Speakeasy forum: How to win an election

But how do you win twice using the same method?

success is really in the delivery and not the verity. Got it.

"Daniel Patrick Moynihan might be surprised to learn that he is now remembered most for his oft-repeated maxim that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." Yet today most Americans do see themselves as entitled to their own facts, with one of our two major political parties setting a powerful example. For all the hand-wringing about Washington's chronic dysfunction and lack of bipartisanship, it may be the wholesale denial of reality by the opposition and its fellow travelers that is the biggest obstacle to our country moving forward under a much-empowered Barack Obama in his second term. If truth can't command a mandate, no one can."

Last paragraph of this article http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/gop-denial-2012-11/ which begins this way
"Mitt Romney is already slithering into the mists of history, or at least La Jolla, gone and soon to be forgotten. A weightless figure unloved and distrusted by even his own supporters, he was always destined, win or lose, to be a transitory front man for a radical-right GOP intent on barreling full-speed down the Randian path laid out by its true 2012 standard-bearer, Paul Ryan."

Bob Kerrey said "All politicians lie, he (Clinton) is just unusually good at it."

"All politicians lie, and some of them, as Bob Kerrey famously said of Bill Clinton in 1996, are "unusually good" at it. Every campaign (certainly including Obama's) puts up ads that stretch or obliterate the truth. But Romney's record was exceptional by any standard. The blogger Steve Benen, who meticulously curated and documented Mitt's false statements during 2012, clocked a total of 917 as Election Day arrived."

Why do politicians lie? Because Hitler was right, the Electorate is Feminine and possesses a herd mentality, if you tell them the truth, they spook, but if you rattle a container that sounds like its filled with grain, they'll accompany you right into the barn. The only politician who was reasonably straight with the voters was FDR, and he only got away with it because the Electorate was so shell-shocked by the Republican created Depression of 1929 (the R's were in charge from 1920 to 1932 beginning the Harding Administration and Tea Pot Dome). FDR told them hard times were ahead, that there would have to a massive reorganization of the economy and of government. He didn't think it would take until WW2 to pull the US out of Depression, how could he, Hitler hadn't even been elected, he thought that recovery would start around 1937 or so, and was incredibly surprised by the 1936 mini Depression at the beginning of recovery. But his beliefs and his statements, made him a liar when the economy didn't respond as expected.

FDR's master stroke were the "fire-side chats" those ?weekly? broadcasts with which he shared his thoughts and plans and hopes with the American public. Despite the hatred of the 1% and the Radical Republicans, the mass of voters felt they were included in the governance of the country, at least as a silent partner. The problem with most Presidents is that, especially since the paranoid Richard Nixon, they try to lock everyone out of the process, to keep everything hidden especially the bad news. In this fashion, the US is very different from Great Britain. You tell unpleasant truths to the British, and they go, "Doesn't surprise me", or "That's just what I reckoned" and tend to unite behind the PM, if you try to pull a Tony Blair and do a Clinton, you might get a second term, but it's unlikely you'll get more than that.

Rob

Tell them the hard truth (which isn't what they want to hear)

Let them believe if they choose to (no carny talk allowed)

Ask them to vote (don't tell them to do it...no prodding. allow them to decide)

Honesty and passivity loses every time.

in 4 years we'll know if Obama was still lying?