainly."
- Prof. Lee Pelton, President of Emerson College

Aristotle defined rhetoric as “the art of discovering all the available means of persuasion in a given situation.” In this course we will look at both theories of persuasion – how people are led to the political conclusions they reach – and the application of those theories to current political debates.

Grading is based on three short essays, a mid-term and final exam, a final paper, and class participation (quality - not quantity).

Learning Objectives and Outcomes
In this course you will learn what you come to learn. You will learn prudence in affairs private as well as public; you will learn to order your own house in the best manner, and you will be able to speak and act for the best in the affairs of the state. In other words, you will learn the art of politics.

Specifically students will be able to:
• Critically analyze a political speech;
• Construct a successful persuasive appeal;
• Write a research paper;
• Write a short essay; and
• Engage in a critical conversation.

Logistics
The syllabus is a work in progress – you can count on additional readings being assigned and conversations taking unexpected directions. Deadlines, however, are unlikely to change and no late papers will be accepted.

All papers should be emailed to ploge@milopublicaffairs.com and turned in on paper.

Essays
You will be required to write three short essays. They should be no longer than two pages, double spaced. I will stop reading at the bottom of the second page, and grade you only on what I’ve read to that point. Extreme efforts to extend margins, shrink fonts, etc., will be punished. No late papers will be accepted.

Readings
You should own and read On Writing Well by William Zinsser. We will never talk about this book in class, but everyone who writes (as you are required to do in this course, and will be in your professional lives) should read this book. You would also do well to own and read Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Other readings are outlined in the course schedule below. In addition, I may email articles or essays during the week that strike me as interesting – you should read and be prepared to discuss those as well.

Schedule
Jan 18 Intro to course/Lecture

Jan 25 Aristotle
Aristotle’s Rhetoric Book I, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and Book II, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 available at
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~honeyl/Rhetoric/ and elsewhere.

Feb 1 First Essay Due
Discuss your essays and the morality of attempting to teach “the art of politics.”
“Protagoras” by Plato. Available at http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_plato_protag_1.htm and elsewhere

Feb 8 Discuss decision making and bounded rationality
“Choice, Values, and Frames” by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, American Psychologist, Vol. 39, No. 4, 1984 pp.341-350 and “A Change of Mind or Change of Focus? A Theory of Choice Reversals in Politics” by Bryan Jones, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Vol.4 No.2 April 1994.

Feb 15 Discuss Weaver
Excerpts from Richard Weaver as well as Roland, Robert C. and John M. Jones “Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate: Moral Clarity Tempered by Pragmatism” Rhetoric and Public Affairs Vol 9 No 1 2006

Feb 22 Second Essay Due
Discuss Burke
Excerpts from A Grammar of Motives and Language as Symbolic Action Kenneth Burke and “Our Hero the Buffoon: Contradictory and Concurrent Burkean Framing of Arizona Governor Evan Mecham” C. Wesley Buerkle, Michael E. Mayer, Clark D. Olson, Western Journal of Communication Spring 2003

Feb 29 Discuss Bormann
Excerpts from Bormann and “An expansion of the rhetorical vision component of the symbolic convergence theory: The cold war paradigm case”, Ernest G. Bormann, John F Cragan, and Donald C. Shields, Communication Monographs, March 1996. Vol 63 Issue 1, p.1.

March 7 MID TERM EXAM

March 14 NO CLASS – SPRING BREAK

March 21 Discuss Civil Religion
“Civil Religion in America” by Robert Bellah, Deadalus, Vol. 96 No. 1, Winter 1967 (reprinted Vol 117, No 3, Summer 1988) and “Tocqueville and the rhetoric of civil religion in the presidential inaugural addresses” by Michael E Bailey, Kristin Lindholm, Christian Scholar's Review Spring 2003 (in ProQuest, not on Blackboard)

March 28 Third Essay Due
Discuss Narrative
“Telling America’s Story: Narrative Form and the Reagan Presidency.” By: Lewis, William F.. Quarterly Journal of Speech, Aug87, Vol. 73 Issue 3, p280, 23p; “Story Time” By: Robert B. Reich. The New Republic. March 28 – April 4, 2005 “Redemption and American Politics” by Dan P McAdams, Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/3/04; “Get Me Rewrite!”, Joshua Wolf Shenk, Mother Jones, May/June 2004.

April 4 Discuss the Rhetoric of War
“Idealism and Pragmatism in American Foreign Policy Rhetoric: The case of John F. Kennedy and Vietnam” Presidential Studies Quarterly Denise Bostdorff and Steven Goldzwig, Summer 1994;
“The Rhetoric of Foreign Policy” Quarterly Journal of Speech Philip Wander, Vol 70 Nov. 1984; “Savagery in Democracy’s Empire” Third World Quarterly Robert Ivie Vol. 26 No. 1, 2005.

April 11 TBD

April 18 TBD

April 25 FINAL PAPER DUE: NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTED

Several weeks ago I asked Facebook and Tweeps to suggest readings for a graduate class in strategic communication theory I will be teaching this Spring in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. I got some good ideas from a range of folks, some of whose ideas are included in the course.

For those who are interested in such things, below is a list of readings for the semester (I've spared you course logistics, grading and such). As you can see, the approach is broadly theoretical, starting with theories of how people decide to act and moving to specific case studies.

In addition to the readings I will talk about specific issue campaigns with which I'm familiar, and may ask guest speakers to add their stories of "look, at the end of the day when push comes to shove and all is said and done the bottom line is that the reality is that this is how it goes."

Books:
The Rhetoric, Aristotle
Agendas and Instability in American Politics, Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones
The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems , Jones and Baumgartner
Policy Dynamics , ed. Baumgartner and Jones

Other readings as listed

Jan 17 Introduction, overview lecture
Strategy v Tactics
Power
Persuasion is about the Persuaded, not the Persuader
Map “how” – Power/Persuasive/Messenger/Application
Focus on how and do

24 All you need to know
Read: The Rhetoric

31 Bears of Little Brains
Read:
“Bounded Rationality” by Bryan D. Jones, Annual Review of Political Science Vol. 2, 1999, pp. 297 – 321
“Rationality in Political Behavior” by Herbert A. Simon, Political Psychology Vol. 16, No. 1, 1995 pp 45 – 61.
“The Science of ‘Muddling Through’” by Charles E. Lindblom, Public Administration Review, Vol. 19 No. 2, Spr. 1959, pp. 79-88.

Feb 7 Prospect theory
Read:
“Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk” by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, Econometrica, Vol. 47 No. 2, March 1979, pp 263-291.
“Choices, Values, and Frames” Kahneman and Tversky, American Psychologist Vol.39, No.4 pp. 341-350
“Rational Choices and the Framing of Decisions” Tversky and Kahneman, Journal of Business, Vol.59 No.4 pt.2, 1986 pp. S251-S278
“Prospect Theory in Political Science: Gains and Losses from the First Decade” by Rose McDermott Political Psychology Vol. 25 No. 2 2004 pp.289-312

14 Barriers to persuasion
Read:
“Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans”, Darren Schreiber, Alan N. Simmons, Christopher T. Dawes, Taru Flagan, James H. Fowler, Martin P. Paulus
“Political Attitudes Vary with Psychological Traits” Douglas R. Oxley, Kevin B. Smith, John R. Alford, Matthew V. Hibbing, Jennifer L. Miller, Mario Scalora, Peter K. Hatemi, John R. Hibbing Science Vol. 321 Sept. 19, 2008
“Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises” Raymond S. Nickerson, Review of General Psychology, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 175-220
“Homer Gets a Tax Cut: Inequality and Public Policy in the American Mind”, Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 3 No. 1, Larry Bartels, 2005, pp. 15 - 31

21 Narrative theory/story telling/etc
Reading TBD

28 Metaphors matter
Read:
“Win the Debate Not Just the Case” New York Times July 14, 2002
“Political Language and Political Reality” by Murray Edelman PS Winter 1985 pp.10-19
“The Meaning and Measure of Policy Metaphors” by Mark Schlesinger and Richard Lau American Political Science Review Vol. 94 No. 3 Sept. 2000 pp.611-626
“Policy Frames, Metaphorical Reasoning, and Support for Public Policies” by Richard Lau and Mark Schlesinger Political Psychology Vol. 26 No. 1, 2005, 77-114

March 6 Midterm Exam

13 No Class: Spring Break

20
Read:
Congressional decision making
Agendas and Instability in American Politics, Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones

27 Read:
The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems, Jones and Baumgartner

April 3 Read:
Policy Dynamics, ed. Baumgartner and Jones
Parts I and II

10 Read:
Policy Dynamics, ed. Baumgartner and Jones
Parts III and IV

17 Read:
“Not-for-Profit Advocacy: Challenging Policy Images and Pursuing Policy Change” by Shannon K. Vaughan and Shelly Arsneault Review of Policy Research Vol.25 No. 5 2008 pp.411-428.

“Agenda Setting and the Albuquerque Clean Indoor Air Ordinance” James Farmer and Charles Kozel American Journal of Health Education Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 313-315

“Interest Group Participation in Rule Making: A Decade of Change” Scott R. Furlong and Cornelius M. Kerwin, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Vol. 15 No. 3, Dec. 16, 2004 pp. 353-370

24 Final Paper Due.
No late papers will be accepted.

To suggest this is a slow week in Washington is to overstate how busy it is. The email auto-responders have set up their own auto-responders and left town. Entire federal agencies will spend Thursday watching the Burn Notice - Best Villains Marathon on USA.
Which makes it a perfect time to be productive.

Smart advocates will take this week to take care of minor steps that will make the busier times easier, and build systems so that the new year starts strong and runs well.

First, do those things you spend the year saying “I really ought to do that.” Think of the task as a punch-list for your productivity. When remodeling your home or office that punch-list includes things like putting faceplates on outlets and scraping stray paint off windows. For your productivity that punch-list could include cleaning out your email, organizing the online and offline files you set aside when it was busy with a mental note to file them later, setting up a secondary backup system for your computer, changing your passwords, and cleaning up your contact list. Write your list and check off your progress.

Second, build systems to build and maintain personal and professional relationships (in politics they are often the same). Build and maintain relationships with interesting and smart people because they are smart and interesting - the personal benefits are immediate and the professional benefits nearly inevitable. There are a couple of easy systems you can put in place this week to ensure you build and maintain relationships all year.

• Pull up your contact list and your calendar. Every Monday schedule an email to someone in your loose orbit, a person you see from time to time and say “we should get coffee.” In the email, schedule coffee.

• Every Wednesday schedule an email to someone on the edges of your network, or someone you don’t know but would like to. Ask to meet for coffee for the sole purpose of meeting for coffee, for learning something new, or saying to someone in person “I’ve been meaning to try to meet you for ages, I really admire your work.”

• et up from your desk and walk to a local stationary or office supply store and buy a box of 50 blank notes (or better yet, order personalized note cards). From there go to the post office and buy 50 stamps. Put the stamps on the cards.

• Carry a few cards and stamped envelopes with you wherever you go. Put in your calendar every Friday to write a note to someone – a friend, your aunt in Phoenix, the person with whom you had coffee that week. A handwritten note goes a long way.

Simple steps that take time to set up now, and take almost no time to implement in March.

Embrace the lull, channel your inner John Ruskin and draw so that you might better see. And use the lull to prepare for the mayhem.

Yesterday a colleague shared among the best pieces of advice for advocates I’ve seen in a long time. Titled, Dear Internet: It’s No Longer OK Not To Know How Congress Works, the piece is geared to internet activists and was written in response to another piece called Dear Congress: It Is No Longer OK To Not Know How the Internet Works.

The essay makes two critical points: it is up to advocates to educate Congress, and advocates need to understand how Congress processes information. While the examples given in the essay are specific to internet regulation, the general lessons apply to everyone.

First: “If Congress is complaining that they don't know about something that you care about, the right answer isn't to tell them to go get educated. The right answer is to educate them.” Members of Congress and their staffs face waves of information on a dizzying array of complex subjects. On any given day a Congressional staffer may meet with Native American leaders, write talking points about CMS codes, brief the Representative on media ownership rules, and come up to speed on battery technology. Even if the staffer wanted to learn more about more subjects, there simply isn’t the time, and there is no reason to believe that of all the complex and important issues in the world the staffer would trip over yours. It is the job of the advocate to help Congressional staff understand why an issue matters, why it matters to that office at that moment, why it matters more than all of the pressing issues, and what to do about it. The staffer doesn’t have to have share your deep understanding or passion – the staffer has to recommend the Representative do what you think needs to be done.

The second lesson is one I’ve not seen written before, and one that is critical to moving Congress. You have to know how the system works. Not the “how a bill becomes a law” system, but the actual system of processing information in a Congressional office. How calls, emails, letters, and petitions are dealt with. Information is processed through a system called Quorum, basically a bad database that logs opinions and assigns replies. Your ranting gets typed into a screen, sent to a staffer or intern who checks a box, and if you live in the Congressional District generates a reply. The office is stuck with the interface. It’s the rules. Most staff would vastly prefer a different system, but they have to use what they’ve got. Don’t get mad at them for not using your cool tech.

There is a final note in the piece that is worth noting: “The truth is that Congress would much rather listen to its constituents than listen to lobbyists. They'd much rather be at home in their districts with their families than at fundraisers in Washington, too.” No one runs for Congress or works on the Hill because they want to meet lobbyists or live on cheese cubes. People come to Congress to change the world. It is your job to help them.

Today’s Wall Street Journal features a story on the continued drop in death sentences, with sentences falling to their lowest level in 35 years.

This is notable for several reasons, not the least of is the news itself. One reason for the news can be found in the opening paragraph of the article: “A sharp drop in violent crime, the high cost of pursuing executions and shifts in state sentencing laws have helped push the number of new death sentences in the U.S. to the lowest level in 35 years, according to a report published Thursday.”

The death penalty can be explained by fewer opportunities to seek the punishment (according to the Journal ”the number of violent crimes has dropped almost 35% in the past 20 years”) and the high cost of seeking death sentences. In addition, the death penalty is a “concern that despite safeguards, innocent people are still at risk of being executed.” This means the death penalty is not about morality, broad notions of “justice”, victims (either as a class or as named individuals), cultural history, or the Supreme Court. It’s about crime rates, economics and innocence.

Since about 2000, the national death penalty debate has shifted away from victims, the details of heinous crimes and Supreme Court over-reach and has shifted to innocence and cost. Under pre-2000 understandings of the issue, death sentences were inevitable. Under post-2000 understandings of the issue, the decline in death sentences is inevitable.

This new understanding is not accidental. It is the result of smart politics and luck – two keys to most political successes. Starting in about 1999 death penalty opponents started shifting away from yelling at capital punishment supporters in the hopes that if they shouted loudly enough policies would change. Instead of arguing over a point of disagreement (the morality of capital punishment) they started collaborating on points of agreement (fair trials, not punishing the innocent while the guilty remain free, cost). As a result, death penalty opponents started winning. (Political scientist Frank Baumgartner has studied this shift extensively, a lot of his research and info on a book-length case-study he did of the issue is here).

The lesson for advocates is clear: stop yelling at people with whom you disagree and start finding areas of agreement. Every issue has a lot of dimensions or understandings – the death penalty is about morality, and cost, and fairness, and so on. Instead of just focusing on the dimension of disagreement, find the dimension of agreement and work with your opponents on that. You can still disagree about morality, but in agreeing about fairness you make progress. You may not get a total win immediately, and you may not win at all. But if you don’t find new ways, if you don’t exploit dimensions of agreement, you will surely lose.