Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Persuasion and Desperation

As I've been pouring over the news for the past few hours, I've sensed an aura (or feeling) coming from the Clinton camp: desperation. Although enough time has not elapsed to document the effect that desperation will have on the voters, I want to make a prediction: Hillary's desperation is not going to be persuasive.

Consider the following evidence of desperation:
  • Early this morning, I received the following email from "Hillary Clinton" (obviously, she did not write it. It was a mass email sent to her e-mail list in her name).
    • "Dear John [the alias I used], Here's what you need to know this morning. We were outspent in Wisconsin by a 4 to 1 margin on ads -- and we can't let that happen on March 4.

      If we want to win in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont, we've got to even the odds. We can't let the Obama campaign overwhelm us financially. Today, I am calling on you and other online supporters to act together, making sure we have the resources to create a fair, level playing field on March 4." (bold in original email).
  • Early this morning, Hillary Clinton said the following: "But it is time to get real – to get real about how we actually win this election and get real about the challenges facing America. It’s time that we moved from good words to good work, from sound bites to sound solutions." (source)
  • Early this morning, Bill Clinton said the following: "If she wins in Texas and Ohio, I think she'll be the nominee...If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be. ... This whole nominating process has come down to Texas and Ohio" (source).

2 comments:

Randall Bytwerk said...

Bill Clinton's comments are interesting — Let's see what he says if Hillary loses Texas and Ohio. Given that last quotation you found, he'll have to do some interesting rhetorical maneuvering to find a way to suggest she could still win. Is Bill Clinton right, by the way, that Hillary was outspent 4-1 in Wisconsin?

I'm also struck by the "fair, level playing field" remark. It's another way of saying we didn't lose, we just got outspent. Who would have predicted that problem six months ago?

unspun said...

As always, thanks for the comments.
I have posted an entry centered around fear and persuasion. I did find another Bill Clinton speech where he used fear in an attempt to motivate voters in Iowa. Clearly, it did not work.
However, I also stepped back and examined an incident where Dick Cheney used fear heavily to persuade voters in 2004.