HOPE is the key to winning the Presidency of the United States.
The candidate who emphasizes fear and trepidation, doom or gloom, or who has a weak or nondescript vision for the future usually loses in a battle for the Presidency.
Research by Martin Seligman and others has supported Seligman's hypothesis that HOPE is an essential component of a successful campaign for President. The candidate who has found a way to maintain the most hopeful view of the future has generally won, even if their hope for the future turns out to be little more than self-delusion, as in our last President. The important thing was that, no matter how flawed they themselves may have been, they believed in themselves and in the nation's future.
President Obama and his team did a wonderful job of driving home the message of HOPE in 2008 - - to such an extent that millions of Americans wore Obama t-shirts with the HOPE logo, with slogans emphasizing hope for the future, and the famous image of a rising sun in red, white, and blue.
HOPE ... for what? For change, and for a better future for most Americans. For peace and for prosperity, and fairness, and for the rights of all. Most voters were persuaded that this gifted and still-young man could lead us out of a barren wilderness and into a land that we felt we had been promised to all in the form of an American dream too long deferred. Senator Obama and Joe Biden helped us to dare to dream, again, as an 8-year nightmare drew toward an end.
now...
Fast-forward 4 years, to 2012....
Would the message of HOPE be an important part of the 2012 campaign?
Has it been?
Images and words of HOPE, such as the HOPE poster, the cartoon-like image of a rising red, white, and blue sun, and the 2008 emphasis on the prospects for a brighter and happier world have not been nearly as evident in the President's re-election campaign. And this is a potential sticking-point with the election only 2 weeks away. If there is one thing that President Obama and his team need to do now, from a messaging standpoint, is to make HOPE for the future the centerpiece of his campaign, once again.
The word "FORWARD" hasn't had the same oomph as HOPE. Forward sounds a bit like a kind of vague command to go boldy forth against fearsome foes. But "forward" toward what? So far, the voters have been informed, mainly, that we must go "forward" rather than "backward" to a time in the past when there was less fairness and equality.
So "forward" has mostly meant for us, as a campaign idea, to keep going in the direction that we have been going in for the past 4 years, and most of all, not to go backward. Additionally, we have been told that we must go forward so that we can finish what the Obama campaign and Administration started in 2008 and 2009.
"Let's go forward, not backward, so we can finish what we started."
But these words and slogans are actually less then ideal, simply because HOPE is missing. The voters may ask "Where is the HOPE" that we were told we could have in 2008? Further, going "forward" could conjure up mixed feelings, since "forward" could be either good or bad, depending on where the road forward happens to lead. Not going "backward" seems to make sense, but some voters may not believe, or may find it frightening to imagine that going backward is a likely option.
"Forward toward a better future" now that would be an improvement. How about this:
"Forward toward a more hopeful future." That feels more encouraging, doesn't it?
According to research on the presidential hope hypothesis, the hope itself has to be felt, and not necessarily understood. For example, G.W. Bush won in 2004 not because he was smarter than Kerry, but because he had a naive, even arrogant sense of hope that everything would be ok if the nation followed his leadership. People didn't know why, exactly, but Kerry came across as a bit like "Ichabod Crane," a bit on the stiff and foreboding side when it came to relating to everyday people in the nation's heartland. A lot of people said that they'd rather have a drink with Bush than with Kerry, or Gore, and that despite his obvious flaws, there was something folksy and likable about him, at least compared to his gloomier opponents. Similarly, Reagan was considered more hopeful than Carter or Mondale, GHW Bush somehow moreso than Dukakis, Clinton definitely moreso than HW Bush, Perot and Dole.
So it should be a no brainer to emphasize HOPE in the remaining days of the Presidential campaign of 2012.
This is especially important because his opponent, Mr. Romney, himself not a particularly sunny optimist, has repeatedly stated that the President "has not told us where he is going to take us in the next four years." Romney, in doing so, has tried to take the focus of his failure to disclose tax returns, his misdemeanors in corporate leadership, his mendacity and willingness to say anything to get himself elected. Yet, somehow, his question has left a nagging question in some voters' minds. Romney has appealed to the fact that a lot of 2008 Obama voters felt let down by the way things went, and that millions of them felt so disenchanted that they failed to vote in 2010. Romney knows that he doesn't need to convert them into supporters of his campaign, but only needs to say enough to convince them not to make an effort to vote for Obama in 2012.
If HOPE was a keystone of Mr. Romney's campaign, he would be a much more dangerous challenger than he has turned out to be. If anything, he has an air of the Ichabod Crane about him. And yet, he has been able to sell the naive idea that voters can be confident enough in him to HOPE that he will create 20 million jobs as President. And when voters are asked why they decided to vote for him, that's what they say, that they HOPE he will create jobs and somehow believe he'll do it because that's what he says he will do. No facts, just feelings, just a few words of HOPE from a slightly scary or stiff-looking kind of guy with gaunt cheeks, a wrinkled forehead, a worried look, red-rimmed eyes.
Here is a simple question, and a word of encouragement to President Obama and his team - - why not sprinkle some HOPE liberally into your campaign ads, messages, campaign appearances, and ... into debate #3? Research has shown that you only need to use the word and idea of HOPE in a way that people can feel that you really feel hopeful about the future, and can make them feel hopeful again, too?
If Romney promises 20 million new jobs - go a step further and promise 30 million new jobs - say that we are going to find a way to help everyone in the country find a job. Don't need to worry about the details - hell, Romney won't even release his taxes or answer any questions about tax deductions or deficit details or anything else. Don't need to worry if the full employment scenario doesn't get achieved in 4 years, just say that we are heading for FULL EMPLOYMENT for everyone who wants and needs a job. Full employment - we're not going to stop until we get there.
Two chickens in every pot and a car; forty acres and a mule - - those kinds of campaign promises are remembered because they won elections.
It can be an honest commitment too - we are committed to an ongoing effort to achieve full employment during the next four years.
Bill Clinton knew and knows that those kinds of words not only win elections - - they also force Republicans to go along with the hopeful president Every time the Republicans tried to stop Clinton, he just found another way to make them look like fools for standing up to him, and he made a new announcement every week of a new action that he was taking to lift Americans' spirits. President Obama can learn how to do what Clinton knows so well.
Admittedly, President Obama was shocked by the severity of the nation's economic downturn, a near-depression, worst in 70 years, enough to shake the global economy to its foundation, pushing the entire world into bankruptcy.
Comments on the serious tone of his inauguration speech and the markedly less optimistic feeling in the air signaled the beginning of what has turned out to be a dream not "denied" but at least "postponed" for an undefined and indefinite period.
Two years into his Presidency, he stated that he wasn't sure if he would run for re-election, because he had already achieved most of his goals. This struck many of his supporters as odd, because the first two years of his Presidency were devoted to trying to wind down Iraq and Afghanistan, win the war with Al-Quaida organizations, and keep the economy from deteriorating into a double-dip recession. The period leading up to the 2010 elections was devastating for Democrats who felt a very high level of disillusionment. It isn't clear whether President Obama has ever fully regained the sunny optimism that drove him forward in 2007 & 2008. We have seen some familiar traces of 2008 in debate #2 and in recent campaign appearances. Deja vu....
But President Obama needs to let the nation know, now, that Romney is wrong when he accuses the President of not having a vision for the future. As stated in the current Morgan Freeman ad on TV, his team points out that he has had challenges greater than most, but is going to lead us forward, helping the middle class toward economic recovery. This is good, because there is hope in it, a kind of veiled hope through adversity - - things will gradually get a little better if we keep moving forward.
Many voters who are still not sure if they will support his re-election are waiting for a clear riposte to Romney's challenge. Mr. President, where are you going to take us in the next four years? As if to say that "forward" is not enough, and that the pace of recovery is much too slow, and that people are angry about it.
What President Obama needs to do now is to remember that he made a promise to the nation in 2008, and that this promise still needs to be fulfilled. The dream was postponed, and up until now, Americans have not been spoken to about this, the way a parent would tell a child, "Darling, we wanted to be able to make your dreams come true, and we're trying as hard as we can. Things are going to get better soon, and you're going to be so happy!"
He needs to say to himself, and the team needs to say to itself - yes, we have to admit that we set the nation up for a wonderful 4 years, and a hell of a lot of people feel that they've been disappointed, to such an extent that they wonder if the dream was just an illusion. When the air went out of the balloon, you could feel it - it was on inauguration day, when the President sounded determined, yet somehow disillusioned, with words that didn't resound from the hills, but rather sounded almost flat in tone.
If the President hasn't fully come to terms with it yet, and if he is still running on empty in some way, if his reserve tanks are low, and he has had some trouble maintaining a rosy view of the future, it isn't too late.
He, like each of us, can get up one morning, look ourselves in the mirror and say, "Damn it; I lost the sense of hope and belief that we can do anything - - but I can get back - - Damn it, I'm just going to do it right now." I went off the path, was thrown into the rocks and brambles, and I was all scarred up and bleeding, and I thought it was going to be impossible at times. I got scared, maybe I even lost my bearings at times. But I can do this! WE CAN DO THIS! All we have to do now, for two weeks, is believe in ourselves and feel the same passion that we had in 2008. Nothing has changed inside of me, or of us. We are still just as capable as we were then to dare to dream huge dreams and believe that we could make them come true. Damn it - we'll find a way to make Congress pass programs - we won't take no for an answer, and if I have to I'll shed a bit of pride and just ask Bill Clinton how you do it. Bill - how do we do this - and take his advice. Make him Secretary of HOPE, and let's see how far we can take this economy, and this nation, and this world in the next four years!
