Wednesday, January 09, 2008

US Primaries: An Outsider's Perspective

US Primaries, Dew Drops, Ravichander Rao

This is the second US election that I am watching on the TV. Compared to the last one, this is one is turning out to be more interesting. What interests me is this election as an outsider is, to observe the different approaches the candidates are using.


On the Republican side, which is also the incumbent party, the candidates are using the traditional and corporate approaches to woo the voters. Senator McCain seems to be following the traditional approach, where the candidates talks about the military experience, projects done as a senate member, and the usual stuff. Whereas Senators Romney and Huckabee show a great deal of inclination towards Corporate style - dealing with numbers and demonstrating how they arrived at their decision.


On the Democrats side, the candidates are adopting: "urging", "emotional" and "repeatition" styles. Senator Obama uses a great deal of mix of "urging and repeatition" styles. In every caucus he urges the votes to stand for change and his speeches are full of exhortation. At times, it feels as if he is preparing a set of warriors who are ready to march on his orders. Senator Edwards' style is a mix of "emotion and repetition." His main issue seems to be "change" and "health care", which we keep on hearing and at times the same examples over and over again. Senator Hillary who started with a "traditional" approach has now started adopting "emotional"style. Her final day campaign at New Hampshire added a human touch to her campaign which was perhaps clearing missing in Iowa. What I like about her campaign is the fact that it uses a blend of management style and very less of "emotional and repetition". Presenting facts from the past, showing the numbers, and bringing out the issues, and presenting all these in a powered speech without "urging" makes her speech very interesting.


As they move on towards the next caucus, let us see what new styles emerge and how they improvise.

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