A Brief Outline of American Politics - Assignment Example

A Brief Outline of American Politics I. Body language is the silent form of communication that affects every person that includes all kinds of non-verbal communication like body movements, signals and gestures. Often there is a chance of misinterpretation of body language leading to misunderstandings. The body language of a politician can easily express his unspoken words. Since politicians and other celebrities are most of the times under public scanner, therefore their body language garners interest among the common people. The concerned video (Rotemss1, 2013) shows President Bush and Vladimir Putin striding along. It is considered that the speed of striding indicates the power of a person, and more speed means a person is powerful and physically fit. There is however difference in the manner of walking by both the politicians. While walking, Vladimir moves his shoulders back and forth. He exudes energy while walking and makes strong gestures, all of which indicates that he has animal power and is extremely active and strong. On the other hand, Bush portrays himself as having the traditional American power. While walking, he does not make any significant movements of the shoulder. He appears to be calm and controlled which indicates that he does not waste his energy without reason. Bill Clinton has a rather charming personality which becomes apparent when he is communicating with ladies. This is reflected in the manner he smiles while speaking, and his voice is friendly and passionate. It is important to learn the nuances of body language in order to avoid making wrong interpretations of people’s intentions. II. Karl Rove is the political advisor of Republican candidates, and is regarded as a strong strategist. His major agenda is to attack the strong points of the opponents and make them seem like their weak points. For instance, there was the Republican presidential nominee John McCain in the 2008 United States presidential election. He had the reputation of being a war held and prisoner of war. As part of Karl Rove’s strategy, the supporters of George W. Bush in South Carolina created doubts that the years of torture by the Vietnamese may have mentally affected John McCain. In this way, Karl Rove undermined McCain’s glorification of being a war prisoner by alleging him as mentally incompetent (Slater, 2012). As part of 2006 presidential campaign of George W. Bush, Karl Rove has taken the advantage of immigrants for political gain. His strategy was to focus on anti-immigration policies to divert the attention from failed leadership. It was part of Rove’s divide and distract strategy within the Republican Party. He worked towards making compromise on the issue of immigration in order to comply with the demands of congressional Republicans. After three months of Rove’s dealing with immigration issue, President Bush expressed his keenness to surrender to the extremists in the House of Representatives and to delay comprehensive immigration reform. During this time, there was divided opinions within the Republican party regarding the issue of immigration, and the members began to adopt publicity stunts to cover up their unsuccessful attempts to protect the American border and ensure safety of the American people (KCBD, 2006). Karl Rove focused his election strategies during Bush’s presidential campaign on just four issues – welfare reform, education reform, juvenile justice and tort reform. Any other queries regarding any fifth or sixth issues were avoided by Bush and he kept it clear about the campaign’s focus on the four issues (Perfectbark, 2009). III. If I were to take inspiration from Karl Rove, my strategy for presidential campaign will be to approach the attacking tactic. My principle advice will be that we should sponsor more than 50 percent of the media so that they concentrate on attacking the strong points of the opponent. If there is any kind of leniency in the attacking strategy, then according to Karl Rove we will lose control of our working technique, “if we do not attack, we surrender control of the agenda” (Perfectbark, 2009). I will advise my candidate who is running the presidential campaign to emphasize on perception rather than policy. Since for common people what they perceive is what they believe therefore the trick is to throw challenges at any positive and strong points of the opponent. The purpose is to create a tarnished image in the minds of voters of what is apparently the strong point of the opponent. A similar strategy had been applied by the Obama campaign. They attacked the other Republican nominee who was, Mitt Romney who has a successful business career. Obama campaign maligned the successful businessman image of Romney by stating that his venture capitalist company has initiated outsourcing of American jobs. This way they reduced the impact that Romney being a successful business has better ability than Obama to improve the economic condition of America which is in a stage of slow recovery (Cohen, 2012). My second advice to my candidate will be to accuse the opponent of weaknesses that are actually weaknesses of my candidate. A similar strategy was applied by Rove is dealing with Bush’s opponent John Kerry who was a war records made him a stronger candidate considering Bush’s undistinguished military record. Instead of avoiding the issue during his campaigns, Rove emphasized on the anti-war activities of Kerry during the aftermath of his service. This strategy proved to be successful for Bush’s presidential campaign (Pingree, 2008, p.4). Karl Rove is an extremely successful political strategist. He is the mastermind behind the political success of George W. Bush. Therefore, as a political advisor I will rather follow the strategies so far applied by Rove. IV. The Republican Party has various public policies. They advocate reducing national debt, deficits and taxes by opposing the stimulus bill of President Barack Obama. Another policy is to advocate the secret ballot rights of workers as opposed to card check. Regarding immigrations policies, the party supports legal immigrants absorbing into the American population and they do not encourage illegal immigrants. The Republicans also demands for retention of Defense of Marriage Act. They are against rationing of health care facilities so as to make health care services accessible to all vulnerable people, and they also oppose government’s financing of abortions. They support free ownership of guns and are against any government restriction on gun ownership (ABC News, 2010). Today, political parties try to make full use of the Internet to advance their campaign propaganda and advocate their public policies. Although both Republicans and Democrats use the social media to reach out to the voters, the latter are making more progress. According to Mike Filsaime, founder of WebinarJam.com, Obama even before becoming the president had 100,000 Twitter followers while his opponent Republican candidate John McCain had a mere 1,800 Twitter followers. This makes a huge different in current times since social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook etc. play an important role in the U.S. presidential campaigns. Since millions of Americans use Facebook on daily basis, therefore it can be used by a presidential candidate to connect with voters. As of now, the Republicans are far behind in engaging voters through social media than their Democratic counterparts (Battaglia, 2014). Therefore, if given the chance I will be joining the Democratic Party to advocate public policies. References ABC News (January 29, 2010) Ten Key Republican Party Public Policy Positions for the 2010 Election Cycle, ABC News, retrieved on June 15, 2014 from: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ten-key-republican-party-public-policy-positions-2010/story?id=9692300 Battaglia, J. (April 22, 2014) Social Media Experts: Republicans Need Us, Newsmax, retrieved on June 15, 2014 from: http://www.newsmax.com/NewsmaxTv/Mike-Filsaime-social-media-Republican/2014/04/22/id/567094/ Cohen, T. (August 17, 2012) Both sides using Rove’s campaign strategy this year, CNN, retrieved on June 15, 2014 from: http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/17/politics/attack-the-strength/ Rotemss1 (2013) History Channel Secrets of Body Language, [video] from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW9ztSUGY_Q KCBD, (July 11, 2006) DNC: L.A. Confidential: Karl Rove Divides and Distracts on Immigration, KCBD News, retrieved on June 15, 2014 from: http://www.kcbd.com/story/5137761/dnc-la-confidential-karl-rove-divides-and-distracts-on-immigration Perfectbark (2009) PBS Karl Rove The Architect, [video] from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J-ODZPOqVE Pingree, R.J. (2008). Is There Truth Out There?: Neutral Reporting and Epistemic Political Efficacy. (Ph.d), Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, UMI No.3327808 Slater, W. (April 5, 2012) Romney adopts Karl Rove strategy: transfer your weaknesses to your opponent, Dallas News, retrieved on June 15, 2014 from: http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2012/04/romney-adopts-karl-rove-strate.html/ Read More