This is Chapter Four of "The Adventures of Barry O and Tailgunner Joe", my political satire. The Saturday Night Live writing staff is off for the summer so I don't expect to hear from them. They've got to have time off to go to all those hip New York hangouts, complain about Romney and Palin and the Republicans, and drown their dishonest approach to their jobs with a lot of alcohol. I'm still open to running a bootcamp for them. Their discipline is obviously lacking, at least on one side of the political spectrum. Actually, they aren't all that funny about Republicans and Romney. The dog was funny. Sudeikis, not so much.
Enjoy this next chapter and let's get to work. Tell your friends. Tell 'em, "friends don't let friends vote for Obama." And if Lorne Michaels is a friend of yours have him give me a call before he falls off the cliff right in front of his writers. -- Austin Speed
Chapter Four
PARDON ME, BILL
"Politics-- n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.”
-- Ambrose Bierce,
“The Devil’s Dictionary”
“Zzzzzz Lllllll Klllllnnnnn Sssssrrrr Pssssdttt,” the intercom announced.
Obama shrugged his shoulders and looked at his entourage. David Axelrod, who seemed to have an uncanny ability to interpret the intercom static patterns said, “I believe President Bill Clinton is here to see you, sir.”
“Oh, yeah. He is on the schedule. Some campaign strategy discussion, I think,” Obama said.
Obama walked over to the Oval Office door and opened it himself. Bill Clinton was talking to the President’s secretary.
“Well, June,” Bill Clinton said, “those pearls really set that suit and that blouse up well. You look great. It’s good seeing you again.”
“Bill, how’s it going?” Obama said and extended his hand.
“Great, Barack.” Clinton took Obama’s hand and pulled him in for a hug which Obama reciprocated awkwardly. “It’s good to see you.”
“Come on in,” Obama said.
Holder, Axelrod, and Daley exchanged pleasantries with President Clinton.
“Bill, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Obama said.
“Well, Barack,” Clinton answered, “I have some ideas for your campaign that should help you out of some of the polling problems that you have.”
“That would be welcome, Bill. We’re all ears.”
“This is pretty powerful stuff. I want to make sure that we keep this among ourselves,” Clinton said.
Everyone nodded or said “Sure” to Clinton’s request.
“Well, what we’re talking about here is a revolutionary message delivery approach. It’s all about telling specific categories of people the precise messages that they want to hear.”
“Who developed this, Bill?” Obama asked.
“Well, Barack, my foundation has a research arm that worked on this. I’ve got to tell you the test results are outstanding. It’s ready to go into broad application.”
“Intriguing. Tell us more,” Obama said.
“Well,” Clinton said. “we call this High Precision Demographic Communications. We identify specific categories among segments of the voting population and, using social media and internet based communications, deliver the right messages to the right people. It’s very powerful and very seductive. It works so well it ought to be illegal.”
“How’d your group develop the process?” Obama asked.
“We stumbled across a theory that seemed ready for application to a larger effort like a presidential campaign. The theory is a way of identifying specific categories of people that translate to specific message requirements.”
“Where’d this come from, Bill?” Obama asked.
“You’ll never believe this, but it was a website selling DVDs for techniques to meet and seduce women.”
Everyone sat quietly and let this one sink in a bit.
“The theory is the thing, though. We won’t be seducing women, but we will be seducing voters. We’ll use some of the same techniques. The first thing you do is ask people three simple questions and by the time they finish answering you’ll have the message track you need.”
“How did you and your folks test this, Mr. President?” Axelrod asked.
“Oh, David, that’s interesting,” Clinton said. “I tested it myself. I had the Secret Service bring women over to me and I tested them. It worked. It worked every time. It worked so well I almost got bored with it. Hundreds of them. It’s really powerful.”
Holder, Axelrod, Daley, and Obama sat with stunned looks on their faces.
“I can apply this to your advantage. You’ll get wonderful poll results,” Clinton said.
“Well, Bill, how can we make this work? How many categories can there be?” Obama asked.
“Well, theoretically there can be a couple of hundred. Affluent women alone can be put into about seven or eight categories.”
“That’s a lot. So we have to tailor our messages to appeal to a couple of hundred categories of people? Sounds complicated,” Obama said.
“That’s the theory, but we don’t need to go that far. Think of it this way. You’ve pretty much got the Blacks and Latinos and Muslim men locked up. The Jews will vote Democratic even if they have to hold their noses. What we’ve got to do is keep the women in your camp and even increase their numbers. From the numbers I’ve seen you’ve lost a lot of independent women if the election were held today.”
“That seems to be true today,” Obama admitted. “We have a program to work on that.”
“Well let me do that for you. I can do that. I need about twelve million,” Clinton said.
“Twelve million? Dollars? What are you proposing exactly?” Obama asked.
“We’ll send advanced teams into the key swing states and get the women back on your side. My guys go in and establish the categories and I work with the key female leaders in each group to start the turning process.”
“When do you need the twelve million?” Obama asked.
“Well, Barack, we need to jump on this right away. This will take time. There are a lot of influential women out there,” Clinton said.
“That’s true,” Obama said.
“If we do this right, you’ll have blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, and women in your pocket. You won’t need a single white male vote to get re-elected.”
Axelrod and Daley raised their eyebrows.
“This is great, Barack,” Biden said.
“True, this is a fascinating idea, Bill. I tell you what. David and I will work on lining up the financing. I appreciate you dropping by. We’ll get funding to you right away.”
“I think you’ll be pleased. This will put the election in the bag.”
Everybody stood up, shook hands, and said their goodbyes. Clinton walked out the door and immediately started another conversation with June and Aileen, the outer office secretaries.
“Cut a check for three hundred thousand for this, David.”
“Yes, sir, but he asked for twelve million,” Axelrod said.
“True,” Obama said. “He can help us get the rest of it from some of those influential women he’s going to…uh…spend time with.”
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