Rope-a-Dope

Muhammad Ali vs. Heavyweight champion George Forman at the “Rumble in the Jungle”, October 30, 1974

Do you remember Muhammad Ali and the “rope-a-dope” tactic?  As a fighter, he let his opponent “punch himself out” while he conserved his strength.

Our 2012 presidential campaign is in its last 100 days, and it is definitely a fight.  Political punches are being thrown left and right as the candidates contend for the title of POTUS.

We hear that the campaigns are “too negative,” meaning that their advertisements tend to highlight the negative characteristics of the opponent instead of the positive characteristics of the candidate.

In actuality, “negative” is an understatement in describing the juggernaut the Democratic Party has unleashed against Governor Romney.  The former governor is under broadside attack.

Michael Moore captures the political essence in an interview reported by the Associated Press:

“[Obama] has a conscience.  He knows the difference between right and wrong, and I’m hoping in a second term…he’ll be the Obama that we want him to be.”

That’s the key.  Our culture tells us that Obama wants to do the right thing, while Romney does not.  As evidence, the Democratic Party brings a list of accusations against the former governor:

He is a felon!

He is a vicious bully!

He is a wimp!

He is a racist!

He is getting a divorce!

His wife is a Nazi!

He hates women!

He wants to take your job away!

He is out of touch!

He doesn’t pay his taxes!

These are not assertions from a deranged person; most are from the leadership of the Democratic Party.  In fact, the last three come directly from the Obama Campaign, MoveOn.org, and the Majority Leader of the United States Senate. 

But continuing with the “fight” metaphor, it is worth watching Governor Romney’s response to the attacks and insinuations.  One thing he doesn’t do is engage in a counter-punch strategy.

Keep that in mind as you watch the response of the Obama Campaign to the “you didn’t build that” speech.  The campaign tendered the traditional political excuses: “He didn’t say that!” “It was taken out of context!” “He didn’t mean that!”

The Obama Campaign spent time, money and energy trying to land counter punches.

The Romney Campaign takes a different approach.  Governor Romney either ignores the attacks or issues a one-line response such as, “Put up or shut up!”

Does it appear that Governor Romney is successfully using political rope-a-dope against president Obama?  We will know in November.

In the meantime, for all of you who don’t recall how the “Rumble in the Jungle” turned out, here is a look back at “The Greatest”.

UPDATE 8/7/2012:
Linked by The Blogfather! Thanks, Professor Reynolds.  Also linked by WSKY 97.3 FM in Gainesville, FL.  Thanks, Chip.

UPDATE 8/7/2012:
And now we have a new ad from Priorities USA Action that tells us, "Mitt Romney killed my wife!"

UPDATE 8/15/2012:
In a continuation of the accusations, Vice President Biden says, "Romney wants to...put y'all back in chains."

UPDATE 9/14/2012:
The Obama Campaign claims Romney wants to hurt the middle class.  The Wall Street Journal strikes back.

UPDATE 10/2/2012:
Mitt Romney doesn't like his garbageman!

UPDATE 10/11/2012:
Mitt Romney is a liar!

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A More Perfect Union

Photo of George Orwell from his 1933 press card

Sasha Issenberg has written a three-part article that appears in MIT Technology Review.  The title of the article is also the title of this post, but here’s the subtitle:

How President Obama’s Campaign Used Big Data to Rally Individual Voters

If you look at the title of the directory in which the Web content for the third article is contained (hotlink above), you see this title:

obamas-data-techniques-will-rule-future-elections/

Mr. Issenberg’s story is about how the Democratic Party uses data mining techniques to predict the voting behavior of Americans.  This is the money quote:

The campaign didn’t just know who you were; it knew exactly how it could turn you into the type of person it wanted you to be.

The article (h/t Instapundit) describes the Democratic Party’s EIPs (experiment-informed programs) that “measure how effective different types of political messages were at moving public opinion.”  One technique was to sequence direct mail to individual voters and then follow-up with survey calls to isolate the particular piece of direct mail that changed voter opinion the most.

The article describes EIP testing done in July of 2012 that focused on equal-pay and health issues for women.  The idea was to pull women to Obama based on a specific message.

It all sounds very academic and innocuous.  That is, until you see one of the ads involved.

In EVERY case, the advertisements depict Mitt Romney as a bad person.  (See my Rope-a-Dope post for a partial listing.)  These are the ads that characterize Mr. Romney as a liar, a person who wants to hurt the middle class, someone who wants you to lose your job, and a rich person out of touch with reality.

The ads were tested with the EIP methodology, and they achieved the necessary outcome.

The MIT article makes no mention of the ramifications of the political techniques being employed.  It simply features the article as a technological extension of focus-group techniques.

If you are a Republican, you might want to focus on the ramifications.  The Democratic Party is using information about voters to manipulate voting preferences.  The Party is honing its negative advertising to create a sense of fear about a certain class of people so that Americans will keep them out of government stewardship.

To think this is not worth noting is a mistake.  Republicans should be concerned that they are being politically “played.”  A couple of instances from current events come to mind…

Republicans are concerned about the “fiscal cliff” and its consequences on the American people, but the Democratic Party has no such concerns.  It simply wants to ensure Republicans come out of the encounter labeled as “uncompromising zealots.”

Republicans are concerned about school safety and practical measures to thwart school shootings, but the Democratic Party simply wants to ensure Americans see Republicans as “violent extremists.”

Watch it unfold on Twitter.

The clear and present danger is that if Republicans continue to focus on policy issues and not political issues, there will be no Republican Party to focus on any issue.

UPDATE 12/20/2012:

Was Mitt Romney the first Republican to be Electro-Borked?

The death of Robert Bork reminds us of character assassination by Senate hearing.  The Democratic Party has now "progressed" to the arena of consumer electronics.  Who will be the next Republican to be Electro-Borked?

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Creepy

The New York Times ran a story in its Health section on Monday. The title of the story was “Academic ‘Dream Team’ Helped Obama’s Effort.” It tells about psychologists and social scientists working to help re-elect president Obama.

A panel made up of a “consortium of behavioral scientists” provided the Obama campaign with ideas on how to mobilize voters. The Analyst Institute, “a Washington voter research group established in 2007 by union officials and their allies to help Democratic candidates” was consulted, along with Dr. Craig Fox from Los Angeles, Dr. Susan T. Fiske of Princeton, Samuel L. Popkin of U.C. San Diego, Robert Cialdini of A.S.U., Richard H. Thaler of the University of Chicago, and Michael Morris of Columbia.

Dr. Fox described the group as “a kind of dream team” that proposed ideas to help modify the voting behavior of Americans. The group signed nondisclosure agreements with the campaign, so could talk only in general terms about its work. The Obama campaign would neither confirm nor deny a relationship with the group.

Behavior modification of American voters! Is this getting close to political indoctrination?

Karl Rove, in his WSJ piece today, notes that “the Democratic campaign ground game was more effective in communicating negative information.” He also points out that “Mr. Romney’s character and record were undermined by early, relentless personal attacks.”

I had an earlier post on Mr. Romney’s “rope-a-dope” tactic which did nothing to repulse the negative characterization of him by his political opponents. What’s going on here?

The problem is that the Democratic Party is getting really good at character assassination. With its psychologists and behavioral scientists at work, it is comfortable advancing a “Mitt Romney kills cancer-stricken women” narrative as a campaign message. When the message receives criticism, it simply turns down the rhetoric a notch and presses on.

Is that a little creepy? If the Democratic Party can impugn the character of Mitt Romney, the rest of us are easy pickings. Mollie Hemingway thinks something is going on, but America (so far) enjoys a breezy detachment.

Maybe we should watch “Conspiracy” again to understand how character assassination of a political group becomes “simply business” and then leads to something else altogether.

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