Emotional Truth

by digby

This week-end a former Obama campaign volunteer wrote a wonderful post about her growing disillusionment, that you should read in its entirety. Here’s an excerpt:

One of the great joys for me in working on the Obama campaign was being involved with people who understood this concept [of emotional truth] very, very well. Although I had no part in the messaging of the campaign myself, I watched with great appreciation how the campaign tapped into the emotions of it’s volunteers. They took a demoralized activist base beaten down by 8 years of quasi-fascist rule and lifted us up with three simple words and one simple concept – “Respect, empower, and include” and “CHANGE.”

Day after day, they used these concepts, ritualized them, repeated them, made them into a mantra. They created the emotional truth around which the campaign drew it’s power.

To this day I still tear up when I remember how, at the end of Camp Obama, our facilitator told everyone in the room to close their eyes and envision Obama and his family on January 20 – to envision Michelle and her girls as they stood to watch their father take the oath of office. And I can tell you, when I was there on the Mall and watched it happen for real, it was all I could do not to break down.

But whatever alchemy created this understanding during the campaign has all but vanished in the last few months. I know so many OFA staff and volunteers who do everything they can to keep this spirit alive, but it’s not really coming from Obama anymore. The arguments for health care, even the pledges OFA asks constituents to sign – contain not one whiff of emotional truth. Even the health care horror stories collected by OFA have been stripped of their emotion, filed away to be trotted out in mild DNC ads or handed over to congressional members. These stories need to be used, repeated, and ritualized for the entire country – they need to become our nation’s emotional truth.

That is not happening. Instead the administration is pushing policy arguments, lists of ideas, pieces of paper. And they shrivel and die next to Sarah Palin’s Baby Trig and the reptile fear of people clinging desperately to whatever they have left after a brutal recession.

So here we are. What now?

I confess that I never felt that connection, but I readily admit that I’m probably not the audience for which these emotional appeals are intended. (I’m dead inside.) But the fact that these emotional appeals were powerful is absolutely true. I know many people who were profoundly affected by them and who felt connected to politics in a way they had never felt before because of it. I think it’s bordering on indecent to kick these people in the teeth in order to appease a bunch of establishment scolds who require Democrats to “stare down their own party” in order to be acceptable leaders of Real America. (Meanwhile we have Republicans performing various metaphorical sex acts on the likes of Beck and Limbaugh on a daily basis and nobody says a word.)

She asks, what now? Well, here’s one thing people can do including this person. From the PCCC:

If Obama doesn’t stand firm on the public option, millions of people will lose hope. So today, we’re launching a petition to President Obama signed by those who volunteered, staffed, voted for, or donated to Obama’s campaign in 2008, asking him to please stand firm on the public option. If that’s you, can you sign this petition today? Click here. Then, please think hard about others you know who worked for change last year — and forward them this email. The petition says: “We worked so hard for real change. President Obama, please demand a strong public health insurance option in your speech to Congress. Letting the insurance companies win would not be change we can believe in.” We’ll make sure the White House gets our message. In addition to delivering the signatures and personal notes from the petition page, we’re planning an ad featuring the voices of those who sign. Obama’s speech “is still being debated in the West Wing.” * That means there’s still time — we have one week to persuade Obama to do the right thing. Can you sign this petition to President Obama today? Click here. Then, please forward this to others. Again, we have until Wednesday, September 9. Thanks for being a bold progressive.

They are fundraising for an ad as well:

The group has also set up an ActBlue page showing the amount donated so far, and what more money could do: “$20,000 can make a splash in a DC publication, $40,000 could buy cable news in DC, $100,000 could buy a New York Times ad.” Founder Adam Green wrote in a blog post on The Huffington Post:

We’ll make sure the White House gets our message. In addition to delivering the signatures and personal notes from the petition page, we’re planning an ad featuring the voices of those who sign.
Obama’s speech “is still being debated in the West Wing,” reports Politico. That means there’s still time — we have one week to persuade Obama to do the right thing.

Maybe the White House isn’t interested in a little emotional truth from their own supporters, but they should be.

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