[00:00:02] Speaker A: K Mud podcast presents.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Good evening and welcome to the show. This is global stuff. My name is Jimmy Durschlag. This show where we try to cover issues of national import or global import, but that affect local communities and certainly with the upcoming elections. My guest today is talking about a very important topic, and that is Robert Creamer. He's a political organizer and strategist, one of the founding partners of Democracy partners, been doing this work for five decades, doing a lot of organizing in the field and other places during the Obama administration, worked closely with the White House to pass the Affordable Care act. So he's been involved in a lot of majority political issues and movements at both grassroots and the national level. And we're going to be talking about his new book, Nuts and Bolts, the formula for progressive electoral success.
Robert Creamer, thanks so much. We were just a minute ago talking about us both being from Evanston, Illinois, right outside of Chicago. And of course, you talk a lot about your wife, Jan in this and her success as a congressperson still in Congress and has been there for many years, right?
[00:01:34] Speaker A: That's correct. Yes. This is, she's up re election and she's been there since 1999, I guess, when she was first elected in 98.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: And I've really enjoyed the book a lot. It's a lot of information in there. I will say it's a lot to get through, but so important, I mean, at its base, it's a very practical guide for, as it says, the formula for progressive electoral success, for getting progressives elected and just the nuts and bolts of how to do that. But I think it's so much more than that. As I said, it's kind of a mix of philosophy, psychology, sociology. You really have insights into the motivations of people and how to get them motivated in a direction that will create very positive change. And I think a very positive book, just start to finish, even though these times it's hard to sometimes to maintain a real positive attitude. So we definitely appreciate having read this and was curious, what was it that motivated you to put this out other than putting down what you've learned in your many years of working on strategies?
[00:02:59] Speaker A: Well, I really do believe that most Americans do support this. Polling certainly shows this most progressive positions on most issues. And if we start with the majority, which I think we do on most questions, the question is then why can't we constantly convert those into policy? Well, part of it has to do with some undemocratic elements in american political structure that we can talk about later. But main thing is we've got to understand that it's really about execution, not just good ideas, but execution. We have to execute both in terms of the principles of great political communication and in the principles of great organizing and engagement. And it's that ability to execute, to get stuff done that, that really will define our ability to be successful. And that's what I wanted to stress in this book. It ain't rocket science always. You know, it's, I mean, elections in many ways, as I say here, are kind of like treasure hunts. You've got to find enough votes to win and then turn them out very straight ahead. And there are a lot of ways to do that. And we talk about them there in the book, but that's what they are about. And part of the ways we do that is by engaging huge numbers of people in armies of volunteers. And I must say, one of the encouraging things right now is that there are a lot of people who understand this coming election is, is not about what they do as much as what we do, all of us together.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: It's interesting, you say it's not rocket science, but what it is, is a lot of details when, and your book is so good at that.
You are very organized and detailed. Almost, almost every section. When you're discussing a certain issue, you'll have 56, 10, 13 very specific points of what you do. And towards the end of the book, where you get more into the very specifics of organizing, field, organizing, poll taking, this whole analysis of the electorate and how to get them out, you have very, very specific ways to approach that. So you obviously have given this a lot of thought and a lot of detail. There's, of course, some themes that resonate throughout. And the main thing that you're saying in progressive campaigns, if you want to win, is there's two main classes of potential voters. First, you identify what you call the run universe or your supporters. But then beyond that, and it's very numerical, the way you put it together, of analyzing how many votes you need. But then there's two groups of voters that are critical to a winning campaign. And that, of course, runs throughout the book in how you do that at every different method of organizing. But talk about that, okay?
[00:06:22] Speaker A: When we do campaigns, our job is to change people's behavior. If that were not our job, we could all go to the beach. Right?
We just want people to do what they're going to do anyway. There are two groups of people whose behavior can be changed in a political campaign.
One are people who are likely to vote but are switch hitters. That is they sometimes would back a Democrat or sometimes a Republican sometimes.
And their history has shown them to be either undecided or at least persuadable. And in a particular election, may be persuadable. Now, in a primary course, lots of people start off being persuadables because nobody has a firm commitment to one side or the other.
So that's one group. In that case, our goal is to convince those people that the person in question we're running is a person who actually, more than anything else, makes the voters feel good about themselves.
When it comes to persuadables in particular, elections are more like love affairs than they are like rational points on the board. You know, let's do a rational compare. Just as in a love affair, your job, if you're falling in love with somebody, is not to convince them how great you are. It's to convince them that in your presence, they feel good about themselves.
And that's what great political communication does in the context of persuadables. Now, when it comes to mobilizables, what we're trying to do is convince people, not that the candidate is great, because by definition, most mobilizables are people who are would vote for our candidate if we could just get them out. The problem is getting them out. The problem is convincing them that their behavior matters, going to the polls or casting a vote. And there are lots of messages that work on that. Sometimes it's about making it clear that it's safe, secure, and easy to vote. People are confused about that kind of thing.
But there are two overriding messages that are of particular importance.
One is inspiration.
A lot of people who don't vote don't feel they have power in anything they do in life.
And if you feel empowered, then you're more likely to do it, to vote, to take action. And inspiration makes you feel that way. Inspiration has two components.
On the one hand, you feel like you're part of something bigger than yourself, and the other hand, you feel like you personally can play some significant role in achieving that broader goal.
So one is inspiration. The other, and this we can all control, is, I won't get off your porch until you vote. That old, plain old, you know, talking to people at the door, talking to people on the phone, getting them out to vote. And we know empirically that person who's been knocked on the door multiple times is a lot more likely to vote than somebody who has.
So we can do something to turn those people out. That is very specific, all of us. And that's a very important message that we want to communicate. I won't get off your porch until you vote. One other quick note on generic messaging. If there's anything I'd like people to pull away from this book about messaging and about political communication, it comes from the poet Maya Angelou. In all forms of communication having to do with persuadables, mobilizables, anything else?
I've learned that people will forget what you said, she says.
People will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you make them feel. That's quintessential to great political communication. It's about how we make people feel.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: So being sensitive to the people that you're talking to, whatever category they fall into, the persuadable or they're mobilizable. That's a hard word to say.
It's easy to read to say. But I. The one, as you say, the persuadables, who you're talking about, the candidate, the mobilizables, who you're talking about voting and talking about them, that's encouraging them to get out to vote, but it's about being sensitive to who those people are. Very early in the book, you talk about the six categories of self interest, and I'm assuming that appealing to their self interest as part of that sensitivity.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: The great football coach Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay packers had the best football teams ever, you know, these great pros. But he'd start every season by going to the locker room and picking up a football and say, gentlemen, this is a football.
We're going to talk about blocking and tackling, the basics of what we do. And that's why nuts and bolts are so important. That's why you start. The most fundamental thing we talk about, and you have to think about in politics, is what are the self interest of the people whose behavior we're trying to change.
And there are six categories that I outline of self interest, some of which we don't think about a lot. I mean, the first one is we think about a lot. We say it's self interest. We generally think about self interest related to their people's economic situation or their physical security, in other words, physical needs.
And those are very important to people, and there's no doubt about it. I mean, that's the reason why people who have less income are more prone to want change. Absolutely. And right now, in this election, inflation, people's ability to make ends meet, very, very important. But there are five other categories that help explain, for instance, why a lot of these Trump voters whose self interest economically is not served by a son of a billionaire who's, or whatever he was. I mean, a rich guy who basically serves the interest of other billionaires. One is since people want control over their life, they want freedom. It's extraordinarily important. And we've reclaimed, progressives are reclaiming the term freedom. At that convention, it was just all over. Freedom of reproductive choice was kind of the wedge that allowed that to begin to happen because it's so clear they would want to put some politician in your exam room.
Second is the need for structure and order.
People want order. That's what's happening at the border. They see all these people pictures of what chaos. It's about the need for a feeling of security and structure. And sometimes that conflicts with a desire for freedom. Sometimes people will say, I want the strong man instead of freedom.
But in fact, they're fairly congruent generally because if people don't feel like they have control over their life, they don't feel like they have any, I mean, or any order in the world. They don't understand the world. It's chaos. They don't feel like they're in control. They have no freedom. I mean, during the time of 911, I remember my friend, the pollster Celinda Lake said there were all these people who in all over the country are worried about terrorism, as if some terrorist group is going to attack the stuckeys in terror. They're not going to be terrorist gangs, probably not going to attack that, right? But people had a sense during that time of chaos and that made them feel like there was no order to their world. People want order to their world. People want community, human interaction, affirmation. They want relationships with people and, and they want intellectual stimulation.
People don't like to be bored. And finally, and most importantly, most people want meaning. They want to be significant.
That comes from feeling like you're part of something bigger than yourself that you can contribute to. In other words, inspiration. That's why meaning is the greatest motivator for people in politics, you might say. Well, does anybody ever forget about their physical needs in exchange for wanting meaning? Well, yeah. How about a guy running out on a battlefield who might get shot? He feels he's doing something important.
That desire for meaning is what's driving him to do what he does.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Kind of taking all of that into account and using that people's self interest. And I think, I guess this was implied. And when we were talking about the persuadables and the mobilizables is you're also interested. You're also focused on finding the people who are already predisposed towards your candidate or your issue and the ones it's kind of like also eliminating those who are obviously not going to be persuadable. So that seems like the real challenge. I know there's a variety of ways of getting information already in the second chapter, talking about the sources of information, because you don't know necessarily how people are going to vote unless you have some voter history. But in finding these people expanding, let's say you have a run universe by demographics or geography that you feel pretty confident this is a good base and a certain percentage of those will turn out. And you have a chart in the book that shows how you do some of those calculations. But you know you need x number of votes, voters more to win an election in a congressional district.
I guess it's, if it's a presidential election within the state or that part of the state you're working, how are you expanding that universe? And what kind of things do you look at to try and find the groups of persuadables and mobilizables that will support your candidate?
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Well, as I said earlier, elections are kind of like a treasure hunt. The first goal is to say, as you said, what's our win number? How many votes do we have to find in order to get them out?
And a great campaign will have as its goal identifying specific voters, individuals in adequate numbers to get to that number and then getting them out, making sure they get out election day. So first off, you start off by saying, well, who's really likely to vote? That we don't have to ask.
And there are a variety of ways to get at that. I mean, if somebody in a general election votes democratic in a primary, they're likely to vote democratic in a general election. And you can put them down as part of the list, or at least a solid percentage of down the list.
Various demographic groups are very likely to vote democratic, at least to break democratic in an appropriate way.
And then you say, well, how much have we got left after you do that kind of identification? And there are, through analytics work, you can take the things I just talked about, plus geography where people live and a variety of other factors into account.
And a lot of voter files now have a score. Score is likely to vote democratic, and there's a score of likely to turn out. So the people who are persuadables are people whose the end are not in that group, but are probably not in the group you put down on the list of likely voters for us, but who are have a score that is in the moderate range. That is, they're not highly likely to vote Republican and they're not highly likely to vote Democrat. But on the other hand, persuadables are people who typically are going to vote because we want to spend our resources talking to people who, where every dollar is going to matter, not where half of the dollars won't matter because half the odds are good, half of them will vote.
Once we have identified that run universe we're going to try and create, we're going to have a shortage.
And then the best way we're going to find those people is by talking to them.
And that's where the canvas focuses in its early, in the early stages of a campaign to find our supporters.
One on one, we ask them and typically if they say they're going to support our person, then they probably will.
If they say they won't believe them, they say they're undecided, they're an undecided and we have to be communicating to them.
Hopefully we start off by talking to somebody who's undecided and we can convert them into somebody who's supporting us and we put them in our run universe then and we may take a couple of contacts to get there.
Then comes election day, we got to decide who among these people on our list, hopefully adequate to win if they all go out, are the top priorities for us to be communicating with to get them out?
Well, they're the people who are least likely to vote because our energy there will be most effectively expended.
And we canvass them, we phone them, we mail to them, get out the vote mail, we text them, we multiple, multiple contacts with the messages that matter to them. We try and get them to vote early. So we put them in the bank or vote by mail. And our job then is to focus on that group of people who are going to support us but are unlikely to vote unless they are mobilized.
And that's kind of the basic contours of a great campaign.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: I want to remind the listeners, this is global stuff. My name is Jimmy Durschlag. This is a pre recorded show. We're speaking with Robert Kriemer, political organizer and strategist, founding partner. Democracy Partners has a long resume and cv of years and years of work in political contexts and being successful in making a difference, especially in supporting progressive candidates and issues. I will say that the book we're talking about, nuts and bolts, the formula for progressive electoral success, that's brand new book just come out, which although the focus is on candidates, and certainly these days we're thinking a lot about candidates, especially at the top of the ticket, although the rest of the ticket is just as important for protecting progressive values in our democracy. But also talking about issues, myself as a long time involved with nonprofits, managing and volunteering and fundraising and everything else, a lot of what you say about working elections is very applicable. And you talk about that directly as well, to issue campaigns and getting people to support a candidate or a cause, there's a huge amount of similarities in that. And I will say the book is just so great at that. So I know there's a lot of talking about how you work with these various groups of voters, especially the persuadables, mobilizables, but also so much of it is about messaging. An area, I think the left, the progressives get caught up in a lot is all of the subtleties and all the distinctions about their positions and policies, which you emphasize pretty frequently, is not a winning way because it just kind of gets lost. And maybe that's why the Republicans, one of the reasons the conservative have been somewhat successful is because they stay on a very succinct message. But you talk about the principles of political communications, the general principles. Maybe you can go through some of those, especially emphasizing the important points of messaging because it's so critical to any campaign, is how you get your message across.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Absolutely. And if we're talking about policies and programs and they're talking about right and wrong, we will lose. We have to be talking about values and the things normal people understand. Let me just remind everybody that most of the people we're talking about don't think about politics constantly. They think about politics of, you know, 1520 minutes an hour or whatever every week. A lot of the people who do politics are not normal people. Normal people think about politics. And if normal people, if we try and communicate in policy, speak to people who aren't steeped in that, it's our job to make them understand what we're saying, not their job to understand.
And so we have to convert what we're talking to to the things they care about that matter, that are salient in their lives.
Just to be concrete here, we don't want to be talking about job numbers and rates of growth or whatever abstraction. I mean, it's fine to say that, but mostly we want to convert that into what something will or has affected their life.
How are we going to get the prices of groceries down? Well, that's why, Kamala, talking about ending price gouging is very salient.
How are we going to raise wages? Well, raise the minimum wage or, you know, the idea that. And telling stories is so important.
Most political communication. Well, political communication in general, is done through symbols, not done through lists, things. The most powerful symbols are those that make you feel, as Maya Angelou said.
And those are generally or often, stories.
Stories about individual human beings. This story recently about this woman who died in Georgia, that brings it home to what we're really talking about and into people who can people experience life through stories, their own stories.
All stories, of course, are a narrative. And when we say a political narrative, we mean the same thing. The narrative of a campaign.
First off, you identify an antagonist and a protagonist. The protagonist in a campaign should not just be the candidate, by the way, should be the candidate. And us, all of us ordinary folks.
And the antagonist should not just be the opponent. In the case of Donald Trump, for instance, it should be not just Donald Trump and not just the MAGA, right. But probably all these billionaires and millionaires who he hangs out with, who he actually benefits.
And all of our communication needs to feature an understanding of who's the protagonist and who's the antagonist.
And stories help us do that. There are kind of four c's. I outline of a great general political communication.
Clear.
Has to be, this is not, you know, we're not writing a book like Ulysses or something, you know, by James Jordan. Right. Understand.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: You know, no one understands that.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Clear. Right. It's obvious what we're trying to tell people to concise, because normal people don't think about politics constantly contrastive. We have to be trying to draw the distinction between our candidates and what we're asking people to do in the other side.
It has to be convincing. That is what we need to say, needs to resonate as, oh, that sounds true. We don't want to be making two sales here to make them understand what we're saying and then also convince them we're true.
One of the biggest problems in political communication is breaking through. Breaking through the. The clutter of all the information people get.
And there are two ways to do that, to make something more memorable and repetitive. Repetition. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
That's why contacting people at the door about voting over and over and over is very important.
But memorability flows from a variety of different factors, the most important of which is that, once again, it engages the emotions that people have.
It's a memorability needs to move people, not just intellectually, but in terms of their feelings.
And it needs to be something funny, helps make things memorable. That means engages in emotion. Anyway, memorability, very important.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: You've talked about symbols like sticky, sticky symbols. You mentioned the reproductive rights, for example, as one in this election. And the other side, sticky symbols like immigration and other things. I think when people think of symbols, they think of a visual, which it can be a visual. But so much of these symbols are like just phrases, simple phrases. But yeah, I think the messaging is so important. I mean, you talk about show the message box where you compare your candidate to the one you're opposing and knowing, knowing their messages as well.
But yeah, please go on.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: At the beginning of a campaign, our job is there's a great consultant called Paul Tullye. Many years ago I knew very well, created what is known in the political consulting world as a tele message box. It was pretty simple.
We have to identify the beginning of campaign, our message. What are we going to say about the other side? Usher? What are we going to say about them? The other side, what's they going to say about them? And what are they going to say about us? That's the basis of polling, to determine what's resonant. We, obviously, our job is to keep our, that all the messaging, the campaign on our side of the message box, us talking about what we want to say about us and us talking about what we want to say about them, not letting them take the offensive because the candidate on the offensive almost always wins.
Whoever is defining the terms of the debate.
Now there, there are a variety of other techniques that a wonderful psychologist named Robert Culldini calls weapons of influence.
Let me just reiterate real quick, because they're useful. One is the contrast principle.
If you go into a store and to buy a suit, first thing the salesman does is not show you the cheapest suit.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Right?
[00:30:49] Speaker A: He shows you the more expensive suit. So when he shows you the middle price suit, you'll say, well, that's pretty, that's a bargain.
Contrast matters. Contrasting that principle needs to be employed in all political messaging as well. Second, commitment and consistency.
People want to be consistent. And that's why the best way to convince somebody to do something or be part of something or to support something is to, is to put them in action one step at a time.
Somebody to cheer at a rally.
They're more like.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: You talk about getting to 95th street.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Yes, I'll tell you that story. When I was an organizer in my first campaign, first issue campaign, really as a paid organizer, I worked for a guy named Peter Martinez, who was this wonderful supervisor I had taught me more than anybody else, I think, in politics, and worked for Saul Alinsky's last project, which was this first experience. And I lived on, in Hyde park on the south side of Chicago. He lived at 95th street, much further south. And our office was on the north side of Chicago. And we worked late nights and. But 09:00 he'd say, hey, when you're heading home, you mind dropping me downtown? I'll get the l there. Okay.
And we get downtown. He said, you know what? If, if you could drop me down, go down this Dan Ryan, which is on a central expressway in Chicago, and drop me at 55th. When you cut over to your house, then I'll take the train. Won't take long for me to get home. Okay. And we get there, and he'd say, you know, it's only ten minutes to my house.
And I fall for that over and over. You know, take him to. He was taking me to 95th street. Our goal, I tell organizers, when we train them, is to take people to 95th street. You get somebody to put a yard sign in their yard. Next thing, you're going to call them and ask them to do a coffee for their friends. Or next thing, maybe you're going to ask them, start volunteering or take be an area coordinator or whatever, and they don't know when they put that yard sign down, they're going to devote their life, fortune, and sacred honor this campaign, the end. Because you're one step at a time. People like consistency and commitment. Once they make a commitment, they're likely to continue to follow through. The next kind of weapon of persuasion is reciprocation.
You're more likely to get somebody to do something for you if they feel like you have done something for them. Simple as that. And and that can be of any sort. That's why, by the way, for politicians, we tell them, for candidates, there's no such thing as too much flattery. That's true of anybody.
There's no such thing. You know, and if you try to be transactional, all the time, taken. You know, you give me this. If I give you that, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about putting stuff in the. What do you call a favor bank, but stuff out there to make people feel like you have done something for them, then they'll be much more prone when you call them to do something for you.
Social proof. And this is hugely important.
Most people, one of the most important elements in making a decision about what to do, who to support is what other people say or do because human beings are pack animals, travel impacts just like lots of other animals. And, and we don't like being out there by ourselves. We like, I mean, so that, I remember when Kamala was first, when the president, you know, said he, she should be the candidate, lots of people started endorsing her. And then there was a bandwagon of that because, oh, they're supporting her. There's, that must mean shes a good candidate.
Good example of that in electoral politics is generally we put out yard signs. Im a big believer in yard signs. Yard signs not only communicate the name of the person very inexpensively, but when you go down a block and theres a whole lot of yard signs for a candidate, particularly in an area where maybe its a republican area, you say, wow, theres a lot of my neighbors who think this candidate is pretty good. Maybe ill be for them.
Hugely important social proof authority.
People who, you know, have authority in the subject matter are much more likely to be persuasive.
Guy in a white gown and a stethoscope is much more likely to convince you to do something about your health than somebody who's not liking people are much more prone to do things for people who they like or to support people who they like.
So a lot of political communication needs to be focused on making people like other people.
Tim Waltz, what a score. He's brilliant at it. I mean, not only the repartee, but making people like him. Finally, one of the other key rules here is scarcity. People are more prone to want things that appear to be scarce and one day sales. Right.
But in politics, that translates into if somebody's trying something, take something away from you. It is much easier to mobilize people around them to try and protect that than it is to mobilize them around something to which they aspire.
Donald Trump reached out from the political grave through his Supreme Court and took a major freedom away from a american families, the right to decide when they're going to have kids. And that has caused a huge backlash. I hope it'll be one of the reasons why he is defeated.
[00:36:43] Speaker C: KMUT is a community radio station in the redwood region of northern California. Donate to support people powered
[email protected].
[00:36:57] Speaker A: I.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Want to remind the listeners, this is global stuff. My name is Jimmy Durschlag. This is a pre recorded show. We're interviewing Robert Kremer, political organizer and strategist, founding partner of Democracy Partners.
You can go to democracypartners.com. i notice not a.org but a.com, it's a business, and they're in the business of helping people get elected, especially for progressive candidates, progressive causes. And we're talking about his latest books, nuts and bolts, the formula for progressive electoral success, which is not only a great analysis of the electorate and the motivations of a lot of people, I'm sure if you read it, you'll recognize yourself in one of the categories, but also a very down to earth, basic way to get people elected. And what you have to do that. To do that, I, you know, what you notice as you get later and later into the chapters, you know, certainly want to cover other things that you talk about in terms of getting people out and what it means to, for the candidates, what they have to do. But it's a lot of work. You have to, you have to get a lot of volunteers. When you talk about the numbers it takes to do the polling. And as you say three times, you gotta contact these people, at least you say, get off their porch, although that porch could be the telephone or it could be whatever way you can get through them. And sometimes even more than that, when you get to, like nowadays, people do so much absentee voting, I don't know what it'll be. There have been times in California when all the voting's been absentee, but, and they sent me an absentee ballot. I don't know. I don't think they're doing that this time. But it's, elections have already started. I think in some states they're certainly on the verge. So it's not like it's election day. It's like you're already motivating people to get up. But when you get to election day, you're counting, contacting people over and over and over again to get about. It's just, and when you talk about an organizer, and to be very clear, a campaign manager and an election organizer are different positions, but they're very separate from the camp, the candidate as well. There's a lot of separate organization going on. It's amazing what it takes and the things you have to appeal to for people. And they get excited about it if you're good at it.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. And campaigns have to be fun. I mean, you want to have people participate in organizations and the campaigns in organization. That's fun. That has some fun elements, social elements to it. You want to party with people. You want to get them together socially. You want to make them excited about being with each other, not just about with the campaign. And although I will say a lot of the field organizers I've had over the years, we'll come up to you a couple weeks before the elections. I'm never doing this again, man. This is too hard. I'm working my butt off. It's, you know, an election night. They come up to you and say, where do I sign up to do this again?
Because it all comes together and, wow, it's like an epiphany, you know? So that's, you want to get people to be invested not just for the candidate, but because they want to do something that's important and they themselves can really make it make a difference.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: And you talk a lot about the candidate, of course, and what they need to do, both how you define the candidate, but also what the responsibility of the candidate is during the election, like the visibility and just being there, making sure they're always available. You talk about bracketing the other opponent's events, but also what they need to do. And part of that is defining themselves. And part of that is what you call the creation myth. And I think Kamala has been so strong in that. And one of the first things she does is talk about herself and her background and, you know, how does Trump define himself as, it's phony definition of him as a successful businessman and a billionaire? Because he's probably one of the most, the least successful, if he is a billionaire, that have ever been out. There's these creation myths that candidates do. What else do you need? What you focus on and what you expect from a candidate.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: And by the way, by myth, I don't mean to imply they always have to be wrong. They're wrong. His is, you know, it takes on a mythic quality. I mean, my wife was involved in the campaign to put freshness dates on food as a young housewife. A small group of them did it. And she, when she first ran, she'd talk a lot about that because it defined who she was and what motivated her and what she cared about. And that became kind of, people want to know, so why are you doing this? And it's, that's the creation myth and that I'm talking about.
But people want to know the candidates. They want to know the backgrounds. There's no doubt about that. And they want to know what kind of people they are and what motivates them so that that's, you know, I mean, candidate qualities are a whole lot of candidate. I identify ten candidate qualities people look for that help make them feel good about themselves. The most important qualities are, is this candidate on my side and does he or she inspire me? Now, there are a variety of others.
I mean, for instance, does he or she respect me?
Respect is critical because it's about meaning you can't disrespect people and expect them to ever support you or think you're on their side. Does the candidate have strongly held beliefs and values other than his or her own self interest? And that's an independent variable. Is he or she likable?
You know, ask, you know, poor old Al Gore. He, he seemed like a coal fish, even though he's not. But that never came across, and that cost him. Likability is a big deal in politics. People want to like vision.
Yogi Berra used to say, if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. And politicians, the voters, know what leaders who don't know where they're going, who don't have a vision for where they want to take us. And communicating that vision is a very important element of making people feel good about themselves and safe and under the leadership of somebody anyway. So there are a variety of qualities that the candidate has to communicate. What I like to really focus on is, are the qualities of good work, great organizers who will go out and mobilize people, because those are the things that, that's what all of us can do in this election campaign. Like I say, this is about what we can do.
These are all within the margin of effort, not the margin of error, and we need to really be focused on that.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: So, well, go ahead and talk about that, organizers, because that seems like such a special skill. I mean, of course, candidates are important in their ability to get things done. In some ways, it almost looks like organizers are more important. You know, Obama got criticized for that. Oh, he was an organizer, but that's where he started out.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: Well, that's right.
I mean, I don't mean necessarily professional organizers, but people who are trying to organize their fellow citizens to make an impact. Well, there are a variety. There are kind of two general categories that I outline as the qualities of great organizers. One is thinking what I call thinking like an organizer. And that includes understanding self interest in a very concrete way and thinking about that all the time, assessing the capacity of the individual. They're trying to get involved, to be involved.
When you go door to door, what you're doing is trying to size up the self interest of somebody and then figure out what you can ask them that is within their capacity to do. And if they're working two jobs, you can do. Ask them to do one set of things, if they're, you know, stay at home dad or a retiree or something, maybe they want more, more activity in their life. Maybe they want to get out and that that has to do what we ask them.
Third is understanding that meaning is the greatest motivator and always making sure people feel like they can be part of something bigger than themselves and can contribute. Fourth is great organizers are agitators. Great agitators.
You know, they're the person who comes around. I remember when I was organizing about pollution, one day went to this person's house, misses Burchansky or something like that, on the southeast side of Chicago, and she was putting stuff in her clothesline. That's back when we had clothesline. I said, you know what? I bet it's hard to keep these sheets white with this pollution here. So she would think every day she got on those sheets about the pollution here. Agitators bring the unconscious to the conscious and repro the sores of discontent. People who want change. Great organizers understand one step at a time what we were talking about a minute ago. Great organizers understand that a lot of context about repeated, persuasive contact. You want somebody to come to a meeting, you don't, you don't call them. Once you call them, then you remind them, then you send them a reminder. People are busy. The more you contact them about something, the more likely they are to do it. People understand we're great organizer. Understand the art of the ask.
Asking is, you know, everything about politics is asking, asking people to volunteer, asking people to give money, asking people to vote, ask.
We have to develop great skill of asking in an effective way, which gets me to one of the most important questions of thing, like an organizer. And that is the art of asking is in many respects, the art of listening.
Listening is the key skill.
And if you listen to what people say and if you ask them questions about them, they're much more likely to come along and do what you want, and you're much more likely to understand their self interest. I had a girlfriend once when I was in high school whose daddy did not like me.
And we went water skiing one day with her daddy, and her daddy was in the insurance business. And I remember saying, I'm just going to ask him about the insurance business all afternoon. And I get home and she calls me, says, daddy loves you. He thinks you're so smart. I didn't tell him anything about me. I was asking about him and his insurance business. Great organizers understand that closing the deal is about quid pro quo. Always we pay. When we're asking somebody to do something, we're always paying them in the currency of some self interest they have, whatever that may be. Could be a need for meaning, could be what they aspire to be one day.
Sometimes it's money because we hire organizers, hire canvassers or whatever. Sometimes organized. Great organizers think about relationships. If you walk into a room and you hear nothing but typing on computers, they're not organizing. Organizing is when you're talking to people. Organizers, when you're in people's living rooms, developing living, breathing relationships with people. And by the way, that's so important because, you know, 70, 80% of communication is nonverbal. Ask for Joe Biden. About that first debate. It was about posture. It was about.
[00:49:45] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.
[00:49:47] Speaker A: It was about facial expression, right? And the same is true in general. We don't want to make all that go away, that content of the posture and all the things you do. We want to not just words on a page, we want to be able to talk to people and hear their tone of voice, all that kind of stuff.
[00:50:04] Speaker B: And that happened with Trump in the second debate where he never looked at her and she was looking right at him. That was so important. Those nonverbal cues.
[00:50:13] Speaker A: No such thing as apathy, just bad organizers.
It's up to the organizer to understand what will motivate those people and to get them to do it. Not, not, you know, it's, you know, fish toast, don't jump in the boat. You got to fish for them. So that's the job of a great organizer. There are also another quality set of qualities for great organizers, and they have to do with excellence in execution, getting stuff done, pride and teamwork, focus. Lots of times, you know, great organizers have to be like the tight end of the football game team who looks the ball into his hands while 2300 pound, you know, defensive people are coming, bearing down on him.
Excellence in execution is about understanding. You're the message.
You're the, you're the message. Not, not just the candidate, you are the campaign in somebody's mind. If you go to their door and your posture and what you present yourself is very important.
You got to have a winning attitude to, if you don't believe you can win, you won't ever.
We just had a meeting this morning where this football player was talking about how you go and start a reign, start a game. I was the professional football player. And you don't believe you can win. You won't never, always got to believe we can win. And by the way. There's another good reason for that. I have a colleague who says if you can't get them to hope, you can't get them to vote.
People got to win, got to believe.
And we want to create in any kind of campaign organization a culture of winners, people who believe we can win together.
That's coming together this election season.
Finally, I would say great organizations, political organizations, no whining.
People are not motivated by whining. That's negativity.
We always talk about what we can do to address the problem, not whining about it.
Anyway, there's a whole bunch more in the book about that kind of stuff, but there's a lot in the book.
[00:52:16] Speaker B: And a lot that we're not going to be able to cover, unfortunately. But I hope people will check it out. Anyone who does political organizing or organizing for organizations or just wants to know how a good way that we can win without being morose about the situation, please check out nuts and bolts, the formula for progressive electoral success, the new book by my guest Robert Creamer, political organizer and strategist for many years. In just the few minutes we have here, it seems like the Harris team is following a lot of what you recommend. Do you have thoughts about this? I mean, for example, you talk about not putting people down, that Trump and his gang do that all the time, and it just is amazing how they're able to get away with that. But what are your thoughts about as we get close to a month away from the election day?
[00:53:19] Speaker A: Well, I think we have the momentum, and that's very important, which is about social proof, about bandwagon, we got to keep that up. I think the message of the campaign, joyfulness, hope, the possibility we have to constantly present, not only are we, I mean, the country is on a knife's edge. We could either veer toward fascism and authoritarianism or next year we could have the most progressive period in modern american history. If we take the House to Senate, the presidency back next year, we could pass the whole gun violence agenda. We could pass economic provisions that provide child tax credit for everybody. We could raise taxes on billionaires. We can do all that stuff.
And that hope is very important. They're doing that well, and that's exciting on a lot of these parameters we talked about, they're doing a great job, I think, in a number of the kind of factory towns, they need to emphasize even more the kind of populist framing of going after the billionaires and stuff, price gouging, the things that they talk about. I think they ought to hammer that really home on the organizing and mobilizing front.
She was lucky to inherit the multi months of work that the Biden campaign had done in setting up a field apparatus. I'm talking about organizers and offices. And I mean, the day she became the potential nominee, there were like 1200 organizers and 270 offices around the seven swing states that was able to absorb this energy, this massive volume of volunteers that were coming forth and put them to work in an effective way. And that's exciting. There are a lot of organizations running their own operations to turn out their constituencies.
We're well on the way on that front, but that's what all your listeners can do.
They can take it in their hands to help turn out the vote. They can take it in their hands to convince people they know to talk to their neighbors to win this election. And if you don't mind, I will tell you one quick story about why each vote matters. In 2000, our firm ran a field program for a congressional race in southeast Florida. Wonderful candidate. We had a really good operation. We had a couple of thousand volunteers. We had, you know, a bunch of organizers, but we came up short. 550 votes.
There were about 550 votes in that congressional district. Had our people been able to go out in the last half hour for the election was over and get one more vote, not only would our candidate, but there would have been no Iraq war, there would have been no great recession. We probably started a Green New deal because Al Gore would have been president of the United States.
That's the same 550 votes he lost by. Every vote matters. Every single one. We don't want to find ourselves on the wrong side of the equation. I just talked about in 2000 and this coming year, just too much is at stake.
[00:56:39] Speaker B: Well, I certainly agree with that and I hope that the listeners take that to heart and get involved. I think there's a lot of excitement going on. I hope we can get some of these uncommitted who are upset about the Israel Gaza policies because I think the choice is still clear, even for those folks. But again, thanks so much for making the time to be with us. Robert Cream talking about his book nuts and bolts, the formula for progressive electoral success. My name is Jimmy Durschlag. This has been global stuff.
[00:57:16] Speaker A: Jimmy, great to be with you.
[00:57:18] Speaker C: This has been a Kmut podcast to listen to other shows and more episodes of this show. Find us on all the platforms where you get your podcast and also on our website, kmud.org.
