Speaking with Liberals

A friend told me she loved McCain’s concession speech and that if he would have tugged at her heartstrings like that during the campaign, he might have gotten her vote. Another friend told me that she would have voted for McCain except that she didn't like Sarah Palin spending $150,000 on clothing. She said the extravagance made her feel like Sarah Palin lacked compassion. She said, "At a time when people are hurting and losing their homes, that was just so over the top." (Never mind that Sarah Palin actually did not buy any of the clothes.)

When speaking with liberals, we must remember to use less of our heads and more of our hearts. Logical arguments are compelling for conservatives, but they aren’t enough for liberals. If we want our liberal friends to understand our way of thinking, we are going to have to frame the logic in a heart-warming and heart-tugging way. I'm not saying liberals aren't smart or that they don't think. However, they do think differently -- I truly believe their brains function in a different manner -- and that means we need to communicate differently when conversing with them.

The McCain campaign’s criticism of Obama’s “spread the wealth” comment didn’t have impact because to the liberal mind, spreading the wealth is a kind and loving thing to do. To spread is to extend widely and to broaden. Who doesn’t want more wealth? And if you want to broaden wealth, how can that be bad? The heart-strings have been tugged. The concept of spreading the wealth has caused a positive emotion, not a negative one.

We conservatives, of course, know the truth. We know how such a scheme works, and we correctly read into the phrase the truthful implication: “Spread” in this case means to deplete, to rob, to exploit, and to disincentivise. But we didn’t properly frame this problem to the liberals! Instead, we just kept repeating the phrase which was music to their ears! Boy, are we dumb. We would say “he wants to spread the wealth” and they would say “Amen!”

It is our job to paint the picture in its true light AND with positive emotion. Obama did not campaign with much substance behind him, but he did make people feel good. He inspired people. He evoked positive emotion. For some people, that carries more weight than anything else. We can’t say, “Why should my hard-earned money go toward someone who doesn’t work?” That creates a negative emotion and we’ll just be labeled as selfish. We have got to remember why Reagan was so successful. It was because he spoke in positive and hopeful terms. Instead, we Republicans have been coming off as grumpy old curmudgeons. Rather than sneering at “spreading the wealth”, we should have explained in very simple terms that we love the idea of increasing the number of people who have wealth and prosperity and that we believe in an even better way to reach that goal. Then we need to do an improved job of presenting our better way.