Category: Chairman’s Desk – Page 2 – Navigator

Republicans don’t like Kamala Harris’ family dynamics. Here are two ways she can use that to her advantage

Posted on September 9, 2024 by

Kamala Harris’s family won’t be standing beside her on the debate stage Tuesday night.

Nor will they be grilled on policy or cross-examined on their legislative record.

And yet, they are — nonetheless — very much in the spotlight, their lives open to scrutiny, dissection and debate.

For the longest time, seemingly all political families aspiring to call 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home needed to look one way: nuclear.

Harris’s family is not. Hers is non-traditional, multiracial and complicated.

In a word, normal.

And that’s why each of them is proving to be a major asset.

It’s not that her husband, Doug Emhoff, stole the show with a note-perfect speech at the Democratic National Convention last month.

Nor is it because her stepchildren Cole and Ella are proving to be a powerful force on social media, unlocking young voters for the Harris-Walz ticket.

Rather, it’s simply the fact that they exist as a genuine, relatable family unit that has laid the perfect strategic trap.

And Republicans have walked straight into it.

The more right-wing commentators and candidates decry Harris’s mixed-race family and criticize her husband’s previous marriage while simultaneously supporting a twice-divorced man with a history of extramarital affairs, launch “weird” diatribes about “childless cat ladies,” (not to mention bullying Tim Walz’s son), serve to reveal just how out of touch the MAGA movement is with the modern American family.

But more importantly, these misguided attacks open the door for Democrats to execute two key strategies.

First, to seize upon the rhetoric of “freedom.” Traditionally the mantle of the Republican party, the Harris-Walz ticket has successfully reclaimed the concept.

In his convention speech, after sharing the story of how he and his wife turned to fertility treatments to conceive their first child, Walz declared, “I’m letting you in on how we started a family because this is a big part about what this election is about. Freedom. When Republicans use the word freedom, they mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office.”

Democrats, he countered, have a better message: “Mind your own damn business.” A sentiment Harris has effectively echoed in response to personal attacks.

Second, with all its diversity and complexity, Harris’s family allows her to connect with a broader range of Americans. Voters know Trump’s story inside and out. Harris, on the other hand, is still being introduced to much of the country and her family adds depth to that introduction.

The fact is voters don’t just want politicians to represent their interests — they want them to reflect their own lives and experiences.

It has long been an article of faith that reflection needed to look like “Leave It to Beaver.”

And then everything changed. Now it looks like something quite different — more diverse, modern, and in tune with the realities of today’s families.

Drawing back to what I argued in this space about Tim Walz last month, it’s this personal connection that transforms a candidate from a distant figurehead into someone authentic — who can credibly claim to understand the values and struggles of everyday people. When a candidate says they know what it’s like to make tough family medical decisions or to navigate the complexities of being a working stepmom raising a blended family, it allows them to connect with voters on a deeper, more personal level.

Crucially, it’s from this foundation of authenticity that a candidate can more effectively address wider issues — the pinch of rising grocery bills, the weight of health-care costs, and the stress of finding affordable child care.

Once this foundation is built strong, people won’t just show up at the polls to tick your name — they’ll stay with you.

Politics may be a team sport, but it’s also a family affair.

That family can either be a powerful asset or a potential liability. Kamala Harris’s family, non-traditional as it is, has proven to be the former — a reflection of modern America that resonates beyond politics. And, as a result, come January 2025, the new first family of the United States might look more reflective of the nation’s evolving identity than ever before.

These are the four tactics that make Pete Buttigieg one of the finest communicators in America

Posted on August 26, 2024August 26, 2024 by

Communication is measured in impact not minutes. But your words will always miss the mark if you don’t watch the clock.

Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, former president Bill Clinton spoke for 27 minutes. He was allotted 12. He rambled and roamed.

Pete Buttigieg spoke for just seven. He made every second count.

There could hardly be a clearer contrast between a fading star and a rising one.

Buttigieg’s opening joke underscored why:

“I’m Pete Buttigieg, and you might recognize me from Fox News.”

Nowadays, few politicians are willing to play, let alone relish, the political equivalent of an away game. They prefer the comforts of a carefully scripted video filmed by their staff or an interview with friendly outlets whose questions are so soft they might as well be asking for a selfie.

But not Buttigieg.

Over the past few years, he has carved out a meaningful niche by his willingness to go toe-to-toe with Conservative commentators on Fox. In doing so, he has cemented his reputation as one of the finest political communicators in America.

His success isn’t just about talent — it’s about a method we can all learn from. Beyond politics, these tactics are valuable in business, negotiations, and perhaps most importantly, at the Thanksgiving dinner table when debating with relatives who hold opposing political views

Out of a sizable bag of tricks, here are just four.

Never accept a bad premise

Political cable news shows, especially of the American vintage, are not celebrity podcasts. It’s not a conversation; it’s a rhetorical jousting match, where the premise to every question is loaded.

Accepting a faulty or uncharitable premise is like trying to win a rigged carnival game. You’re doomed from the start.

Buttigieg always fights for the right framing. And he only answers the questions he wants to. Here’s a perfect example from his recent interview this past week with Fox’s Lawrence Jones:

Jones: I just want to know when did you guys (the Democrats) know that the President (Biden) was unfit to be on your ticket?

Buttigieg: The President is not unfit.

Jones: So why is he not the nominee right now?

Buttigieg: Because he did something Donald Trump cannot comprehend, which is to put his ego aside.

He dismissed the first question. He welcomed the second.

Know the facts and when and how to deploy them

To be sure, evidence counts for less these days. Political discussions are more about sound bites and less about substance. But Buttigieg has resurrected the rhetorical might of well deployed facts.

In that same interview, Jones attempted to infer that the murder rate in Chicago was the result of Democratic leadership.

Jones: There were over 20 people shot last week …

Buttigieg: Then why would we elect leaders that won’t do anything about gun violence?

Jones: It’s the Democrats that run this city!

Buttigieg: People try to cherry-pick this for partisan purposes. You want to play that game? … I could go around saying that the murder rate in Mississippi is double what it is in Illinois because Mississippi has a Republican governor and Illinois has a Democratic governor. But you and I both know it just doesn’t work that way.

When you know the facts, you can wield them to disarm your opponent and shift the narrative in your favour.

Use transitions to deliver your message

There are two types of transition lines. The first category is of strategic emphasis — i.e. “I see it differently,” “It’s actually really simple.” In the second category, you seize upon a single word or concept in your opponent’s question or rebuttal. Buttigieg is a master of both. He uses the latter with enormous skill to turn the tables.

If his opponents discuss Biden’s “promises” for instance, Buttigieg will often use it to underline the economic promises Trump broke and highlight the promise he kept to “destroy the right to choose.” Simple, yet deadly effective.

Employ the personal

Buttigieg speaks about his war record. His family life. The pride of fatherhood.

It’s credible, it’s authentic, it’s impossible to challenge. And it’s as effective in a combative interview as it is for the home crowd. Here’s what he told them towards the conclusion of his speech.

“I’m thinking of dinner time at our house in Michigan, when the dog is barking and the air fryer is beeping … It’s the part of our day when politics seems the most distant. And yet, the makeup of our kitchen table, the existence of my family, is just one example of something that was literally impossible as recently as 25 years ago when an anxious teenager growing up in Indiana wondered if he would ever find belonging in this world.”

Conventions are not only about the current ticket, they’re also about the next one. Obama brought down the house in Boston in 2004, he was the candidate by 2008.

If he keeps communicating like this, Pete Buttigieg will be the next one after Kamala Harris.

And if you use his tactics, your relatives will be going home licking their wounds this Thanksgiving.

Tim Walz has something you can’t buy or fake

Posted on August 12, 2024 by

There’s a moment in every drugstore novel or Hallmark movie where one character whispers tenderly to another, “Don’t change a thing. You’re perfect just the way you are.”

I don’t exactly picture Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s newly anointed running mate, as a protagonist in this sort of sentimental tale. He’s more likely to be the kindly local shopkeeper or father of the fretful bride: steady, supportive, compassionate.

Nevertheless, this is precisely what I would tell him: “Don’t change a thing.”

They are the ones who must resist their genetic impulses to “Sarah Palin-ize” him, and instead, ensure that Tim Walz remains unchanged.

Keep him away from phoney makeovers, better haircuts and suits that fit. Keep his ball caps fastened. Keep his New Balance sneakers laced up. He’s got something you can’t buy or manufacture: authenticity.

Politicians and their campaign teams are prone to forget this.

Here in Canada, you don’t have to look far for evidence. The annual cosplay parade of political figures at the Calgary Stampede donning jeans they’ve pulled out from the bottom drawer and cowboy hats that fit like a last-minute Halloween costume, provides particularly humorous testimony.

But politicians don’t just go in for tropes alone, but specific types. And this tendency is strong south of the border.

The runner-up for the Harris ticket was Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. A talented politician and a rising star in the Democratic party, but someone who many noticed copies former president Barack Obama’s intonation to an almost absurd extent.

This level of mimicry is nothing compared to Shapiro’s Republican opponents. En masse, countless Republican spokespersons and even governors (Ron DeSantis chief among them) fell under the belief that imitation was not only the sincerest form of flattery to the megalomaniac in chief, Donald Trump, but the best way to reach Americans.

From Trump, they drew the wrong lessons. They stole the crudity of his rhetoric, the spasms of his speaking style and the cut of his suits. But they missed that Trump brought what few else had — and that by copying him they automatically forfeited — authenticity.

In politics, authenticity is the ultimate conduit to effective, credible messaging, to conveying genuine empathy. If you don’t believe someone is authentic, you will never feel they are truly standing on your side or up for what matters most to you.

For a long time, Democrats failed to grasp that this was why so many voters felt and still feel this way about Trump: because, for all his faults, to many he comes across as an authentic original.

Democrats — finally — have woken up and chosen an original of their own: Tim Walz.

He’s not a war hero, but he served his country in the military for more than 24 years.

He was not a billionaire hedge fund manager; he was a school teacher and he’s never owned a stock or bond in his life. An educator who made a difference in the lives of his pupils.

He’s never won the Super Bowl, but he coached his high school football team from last place to victory in the State Championship.

The point is he is refreshingly relatable. The kind of neighbour who not only has the extension ladder you need but also shows up to help you install your new flag just in time for the Fourth of July.

In today’s political landscape, in an era of relentless self-aggrandizement and bombast, these things shine through.

In Tim Walz’s case, his apparel, including the suits that don’t quite fit, are simply an authentic expression of who he is: a family man from the Midwestern United States who joyously loves his country.

A man who doesn’t care much for fashion.

Because he doesn’t need to.

Nor should he in the coming months.

JD Vance may lose Republicans the White House

Posted on July 29, 2024 by

“One day you’re cock of the walk, the next a feather duster.”

A politician must have cooked up this brutally cruel expression. After all, it is the perfect encapsulation of public life. Its vicissitudes. The hard, immutable fact that it is fleeting. For those who sacrifice so much to serve, this truth is painfully evident.

As I watched the astonishingly rapid turn of the spotlight towards Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, and away from Joe Biden, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this.

But this reality also brought me back to the principle behind it: that “events” (as Harold Macmillan famously observed) are the real drivers of political life. And how it holds true even for the president of the United States.

In recent weeks, “events” initially appeared overwhelmingly favourable to Joe Biden’s political rivals. The failed assassination of Donald Trump was a great rallying cry for Republicans. Trump seemed to be able to quickly coalesce a party previously split between diehard zealots and moderates into one; building a coalition stronger, more determined than ever. And it was in the context of this fervour that Trump revealed Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. A man who opined that President Biden’s “rhetoric” was directly responsible for the attempt on Trump’s life.

Then, it seemed only right to anoint an heir, one that would ensure the continuation of the MAGA legacy even after Trump had exited stage left. The “attack dog” who would gin up the base and ensure that base turned out on election day in a campaign, as I’ve written before, that wasn’t about persuasion but about turnout. Clearly, the tide was coming in and the Republicans only needed to ride it.

And then, the axiom “whoever speaks first loses” reared its ugly head and “events” quickly illustrated Vance’s selection was a grave, potentially fatal, mistake.

I’ll leave it to other pundits to divine his eclectic, ideologically elastic biography. My point is much more straightforward. Simply put, he is the wrong tool for the job, the proverbial knife for what is now a gunfight.

Events, especially those of historic significance, are never static — they multiply. And with Kamala Harris’s ascendance to the top of the Democratic ticket (Biden is the first eligible presidential incumbent since LBJ to opt-out), that “fight” has significantly shifted. Because now, the Democrats are building a movement. What was a rematch is now a race.

And in a contest that will hinge on turnout, Harris has demonstrated her prowess in the most critical arena for success — mobilization. Beyond her record fundraising efforts, the Vice President has already excited and motivated key Democratic cohorts, including African American women who have long been considered the backbone of the Democratic Party and younger voters who were discontent with President Biden’s record.

Her recent speech to more than 6,000 members of the historically African American Zeta Phi Beta Sorority and sudden embrace of Gen Z-focused social media trends illustrate a campaign that is going to use a different playbook — with a goal of exciting those groups.

Vance, suffice it to say, might well run-up the score in red states, but he will do next to nothing to turn the Trump-curious into Trump voters. People who support Vance already support Trump. His candidacy is not a growth proposition, it is a consolidation effort. Moreover, it’s worth noting that two white males at the top of the GOP ticket are woefully unsuited to take on a woman of colour.

And so, as Harris works to make the Biden campaign her own, to make room for the thousands upon thousands of Americans she has excited and animated, she holds an additional ace: the ability to make a far more strategically sound VP pick — one that will meaningfully expand her support in the key swing states she must win.

From where I sit, you would be well-advised to strap on your seatbelts for this one and all the events that are sure to come between now and election day.

The best replacement for Joe Biden is the most obvious

Posted on July 15, 2024July 15, 2024 by

Just prior to the implosion that rocked global financial markets, Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld assured investors his bank’s liquidity and capital profile were rock-solid.

Before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission pursued charges, Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos swore her magic box (the “Edison machine”) was functioning just perfectly.

Hours before their stock tumbled to historic lows, Credit Suisse issued an infamous memo to their staff, claiming total financial stability.

These moments in history come crashing across my mind every time I think of the Democratic Party today and I guarantee that soon, very soon, U.S. President Joe Biden’s “firm” commitment to stay in the race, come hell or high water, will be added to this ignominious list.

So knowing that these strong, declarative statements are doomed to failure from the beginning, why do people keep trying them?

The answer is as simple as it is flawed: it comes from desperation and the belief that any sense of weakness will only hasten the inevitable end.

These things don’t work because, on their face, they contradict what people can see with their own eyes and end up doing the very opposite of what they are intended to achieve.

As a result, Biden’s candidacy to defeat Republican candidate Donald Trump is facing what can best be expressed as a bank run of confidence. Movie stars, left-wing pundits, old-guard Democrats and other influencers are withdrawing support faster than the Biden camp can manage. In fact, the campaign is doing nothing better than merely catching up to a place where the majority of the American electorate has already arrived.

It has grown into a full-blown crisis entirely of the campaign’s, and the candidate’s, own making.

Now, this crisis, as with all crises, comes opportunity, and the bright spotlight of opportunity now falls on Biden’s natural replacement: Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Her positives and negatives have been well documented.

To recap her negatives:

According to the poll aggregators at Five Thirty Eight, her 37.5 per cent approval rating is barely stronger than Biden’s and is just lower than Trump’s.
Harris’ 2020 presidential bid — where she dropped out before the first ballot was even cast—was disastrous.
Her vice-presidential tenure has been, to be charitable, uninspiring where, amongst other disappointments, she failed to make serious progress on the border.

On the positive side:

Her candidacy provides an opportunity for Democrats to transition from an octogenarian white man to a candidate whose diverse life experience can energize the base and attract new areas of support.
The election rules enable Harris to inherit the war chest accumulated by the Biden campaign, along with the well-established organization that accompanies it. Both assets are nearly impossible to replicate in the remaining time.
She would be the most natural recipient of, and benefit from, a Biden endorsement, for whatever it is worth.
Crucially, Harris also has the ability to align herself with the popular aspects of Biden’s agenda while distancing herself from those less favoured by key voter groups.

But more than anything, Harris is the best option to drive a sharp contrast with Trump on abortion. Not only can she more credibly advocate for reproductive rights, but she is also uniquely positioned to harness the momentum from the Democratic success in the 2022 midterms by making the election a referendum on this issue.

While it is true that successful candidates are not formed in laboratories, if they have the right fundamental makeup, over time the electorate comes to see that, net-net, they are the best choice.

As former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was fond of saying, he didn’t have to be better than Mother Teresa (thankfully), he just had to be better than his opponent John Turner and he didn’t consider that to be a difficult task!

In 2020, Biden didn’t have to be perfect. He just needed to be a better alternative to Trump, which he proved to be. In 2024, considering her strengths and the current political climate, Harris is not only the stronger alternative but is also better-positioned to clearly define and communicate what that alternative consists of to the American people.

And for that reason, today’s Democrats would be well advised to start highlighting her positives, rather than doing the Republicans’ job for them and only focusing on the negatives.