Buried under an enormous mound of labored hipster diction and dubious claims, Maureen Dowd’s column this morning contains a solid insight:
At a fund-raising concert in San Francisco Monday night, the president mocked Romney’s star turn, saying “what was being presented wasn’t leadership; that’s salesmanship.â€
It is that distaste for salesmanship that caused Obama not to sell or even explain health care and economic policies; and it is that distaste that caused him not to sell himself and his policies at the debate. His latest fund-raising plea is marked “URGENT.†But in refusing to muster his will and energy, and urgently sell his vision, he underscores his own lapses in leadership and undermines arguments for four more years.
I can tolerate and forgive errors and, make no mistake, the last four years have been full of things I consider errors. Delaying withdrawal from Iraq according to the timetable of the SOFA. The surge in Afghanistan. The timing and structure of the stimulus package. The timing and structure of the healthcare reform bill. The attention devoted to healthcare reform. The structure of the GM bailout. The list is practically endless.
I find it much harder either to tolerate or forgive the inability or unwillingness to sell any of these things to the American people. It’s not enough that your most ardent followers will support anything you propose because you’ve proposed it. They comprise too small a proportion of the population.
Salesmanship is hard. It’s not just making one pitch and then hoping for best. It’s making the pitch, strategizing, constructing a campaign, following through, and sticking with it until the sale is closed.
You need to sell what you want to do to the American people. Salesmanship is in fact the essence of a particular and important form of leadership. There are three kinds of leadership: when a parade naturally forms behind you, when you convince people to follow you in a parade, and when you figure out which way the parade is going and get out in front of it. Charisma, salesmanship, and demagoguery. We need less charisma and demagoguery and more salesmanship.
If you want repeat customers, you need to follow-up after the sale.
TastyBits
Good point…
You also should have some kind of guarantee attached to what you are selling. And, should it not perform, like you promised it would, a refund policy — in politics, such a refund policy could be satisfied by inserting a sunset clause into legislation.
The list is practically endless.
Yes, but thank God those were all minor issues. He’s NAILED it on DOMA, DADT and Bailouts for Big Bird!
He’s NAILED it on DOMA, DADT and Bailouts for Big Bird!
Well, at SOME point he’s nailed it on DOMA and DADT, as he’s been all over the place there. And he has completely fucked up the Bailout for Big Bird, as Big Bird, like Ford, has said he doesn’t need it. (He’ll just mooch off Elmo if worse comes to worst. Elmo’s got a 50,000 sq ft manse with three guest houses and servants’ quarters – Big Yellow can find a crash couch somewhere. You should see it Vegas when Elmo shows up to make it rain!)
But other than that Obama’s been all over it like flies on shit!
I am a bit uncomfortable with this. I think we have lots of marketing and salesmanship. We have 24 hour news machines trying to sell us on the idea of the moment. What I think we need are better ideas to sell. We need a serious look at our long term problems. We really dont need more handsome politicians with shiny white teeth selling us on their fact free, ideologically driven plans.
Steve
We need a serious look at our long term problems.
Where is there any thing long term about Obama’s policies? This is one of the aspects of him that I find so superficial, in that most of his remedies give immediate help, but nothing substantial to grow the economy in a long term basis. Even his ACA is proving to be less cost-saving than was initially calculated by the CBO.
Agreed, but long-term problems don’t get solved without a significant political consensus and that’s just the thing we lack.
Salesmanship is ulmost important task to make a product sellable.. although the product quality is what customer looking for, without salesmanship customers can never get to know the product.