McCain's strategic sales blunder

The political discourse currently includes phrases such as 'close the sale,' 'make the case for,' and 'how does he respond to that?' These phrases are, or have analogies in, the profession of sales.

Essentially, there are several elements to a sales conversation. The salesman must identify the need, present a tangible solution, show how the solution will benefit the individual as related to the need, and then ask for the money. Then he must handle objections and revisit the earlier parts of the conversation to put himself in a better position to get a 'yes' answer when he asks for the money again. Most sales experts say you need to ask for the money five times, at least. One such expert, Dale Carnegie, said that there is an emotive as well as a logical process that the buyer goes through. He also said that the emotive process weighs much heavier on the decision than the logical component does. The best salesmen, in my experience, quickly identify the emotive component to the sale and close on it. In the meantime, they build a logical framework so that the individual can reach an intellectual 'yes', as well as an emotive one. Once the objections have been handled and the buyer sees the benefit and value in the tangible solution/product being offered, the buyer then logically comes to the conclusion that the best course of action is to buy.

A million and one books have been written on how to sell effectively, and different tactics to deploy to achieve the result: being positive, saying yes, building trust, etc. Once such tactic is the assumptive sale. The idea is that the salesman right off the bat assumes that the buyer will be buying--even if they know nothing about the customer except that they have walked onto the car lot. Another tactic is the consultative sale. This is tactically opposite to the assumptive sale in that the salesman leads off by assuming that they don't know if the buyer needs the product or not, and only through consultation, needs analysis, value building, etc. can it be determined if the buyer should buy. The two are not mutually exclusive, but can appeal to different types of buyers at different times.

Politically, the buyers are the voters and the money is the vote. Additionally, there is an 'almost zero-sum' collective dichotomy to politics in the US in that for the first 80% of the votes, you either get one voter (conservative) or the other (liberal), based on the platform and party you are running for. If you bring up Roe v Wade, you just made an assumptive sale, and there is not much to talk about with regard to that. You are appealing to people on their prior stand on Roe v Wade--you are not trying to argue that people should change their minds about Roe v Wade.

Before the GOP convention, McCain had a simple choice: assume the sale with the middle and be the consultant to the base or assume the sale with the base and consult the middle.

Fundamentally he assumed the sale with the center, and used precious resources and choices to consultative close the base. By choosing Sarah Palin, he essentially was saying to the base, "Look, I can see how you might not be sure that I am the best candidate for you. Lets take a look at the kinds of decisions I am going to make in my Presidency, and then you decide, Okay? First off, I am choosing Sarah Palin." Thus, with his most important decision of his Presidency, his first decision, he consultatively used his VP pick to demonstrate to the base why they should choose him, because he could not assume their vote. Meanwhile, he assumed that the middle would be there for him, even though the Palin pick would hurt all of his 'middle' credentials. When the polls indicated that the middle was not there for him, he began to panic and simply insist that he was the best candidate for the middle because he said so. To do this, he had to talk about his record--never good for a Senator-- and since then has been hammered incessantly by the "I voted 90% of the time with Bush, more than most in the GOP." His 'erraticness' has been his attempt to objection handle and reidentify the needs of the middle by 'going back' and starting over, repeatedly. Additionally, the Palin pick was so transparently a political pick that it greatly diminished his "I always put country first" motto. And now, in the closing days of the campaign, moderate Republicans are jumping ship, and the only surrogates he has left are the extremists like Bachmann from Minnesota, who famously called for a media expose into the members of Congress to find out who is 'pro-America' and who is 'anti-America.' Guys like Charlie Christ in Florida have been conspicously absent, electing to go to Disneyland rather than campaign for McCain. In other words, the only surrogates he has left are the same people who love Sarah Palin, but are useless in trying to convince the middle to support McCain.

Imagine where he would be now if he had chosen Lieberman. He would have definatively solidified his 'Maverick' image with the middle. He would have shown that he truly is a change candidate as he has a former Democrat as his running mate. He would definatively win the experience argument. He would have shown true leadership and burnished his reputation as a man of principals by politiely having told Rush Limbaugh early that he is wrong about some things. His support at this point amongst the base would be much weaker than it is now obviously, but he would be in a strong position to bring them back. He simply could assume, correctly, that the thing that the base is the most scared of is losing. Losing the Senate, the House, and the Presidency completely to the left would scare the base, probably more than it would scare McCain. In fact, this fear factor would only get more intense the closer the election became with McCain being behind in the polls. He would be the underdog again, but with his main closing argument becoming more powerful as the growing possibility of a Democratic domination began to dawn on Limbaugh, O'Reilly and their listeners. Limbaugh and company would not be able to resist in the last minute being the king-makers, even if Limbaugh had not supported McCain until the last two weeks of the elections.