How many of us are guilty of it? I am. There’s a strong chance you are too. If you invest any of your precious time in observing American politics, you’re probably in this category. You’ve probably already – even just once along the way – made the biggest mistake an advocate can in an election year:
You’ve probably cared more about your guy winning than winning over the guy.
That’s a line I heard way back that popped in my head at the gym the other day. I was in the middle of a set and thinking about an upcoming training I’ll be providing. Should I have been more focused on the task at hand? Maybe. But here we are.
(For days I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember just who said that to me and when. Because they deserve some credit here.)
It’s silly season again. What’s been teased for months will begin coming to a head more and more in the next few weeks. As political maneuvering once again assumes prominence over governing, issue advocates are going to get sucked into the same old cycle. For far too many of us, we are going to slip into our partisan comfort zones and lose sight of how we play the longer game of successful advocacy.
But it’s still early, and maybe we can stop ourselves before we start down the wrong path. We owe it to our causes to pause, right now, and remind ourselves that influence doesn’t come from your team winning elections – those are fleeting moments. Influence is gained when you focus on building credibility that lasts.
That’s the hard work ahead of us as advocates this year.
In every election, the partisans are sure of victory for their side. Even independents start making assumptions and start to believe in the inevitable victory of “their” candidate. It’s natural. Political messaging is specifically aimed at making us feel this way. It draws on our emotional attachments to enroll us and cause us to act FOR one team or AGAINST another. (Here’s an interesting read on some dominant methods: Emotional Campaigning in Politics: Being Moved and Anger in Political Ads Motivate to Support Candidate and Party)
After months of this targeted messaging, how could we not be spun up by our own tribalism? Yet, for advocates, getting to that point can push us to act in ways that diminish our long term credibility. Because guess what? Our preferred candidate doesn’t always win.
Shocking. I know.
But when we face that electoral loss, issue advocates still have a cause that deserves our best effort. When we trade our credibility for short term political hackery, we can’t deliver the productive outcomes our issues deserve. That means we may have to just swallow some of that tribalism along the way this year.
Those focused on real influence are more concerned with the day after the election than Election Day itself. They’re more concerned with becoming the person who comes to the top of an elected official’s mind when an issue arises in their field of expertise. They’re more concerned with finding ways to show up, again and again when others have been chewed up and spat out by the partisan machine.
That’s what I’ll be focusing on this year, and it will be a theme you hear from me over and over again – even though it seems like an impossible task. Just as I sat down to write today, I saw a post from Financial Times on Instagram. The quote they shared from an editorial piece?
More and more often this year, partisan machines, campaign teams, editorial boards and others are going to appeal to our emotions. They’ll do it because it works when trying to mobilize the masses.
But when we are trying to influence policy in the long run, we have to resist the temptation to prioritize election outcomes. We have to be committed to “winning the guy” more than the guy or gal winning. It’s a labor that will be tough as hell. But I have a feeling that if you really focus, you’ll find out you’re tougher. If you avoid the traps, you’ll come out on the other side of this election cycle viewed as the credible expert your cause deserves.
And that’s the game.
Part of the Possible 