We all love to hate Michele Bachmann. We know she's a compulsive liar who brings her own facts wherever she goes. We all know she's dead wrong on every issue we care about. We know she's a darling of Faux News and the like because she looks good on TV, and she fits their narrative of the mama grizzlies, or whatever they're called this month.
I won't discuss her policies here. What struck me today when I listened to the MPR debate today between Bachmann, Clark (DFL) and Anderson (Independence Party) was what a poor communicator she is, and how absolutely terrible she is at improvising. When she comes loaded up with talking points, she sounds like most of the other crazy wingnuts out there, but when put in a position where she has to answer a question she has not anticipated, she sputters.
A good politician, when cornered with a question or topic they have not previously though of, need to keep a few points in mind:
- Acknowledge that it's a good and fair question, even if it is not. Show that you care (or pretend to care) about issues that are not on your main platform.
- Be noncommittal and generally uncontroversial, often with a promise to "learn more" or "sit down and have a dialogue" with people who have an interest in or knowledge about the topic.
- Stay away from gaffes. The fact that you're unprepared for the question probably means that there is only a small number of people who care about the answer. It's better to say nothing of substance than to risk getting into trouble.
- End on a positive note. Either give a cheap promise (i.e., one that you can keep) that something will be done, or perhaps show that you're somewhat familiar with that issue (or a similar issue) by bringing up a related news story or development that has positive implications.
If you follow the MPR link, and start listening around the 43 minute mark (Bachmann's reply starts around 44:40), you will hear a question from someone with a hearing disability, who asks why, with all the thousands (Bob Anderson rightly points out that it's many millions) of dollars spent on TV ads in this race, why are there no closed captions for disabled viewers on these ads?
An effective answer would go something like this:
You have a really good point. This is a technology that has been around for a long time, and assuming that it is cost effective, it is definitely something that would be beneficial both for the users of closed captions, and for my campaign. I promise that I will look into enabling closed captions on our TV ads, and if for some reason that proves to not be practical, we will provide some or all of the ads on my campaign web site with captions enabled. Additionally, I would encourage venues that are looking to host debates to look into installing hearing loops, which is a simple, yet effective way of providing audio to people in the live audience who use hearing aids.
Without committing to anything, other than 30 minutes' time of a volunteer to provide subtitles on the campaign ads (most of them have plenty of text already, and they're really not that long), I actually answered the question. I showed a willingness to look into fixing a deficiency, and I threw in a reference to a "new" technology that I heard about a few months ago, but know very little about, that may be useful to the same group of people. All I was missing was a baby to kiss, red, white and blue balloons, and a "Mission Accomplished" poster.
In reality, however, neither candidate answered the question, which was predictable. Anderson said he hadn't spent any money (because he doesn't have any), but he liked closed captioning, and thinks it should be used. Clark said that she has a great relationship with many different groups of disabled people, and that she has repeatedly voted for legislation that helps them. Bachmann, on the other hand, really fumbled the ball.
Bachmann starts off according to the script:
Bachmann: What I would do is to sit down with individuals in the disability community to find out what we can do to better get a message to communicate to them. They certainly deserve to be communicated with and it's important to listen and to hear how we can best serve them.
First of all, the answer to how to help them was in the question: Use closed captions. Second, and I'm not trying to be snarky here, but when you're talking about engaging in a meeting with deaf people, you probably shouldn't lead out with "listen" and "hear" as your action verbs.
She continues:
Bachmann: I think on a voluntary basis, if campaigns can go ahead and do the encryption, I think that's something that we can look at.
Wait, what!? Michele, encryption is not something that facilitates communication. Encryption makes communication harder. On purpose. In fact, that's its only purpose. I've worked in cryptography for the last ten years, and I would gladly volunteer to encrypt Bachmann's political message. But I digress.
Now, Michele, all you need to do is to end on a positive note, and you can recover. So far, I've mostly been nitpicking, as the majority of people probably wouldn't catch the things I've mentioned so far. Most people instantly recognize that she's nowhere in the neighborhood of answering the question, but then again, neither did the other candidates.
So now for the positive feel-good message to end on:
Bachmann: Today, what's wonderful is that technology is solving and making accessible communication. Through the TVs you buy today -- just think -- the remote controls that you hold,, you can flip something on your remote control, and you can see the closed captioning. And so we're getting a better quality of life. Particularly for our disabled community.
Wow. This stunning new technology, which has been available for 25+ years, and standard on every TV sold in this country in the last 15 years, can completely revolutionize how deaf people live. Now, imagine what would happen if politicians would actually use this brand new technology. You know, kind of like you were asked about why you do not.
In conclusion, the question was unexpected, but very fair. One may wonder why most ads (political or not) don't provide closed captions. They're presumably cheap, and it's a good way to get a message across -- not only for people with hearing disabilities, but you often see closed captions on TV's in common areas of hotels, airports, gyms, etc. That being said, from a political point of view, this question does not "matter". It's very important to a small subset of people, and the rest don't give a damn. And in a majority vote, "the rest" will win. But even so, it's rather stunning to see a seasoned (and here in Minnesota, we use both spices) politician stumble so badly on a fairly benign question.