In “Alpha Dogs,” London Times editor James Harding investigates the slick and misleading nature of modern political campaigns, and points to a culprit: the Sawyer Miller Group. Founded in the 1970s, the firm pioneered the practice of packaging and selling politicians like consumer goods, and its acolytes have served as backroom strategists in every U.S. presidential contest from Nixon to today. Harding spoke with Newsweek’s Tony Dokoupil. Excerpts:
You call this book an “archaeology of the present.” What did you dig up? I found that the big ideological differences between the parties and politicians have blurred, while campaign tactics have sharpened. We now live in a tactical age, not an ideological one. Managers, speechwriters, pollsters and get-out-the-vote specialists have more power than we’d like to admit—and a substantial impact on election outcomes. This is the political equivalent of the medium is the message: communication is the candidate.
How is that Sawyer Miller’s fault? The men at Sawyer Miller pioneered the field of political consulting, turning the age-old whisper into a candidate’s ear into a modern, global industry. Just as the old party machines were losing their clout in picking candidates, they brought the new marketing techniques of Madison Avenue to work in politics. They framed the message; they made over the candidate’s image; they peddled spin; they generally encouraged their people to go negative; they polled relentlessly; they emphasized personal character over policy. And it worked: they won and their techniques have become the standard playbook for any politician seeking high office.
Has democracy been cheapened as a result? The people at Sawyer Miller started out as idealists. They believed that clever messaging and the savvy use of TV would break politics out of the smoke-filled backrooms and engage people in the national debate as never before. Instead, politicians appeared more slick, more prone to soundbytes and, courtesy of the relentless stage-management, more phony. Across the western democracies, the Sawyer Miller tactics have turned voters off in droves. Television was supposed to make politics more immediate and more intimate. Instead, it seemed to become more insubstantial and insincere. Thanks in no small part to Sawyer Miller, the political contest has become globalized, standardized and predictable. In country after country, elections have become as similar as Starbucks.
Are you thinking of particular cases? Last year, for instance, British prime minister Gordon Brown confessed that “sometimes people say I’m too serious” and he pledged, “I will not let you down.” Al Gore used the same line in 2000 and it was no coincidence. They had the same speechwriter: Bob Shrum, the American political consultant who worked with David Sawyer on an election in Israel. In 2001, Silvio Berlusconi summed up his agenda as a “Contract with the Italian People.” In fact, it was summed up for him by another student of the Sawyer Miller method, Frank Luntz. He also happened to be the political adviser who helped Newt Gingrich frame the “Contract with America” in 1994. The list goes on.
Do such campaigns favor a certain kind of politician? Absolutely. It used to be that there were two kinds of politicians, the backroom operator and the out-front showman. Now it’s primarily the latter, the quick, charismatic communicator. People may mourn the passing of the strong, silent LBJ-style politician, and say that American-style campaigns, which reward flash over philosophy, are a loss to politics. People can deride personality politics, but we put great store in character.
What are the most appalling aspects of Sawyer Miller’s legacy? America’s sadly irresistible formula has been to repackage intellectual arguments inside an emotional appeal, which means that within about a generation and a half, elections have all but abandoned a discussion of policy to being an obsession with personality. Voters want - and deserve - to test the character of their leaders, of course. They may also want to know something of their plans in office…
If we live in an age of tactics, on which tactics does the current U.S. election seem to hinge? When the national mood is ripe, then ’time for a change’ is an unstoppable argument. Clearly, it is one of the two key emotional drivers of the 2008 election. All three senators are pitching themselves as the change candidates. The counterweight, though, is Sawyer Miller’s other long-standing obsession: trust. The tactics—the reliance on focus groups, the dogwhistles to specific voting blocs, the campaign ads that play to residual security fears, the “reframing” of language, the military-style organization of the get-out-the-vote operations—these are all techniques designed to play to those two over-riding public sentiments: weariness and fear.
Which American candidate is in most desperate need of a Sawyer Miller makeover? Funnily enough, the one that has a Sawyer Miller alum at his side, John McCain. He looks most like an old client of David Sawyer and Scott Miller’s, namely John Glenn. A man with a perfect resume for the job, but sorely needing a clearer political message to the public.
If Hillary Clinton were a Sawyer Miller client, what advice do you think they would offer? What about Obama? I’d tell paraphrase what Sawyer Miller told Kevin White, the Mayor of Boston, when he looked as though he was headed for defeat in the late 1970s: People don’t like you, but they trust you to get the job done. Make the election about competence, not charisma. It seems that Mandy Grunwald, one of the Sawyer Miller stalwarts, is telling Hillary just that. And Obama: Don’t panic. Karl Rove used to say that if your opponent gets inside your head, then they’ve won. Well, the test for Obama now is to stick to his gameplan, not buy into hers.
What do you mean when you say that the Sawyer Miller story is about to repeat itself on the back of the Internet? My view of politics and the Internet is very unfashionable. Rather than become a great democratizing force, releasing people from big money PR and spin, the Internet will be mastered and managed by the professional political classes. Electronic democracy is being rebooted: the Internet will revolutionize politics in the same surprising, simplifying and ultimately frustrating ways that television did a generation ago.
