Sunday, January 4, 2015

Hint: it wasn't the economy...


◼ What’s your top priority in 2016? Let this poll help you pick! - Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion

We’ve got 99 problems, and we can’t run on all of ‘em.

Between the President’s executive orders, a spiraling health care delivery infrastructure, and a bloated welfare state, candidates gearing up for a run in 2016 have no shortage of material for stump speeches and e-mail blasts.

But, as anyone who has looked at the data from previous cycles knows, some issues move voters to the polls, while others move voters to remain on the couch rating movies on Netflix.

Willingness to prioritize issues has been a problem for the right at least as long as I’ve been involved in politics. We worry that strategically promoting, say, conservative economic policies, means that we’re somehow downplaying the importance of other issues such as abortion, immigration, or the country’s whirling moral compass....

Judging by my own experience, I can tell you that voters this cycle didn’t want to hear about how the economy affected them as minorities, or how the education system influenced their futures as women. They wanted to hear about how laws passed by Congress would affect their ability to put gas in the car, go to work, buy toilet paper, pay for the heat, and put food on the table. If we want to win in 2016, we need to come out of the gate with explanations and policies that address those concerns, as opposed to issues that immediately dare someone with an opposing opinion to have a problem with our candidates.

Gallup’s analysts express concern that the “dispersion of public concern” could make political messaging in the 2016 cycle more complex, and I think that’s true; but I also think that by focusing our efforts on what concerns Americans most, we can build a foundation for our messaging on other “red meat” issues that activists and local-level politicos like to sink their teeth in to.

In a nutshell, if we remember that the average voter is the polar opposite of the average politico, we’ll do just fine.

◼ GALLUP: Government is the Country’s Biggest Problem, Say Americans.






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