I wrote this piece in Kinnaird's Computer lab on the very afternoon Obama was elected on for the first time. It was afternoon in Lahore and we were all delighted with his victory. My grandfather even cried on seeing a black man get elected in office because he had followed the civil rights movement, the struggle of Muhammad Ali and Martin Luther King Jr. I had visited Obama's campaign headquarters a few months earlier and I decided to write about it. This feelings of pride, fairness and inclusiveness that everyone had that day were completely the opposite of what we all felt in November 2016. Fortunately or unfortunately, my grandfather was not alive to see the orange disaster unfold.
Obama's thrilling rise isn't just his charisma at work. His entrepreneurship skills and imagination was a help too.
On visiting his campaign headquarters in Chicago last year, we discovered how campaigns work. The election campaign for the American President operates like an organisation with branches in every state. Its offices have employees, finance and a target. The target here was to market its product-- Barrack Obama. As visible, money matters a lot. And the Obama camp was consistently short of it.
There are several problems in marketing. The market is competitive, several people compete against you and many don't want you to win. Hence, there is a lot of criticism. To counter it effectively, one has to be quick. If there is news against the candidate today, one has to counter it tomorrow, or the point remains standing.
The projected image holds significance as the president should appeal to the majority, across all economic strata and social situations. He has to sound aggressive to defend the country, yet wise to not lose sanity when required. The softer family man image needs as much exposure as the visionary statesman's.
An even bigger issue is prioritising. There is only one Barrack Obama and he cannot be present everywhere. He visits the most crucial primaries, which can help him attain the party nomination. Eventually he visits the swing states. These are the states where a candidate from any party can win and usually these decide who gets the majority. This means the schedule for the candidate is tight and only the most beneficial dinner is attended, speech is delivered and city visited. The dress code is predefined according to the gathering.
In these campaigns, the workload is overwhelming and the pay checks are thin. There are no eight to five work hour limits and it requires a streak of activism.
The Obama camp applied several new-age and unusual campaign strategies and these will come handy for the next presidential hopefuls.
One marked difference between his and both Clinton and McCain's camps was that he employed very young workers and campaigners. In the headquarters, almost everyone was below thirty. This added a new freshness to the movement.
As said earlier, the Obama camp was short of money. But, unlike the conventional way of raising funds for campaign by asking big firms and businessmen, Obama opted for appealing to the public. Hence a dollar a day keeps the bankruptcy away. In fact it leads to a record-breaking rise of funds. The camp sold Obama badges, caps and T-shirts to raise funds. More volunteers were involved than ever. In fact, every aspect of the campaign involved activism rather than employment.
No wonder the majority youngsters and first-time voters supported Obama. In the headquarters, the atmosphere was frugal. The paper, paper towels and electricity was being conserved, and the people there were working on minimum salary. This is said to be the marked difference between Obama and Clinton camp; the latter is said to have paid her campaign manager the sum that Obama spent on his whole pre-nomination campaign.
This election added a new dimension to political campaigns forever -- technology. Obama camp came up with the most innovative use of internet. The developer of the Facebook was present at the headquarters. There were campaigns on myspace and youtube, an email campaign that attracted supporters, websites to raise funds and one special site called the counter smear site to answer rumours and false news spread by opponents. Remember, much of it is free and run by volunteers. If you emailed Obama, it would be replied by his team swiftly.
The team came up with logos, songs and videos as advertisements. The unforgettable slogan of "the change" attracted the Bush-phobic, economically-strained and terror-frenzied crowd -- hitting the bull's eye.
Despite all the finance conservation, most presidential campaigns are a loss, because out of five or more front-runners only one is successful. From the first election stage to the last, millions to billions of dollars are spent and spent doesn't mean invested. In fact, the campaign offices of the presidential candidates run for one to two years after the election to sort out finance.
If Martin Luther King Jr shows up today he won't be surprised. It's been forty five years since his speech and this is enough time for a community of several million to produce one charismatic leader. Yet the fear that the change might be symbolic is always haunting. American foreign policies change very slowly and require decades of planning. Plus the destiny of Obama as a Black man is different from the fate of black men in American jails, shanty towns and streets. The flight of one man is not always the flight of the whole community.
Like all recent American Presidents, Obama too is a University Grad (in fact an ivy leaguer), incumbent senator and Christian but one is bound to tie hopes with the new Presidency. Not only is the rise of the new President sensational, he also holds an unusual life history for a president. He has been working as a community organiser, is a double Grammy award winner, has a Kenyan father and readily quotes German philosophers.
Now this means some empathy and vision. At least the new president won't harbour the black and white approach towards conflicts (Remember: "either you are with us or against us" options the world received in 2001). Since Obama has a multi-racial background and foreign exposure, hopefully he will be better at foreign policy -- something American presidents typically stagger at.
Obama's talent as an entrepreneur, activist and orator is quite a spectacle for the whole world. Such smooth sailing and rise in American politics is rare. The perfect blend of historical quotes, slight aggression and handful optimism make Obama's speeches a classic.
No matter if he is a good president or a mediocre one, Obama's tale is bound to inspire us and many generations to come.
This article was first published in The News.
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