In a previous post I argued that advocacy groups can use their issues to help candidates demonstrate character traits as a way to advance the group’s policy agendas. The critical element is that issues are metaphors – they tell voters not just what the candidate thinks, but who the candidate is.
Several examples help explain this point.
AIDS Action recently highlighted National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day was on February 7th and included numerous events around the country. These events provided opportunities for candidates to advance their agendas and promote a view of themselves as people to voters.
Senator Clinton needs to demonstrate she is more than ambition and intellect, and demonstrate her ability for empathy. She also needs African American voters. TO take advantage of this, organizations could have invited her attend the candlelight vigil in Cincinnati. Senator Clinton standing with mothers who have lost children to AIDS would send a strong message that she is a caring mother who is concerned about the day-to-day struggles of real people. She would be promoting her policies and her concern for the broader issues of poverty, race and health care. The issue would be there as an issue and also as evidence of a broader personal theme she needs to highlight.
Senator Obama has the opposite problem – he needs to wonk it up. Groups could have invited him to appear at one of the community fora in Ohio to engage in policy talks. By being in a community policy setting he would be arguing for his approach to AIDS and also making the case his hope is rooted in experience.
March 3rd is the 50th anniversary of the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia. A day later both Ohio and Texas hold primaries. This is an opportunity for groups like The Sierra Club and the The National Wildlife Federation to promote the connection between conservation and dependence on foreign oil. They could:
Invite Senator McCain to speak to entrepreneurs about the need to invest in domestic technologies for producing alternatives to fossil fuels. This would play to the Senator’s strength of practical solutions, show his independence by appearing with traditionally liberal groups to promote a business agenda and could be a good way to begin to court Ohio independents for the general election.
Invite Senator Clinton to a rally with Hispanics in Texas whose children are serving or have served in Iraq. This would burnish the Senator’s foreign policy credentials, reinforce the Hispanic base and put her in a setting that emphasizes empathy.
Invite Senator Obama to a forum at a graduate engineering program in Texas or Ohio to discuss alternative fuels. Such a setting would highlight his intellect, and by surrounding himself with experts in a field he would be arguing that he is a serious policy thinker and problem solver.
In each of these cases the underlying policies matter – but their force is in helping create the images the candidates need to get elected.
