Let's talk about the art of persuasion, shall we?

[wildeyed]

I took a grassroots activist seminar recently where we talked about the art of persuading a citizen to vote for your candidate. I am notoriously bad at this, so the topic was particularly fascinating to me. Here is a brief overview of what I learned in the seminar.



First, ID who you think *might* be persuadable. Some people aren't, they can't be helped and you need to leave them be. It is a waste of energy to try to convince them, and it will likely backfire and cause them to become more entrenched in their candidate and ideology since they have expended so much energy defending them.

Once you have ID'ed someone you think is persuadable, talk to them about their VALUES. People vote mostly with their heart, AKA their values. If you can figure out what they value and tell them how your candidate supports their values, then you have a good shot at converting them.

Next, identify their SELF-INTEREST, or their gut issues. These are often financial in nature. Appeal to their gut second, after you have made you values pitch.

Finally, and only as a last resort, appeal to FACT or their head.

It always surprises me that making factual arguments is not the most effective way to win over a voter, but it is not. For instance, in 04, I would argue, "Can't you see that Bush lied to get us to war, that he stole the election!" The repose from my right-wing in-laws would be along the lines of, "Whatever, he represents our values because he is a strong American, and manly looking in a flight suit and we want to drink beer with him." Which, predictably, just drove me over the edge and the conversation would devolve from there. And, of course, I was unable to persuade them to vote for Kerry. They are sorry now, but that is another conversation.

So basically, voter persuasion is a four step process:

1. Identify a persuadable person.

2. values = heart. Appeal to their heart first.

3. self-interest = gut. Go for the gut second.

4. facts = head. Use fact only to buttress your other arguments, never as the initial approach.

I am bringing this up now because there seems to be a lot of upset between Hillary and Barack supporters in this forum right now. It seems to me that most of this is a waste of energy, since nearly everyone who posts here is no longer persuadable. They are hardened in their views, and pestering them about your candidate will only antagonize them. Which is probably the point, but not a smart way to win hearts and minds for the General when we will all need to rely on each other again to win.

Let me appeal to our shared values. We all want to see the end of GWB's presidency, to see fairness and honesty restored to the White House. We disagree on how best to do that, but at the end of the day, that is what we all want.

[mahina]

1. K&R,

useful, thanks!

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. I pay attention @ DU because others are aware ... who needs to change minds now?

This is silly season ... real work can wait while we pick a titular head to the party, who will immediately become the target for everyone's hostility. Pity the winner of this contest.

As an HRC supporter, I see several steps ahead. However this ends, the cause is advanced. Even our opposition is useful.

So kudos to your education and don't worry about DUers ... having seen much worse behavior, I'm still contributing.

[RichardRay]

3. KICK & freaking R n/t

[rasputin1952]

4. I am always in favor of rational discourse...

but there are those who will stand on a drum of gas holding a match before they will admit they *might* be persuaded to another point of view.

It is sad that we have such a disparate party, everyone thinking their own passion is the shared passion of the civilized world. The reality is, we are acting in self-interest only.

Look at us now...we have an election that only we can lose, and we're rolling headlong into the loss column. It is all, "I want this" or "I want that", not the far more honorable, "what can we do to get the best deal for the nation". We are working on an emotional level that will not allow us the rationality of the well being of the nation, on our very futures. Some would sacrifice the future for a mere point of contention as opposed to working out a rational way we can come together. "Divide and Conquer" is no misnomer, it is a fact in political and armed conflict, it works because we cannot see beyond our own base fears and wants.

I claim no candidate, I refuse to dig in my heels until there is honest discourse, (and I feel I might be walking around for quite some time waiting for that...:) ), but I hold my nation's future in high regard. I am persuadable, but I must be persuaded that our future is in the hand dealt to us.

I want this nation to move forward...all of us, and we can't do that until we are willing to accept that the nation is our future. Petty squabbles have to take a back seat to the larger picture. We can work out the *small* stuff later, we need to get our nation back before it is torn to shreds.

[Ysabel]

5. i think this is a very good suggestion...k and r (n/t)...

[rucky]

6. GD-P needs to take an online course in this.

big time.

[gateley]

7. K&R -- And very interesting.

I'm going to use this new-found understanding to approach my nephew who is supporting McCain. Thanks!

[LiberalAndProud]

8. Good to know.

Have you tried this in person? If so, how did it work for you?

[wildeyed]

10. Only a little, and the person I was pitching was uninformed,

not actually hostile to my candidate. We are still in a primary cycle, so I haven't bothered to talk to pubs much yet.

But the system makes sense intuitively to me. That and I could hardly do worse than I did last presidential cycle. The problem isn't that we dems lack values, it is that we are not very good at communicating them.

The organizers clinic I took on this was sponsored by the Wellstone Action. I looked to see if they had something more in-depth posted online about the system. I didn't find anything. But here is a good blurb about values-based messaging.

http://www.wellstone.org/organizing_corner/index.aspx?catID=5259

“Too many progressives make the mistake of believing people are galvanized around ten-point programs. They are not! People respond according to their sense of right and wrong. They respond to a leadership of values.” –Paul Wellstone

[TahitiNut]

9. Identical to product marketing in the supermarket check-out aisle.

:shrug:

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Everything I Ever Needed to Know about Marketing I Learned in Aristotle's "Art of Rhetoric"

:evilgrin:

[depakid]

14. Ethos, Pathos and Logos

21st Century Americans tend to be heavy on the pathos, light on the logos and AWOL on the ethos.

[alcibiades_mystery]

17. It was probably always the way with pathos

Otherwise, Aristotle would have thought the Topics and the Prior and Posterior Analytics would suffice.

And I disagree on ethos. If anything, ethos outweighs pathos by far as the trigger for agreement. A brand image is ethos, after all. So's the R or D next to your name. :-)

[depakid]

18. I suppose you could interpret it that way

but from what I can see (and admittedly, I view things from a more international perspective these days) many if not most Americans almost seem to like being lied to. Not only do they tolerate it on just about all of their news programs, but they're happy to consume products based on what ought to be obvious falsehoods.

People on TV in this country will every night look into their viewer's eyes and repeat false statements of fact. With impunity. Similarly, millions of Americans listen to the Limbaughs of the world lie to them, without so much as a second thought- and the rely on the information!

Having just recently returned from living in Australia for a while, I can tell you that Aussies don't take very well to that shit! Indeed, my girlfriend is appalled when she comes to the states an sees what passes as "news." She reckons that Americans somehow lost the notion of "fair dinkum."

Credibility- in the sense of having a reputation for honesty and integrity doesn't hold much persuasive value anymore- particularly when contrasted with nations like Britain and Oz- where tabloids are tabloids and news is actually news.

And, from my observations and discussions with Aussies and Brits, that makes them more susceptible to propaganda techniques, like those set out by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_BernaysEdward">Edward Bernays and Joeseph Goebbels.

[Swamp Rat]

15. The Invisible Hand squished the tiny heads.

:D

[Road Scholar]

12. Very good point. Thanks nt

[LiveLiberally]

13. Thanks for the interesting insights... what they tell me...

is that there isn't much to be done right now about reconciling Clinton and Obama supporters. Re: self-interest=gut, their policy positions are so similar that it is hard to argue that one is superior to the other. Both say they will get us health care (if we don't have it already), both will get us out of the war etc... Re: values=heart, the real partisans for each candidate believe that only their candidate truly speaks to them and thus they aren't persuadable. As for facts, well, let's just say that on DU these days they are highly malleable....

[wildeyed]

20. Yep.

For most of the partisans here,

Clinton = the value of experience

Obama = the values hope and change

They are convinced that their value is the most important and their candidate best represents that value. Not persuadable, leave them be.

Self interest is about equal. Facts, pffft.

But there are values that nearly all of us share. from the Wellstone Action site again:

We progressives have a set of core values – equality of opportunity, freedom, prosperity for all citizens, fairness, social and economic justice – that define our political decisions and shape our worldviews.

http://www.wellstone.org/organizing_corner/index.aspx?catID=5259

I enjoy chatting about the primary, and I definitely have an opinion there. But I am getting tired of everyone hating on each other when, at the end of the day, we all share the same set of basic values.

[LiveLiberally]

21. Hear, Hear...

As in I wish I heard this much more often these days on DU. I couldn't agree more.

[cornermouse]

16. kick

[LiveLiberally]

19. kick /nt