Reassurance vs. Cross Pressure political strategies
Posted by Little Ms Purple at 6/27/2008 9:04 AM 
Categories: 2008 Election, Political strategies, All Posts
Categories: 2008 Election, Political strategies, All Posts
Slate has a great article up now about how Obama is looking at and dealing with the evangelical and religious voters that eluded John Kerry and Al Gore before him. The article talks about the difference between reassurance vs. cross pressure strategies.
A reassurance strategy is the tactic that Obama is taking with the religious community. Recently he met with a group of ministers to answer their questions and talk about his own faith. Now, many of the people in that meeting won't vote for him BUT they are now seeing that Obama isn't the far left liberal that the Republicans and McCain are trying to paint him as and that he IS connected to his faith and isn't afraid to express those feelings. To that end, even though they may not vote for him, Obama is neutralizing the extreme feelings against him by meeting with and answering these religious leaders questions. And by taking this approach, instead of having car pools and get out the vote drives by these religious leaders, they will just vote for McCain but accept Obama if he is elected and thus neutralizing their effectiveness.
On the other hand, the cross pressure tactic is about trying to woo Republicans to the Democratic side with issues like stem cell research or global warming vs. the Republicans wooing Democrats with gay marriage and abortion. This is the tactic that Kerry tried and obviously it didn't work.
A reassurance strategy is the tactic that Obama is taking with the religious community. Recently he met with a group of ministers to answer their questions and talk about his own faith. Now, many of the people in that meeting won't vote for him BUT they are now seeing that Obama isn't the far left liberal that the Republicans and McCain are trying to paint him as and that he IS connected to his faith and isn't afraid to express those feelings. To that end, even though they may not vote for him, Obama is neutralizing the extreme feelings against him by meeting with and answering these religious leaders questions. And by taking this approach, instead of having car pools and get out the vote drives by these religious leaders, they will just vote for McCain but accept Obama if he is elected and thus neutralizing their effectiveness.
On the other hand, the cross pressure tactic is about trying to woo Republicans to the Democratic side with issues like stem cell research or global warming vs. the Republicans wooing Democrats with gay marriage and abortion. This is the tactic that Kerry tried and obviously it didn't work.
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