One of the reasons the Republicans have been effective at winning big political offices lately and why Democrats have been losing the past 15 years is the Republicans have mastered the marketing science of using personas. Personas are nothing more than a stereotype and used primarily by racist marketing firms on Madison Ave. This is why you see so many TV commercials magazine covers, newspapers stories heavily use White people in their marketing because they created this persona of a White consumer that supposed to represent who is paying for their services. Same reason why NBC have no problem promoting an all-White Fall series lineup that no one watches because they believe in that racist persona they created of a White audience member. Now these same marketing firms have worked with Karl Rove and his crew to use the same marketing science of personas each election year during 2000 and it worked like a charm. If you truly want Barack Obama to defeat the Republicans, the DNC and Barack Obama supporters must learn the art of personas and use it against the Republican machine who have been using persona effectively for years. Keep in mind that the Democrats have lost miserably the past elections simply because the DNC has not done or did a pathetic job after they realized they been swift boated.

You have to recognize the game before you know how to play the game. During election season, the Republicans have trained their people to become a “persona” and infiltrate all forms of mainstream media and appear to be regular people who have an appreciation of issues and viewpoints. These are the type of comments they would use:

“I’m voting for George W Bush because I believe this is a Christian nation and want a president that is guided by faith.”

“I believe in the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.”

“The terrorists hate us and I want someone in office who will find them and kill them, not appease them.”

These are actual statements that were used repeatedly by people giving their opinion on TV who I believe were paid partisan plants to promote George W Bush and the Republican candidates, pretending to be regular people. And you know what, most Americans who don’t think for themselves, don’t research and take people for their word actually fall for these type of propaganda each and every time. This is the lightweight stuff, the real heavyweight stuff is the 527 organizations that was privately financed by rich cats such as the Swift Vets and the POWs for Truth and other groups that created personas to advocate against John Kerry. The Swift Vets was really slick, a bunch of old cats with nothing better to do than get together and claim John Kerry was a coward who wasn’t the hero he claimed to be. Their real purpose was to marginalize the war record that John Kerry was going to run on against George Bush military record just serving in the Texas National Guard. I’m really impressed the Swift Vets bullcrap actually was so effective and it really showed how unprepared the DNC really was for modern information warfare. By the way, Terry McAuliffe was supposed to be a dotcom millionaire and didn’t see that information propaganda coming down the pipeline? Okay…

Now, you should know the Republicans will try their persona game on Obama. They will create the persona of a White person who will claim they want proven experience (translation: White male) during a period of uncertainty. They will create the persona of military servicemen who are “proud of their country” to attack Barack and Michelle Obama patriotism. The conservative Zionist wing will create the persona of an anti-Semitic preacher and name him Jeremiah Wright to argue Obama is anti-Israel and pro-Farrakhan. They will create 527 organizations of so-called “experts” personas made up of economists and former military generals who will argue Obama is not qualified to be president and his ideals will cause America to be more at danger of economic collapse or a terrorist attack. Overall, what you will see is a persona of an docile, middle-aged White individual who will say “I’m not ready for the change Obama will bring to America” and I bet those will be the exact words of that persona. These personas will be more effective than any “NoBama” bumper stickers you will start seeing during rush hour.

Now the real question is how can an Obama supporter fight back against that kind of subtle attack machine? Easy, just use the same persona game and turn it on the Republicans. It will take individuals like you to create a shallow persona of yourself this election season and when you talk, talk from that persona. If you are online, you can have multiple personas and work each of those personas on different message boards and multiple blogs. You should first create the persona, and then determine how to market those personas.

Creating the Personas

I recommend you create three types of personas – the personal that knows Obama the candidate well and can speak on Obama position, the persona that is independent and moderate but attracted by Obama position on certain issues and my favorite - the persona that is a proud Republican conservative Christian but decided to vote for Obama.

The persona that knows Obama well should be able to effectively talk on point about all of the issues and can talk about the Obama mortgage credit relief proposal for example. This persona should never argue or debate and should dismiss ignorant comments as rhetoric and counter with Obama proposals on the economy, health care and social security. This persona should only care about the issues and explain how those issues are more effective than the opponent issues. This persona should always promote stories about rallies, events and just the experience of supporting someone like Barack Obama. This persona helps energize the base and keep the morale high.

The persona that is independent and moderate should focus on an issue and be one-dimensional. For example, the environment is a neutral generic issue but use that issue to support Obama. This persona should appear not to be interested in political bickering but is overly concerned about the environment. After this persona gives the impression they are independent, then this persona should state they are going to vote for Obama. This persona is actually the most effective because they are simple. This is how the Republicans have been succeeding at getting independents and even Democrats to support them by creating these single-issue moderate personas on things like pro-life, for example.

The persona that is a proud Republican but deciding to vote for Obama main strategy is to build up a conservative argument and then tear it into shreds and end it by endorsing Barack Obama. This is my favorite persona because it is the most skillful and cunning in the game of information warfare and it really pisses off real Republicans. This persona is more effective on Web message boards but you have to be real skillful and brave to pull this off on Television and in real life. The goal of this persona is to throw the Republicans off-base, get them irked off to keep them distracted and reduce the entire conservation to nothing more than a stupid pissing-match that turns everyone off.

Market the Personas

These personas are marketed by saying a statement has three elements: say who the persona is, what the persona believes in and who the persona is voting for. I’m going to give a bunch of personas for example that can be used online and offline just to demonstrate the use of the three elements I just listed.

“I’m worried about the economy and how companies like Enron were able to destroy middle class families because of a few rich greedy executives. Barack Obama is the only one I feel who ain’t tainted like the others and that is important to me this election.”

“I am a new American citizen and do not feel the Republicans are concerned about my interest. Barack Obama is reaching out to all Americans and I like how he is giving people hope. He has my vote.”

“I’m graduating high school and do not want to get drafted to fight a 100 year war. I’m going to vote for Obama to help end this senseless war.”

“Illegal immigration has hurt this country a lot and I was outraged that John McCain wanted to give illegals amnesty. That is unacceptable to me and why I’m going to vote for Barack Obama.”

So when you are on TV camera being asked a question about who you voting for, the best persona to use is the moderate that cares about that one issue like the economy. If you are in public at a social setting, it is best to be the pro-Obama persona that knows Obama positions and can articulate those positions. And if you are on the Internet, the best option is to be the “traitor to the Republican party” persona that acts naïve and designed to draw in and distract hard line Republicans from being productive campaigning for their candidate.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 11:17 pm and is filed under Hustle, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.