the democrat's denver rage party - the challenge of delivering messages on a multi-level stage

what is happening in denver for the democrats is much like a rage party - people from different persuasions, mostly dressed alike but faces with different stripes and inside looking for different things and everyone hoping that after an all nighter, everyone will come out of the door happy and everyone had a night of wild fun to remember.


or, is it?


political speeches and political party events are both very different and the same to that of marketing events for brands and a brand manager's speech in a product launch.


it is the same in the sense that both need to deliver one theme and one message. you want the troops to rally to a specific point. that point is usually where you want everyone in the room to be standing at exactly before take off outside the convention hall or the hotel ballroom to start battle the competition.


it is different in that in a political speech and a political event you not only worry about the people inside the convention room (that's similar to product launches), but you have to worry about what competition can do to you as soon as that tv camera beams its broadcast on tv.


in political speeches and events, it is a must to always operate in multiple levels in everything. messages need to be looked into always from the perspective of many more levels beyond the convention floor.


whatever you say and in this case even what you do not say in the convention will be devoured by the republicans and their strategists and will definitely do something with what they get. that is a range of multiple options - hurl them back at you as an attack or expose a weakness, cause loss of confidence among your supporters or retool their own message in their own convention which will happen in a few week's time.


and that is just the republican side. there is a bigger beast, a more ferocious one out there called the media and analysts. their job is to look at the details, deconstruct and reconstruct what is said and not said to expose both the real message and the one you missed.


it might look easy on the surface - deliver messages that (a) differentiate yourself from competition, (b) define your own solutions well, (c) inspire the faithful, (d) take the high ground, (e) and move the faithful to action.


and all of that need to reverberate and take other forms that will prevent competition from finding something to use against you or the media and analysts finding a weakness that they can highlight. it is always wise to be aware of the two things at the same time -- the good and the bad.


the convention started on a reality check - it is a divided democratic party. and that in many ways define the task obama has in his hands. his acceptance speech need to be a blockbuster, 10 times more inspiring than the speech he delivered when people noticed him. everything should fall into place and get everyone on the ready to go after obama's acceptance speech. too much at stake here that it's a necessity that it lights the whole convention and the nation but not burn down the house.










an interesting article:
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Three Democratic Clans Mix Uneasily

By PATRICK HEALY



DENVER — Neither family wanted it this way, neither the Kennedys nor the Clintons. But the opening of the Democratic convention on Monday brought a stark contrast: a bittersweet public celebration of the life of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is suffering from brain cancer, and an embittered private drama about the terms on which the Clintons would yield the party to Senator Barack Obama.Mr. Kennedy, who endorsed Mr. Obama in January, had hoped to lead a hearty, full-throated night of anointing the next generation. Instead, the tribute to him took on the weight of a farewell to the last of the storied Kennedy brothers, with an intensity that rivaled the excitement around Michelle Obama’s speech about the Democrats’ next standard-bearer, her husband.

As one political dynasty was celebrating its legacy and ceding the political stage on Monday night, the other dominant family of the Democratic Party was struggling to protect its legacy and accept its own exit from the spotlight. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton had once hoped this convention would be theirs, an exultation of past and future Clinton White Houses. Instead, they were coming face to face with shrunken, supporting roles.




article parsed, read in full here : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/us/politics/26assess.html?_r=1&oref=slogin