Media Training For Joe Biden

“Now was I wrong a few weeks ago, to somehow give the impression to people that I was praising those men (i.e., James Eastland and Herman Talmadge) who I successfully opposed time and again? Yes, I was. I regret it. I’m sorry for any of the pain or misconception that I caused anybody.” – Former Vice President Joe Biden

Poor Joe Biden.

Has he become an elderly Dan Quayle in the headlights?

When will it be time for his next apology to anybody and everybody?

Can he apologize his way to the Democratic presidential nomination, let alone the presidency?

Reflecting on the June 27 Democratic debate, California Senator Kamala Harris berated Biden for working with the two segregationist senators, and for openly opposing busing. She more than implied that he was weak on racism.

Old habits die hard. During the debate Almost DailyBrett was whispering, ‘Obama … Obama’ and ‘Busing failed. It was well-intentioned (the road to hell is paved with good intentions), but it failed miserably.’

For some reason a seasoned politician with a career going back at least to 1972, seemed verbally paralyzed on the stump.

Earlier this week, Biden finally said:

“They (opponents) don’t want to talk much about my time as vice president. It was the honor of a lifetime to serve with a man who was a great president, an historic figure, and most important to me, a friend. I was vetted by him and selected by him. I will take his judgment of my record, my character and my ability to handle the job over anyone else’s.”

Too little too late, Joe.

It’s time for a refresher course in media training, Joe. We are assuming you want to be president. Right?

Are you sure about that, Joe?

Can you fight off your younger, more agile competitors for the Demo nomination, not to mention the biggest bully of them all, one Donald John Trump?

Acknowledge-Bridge-SOCO

The best media trainer on this planet is Anne Ready of Ready for Media in Malibu, California.

She pioneered the concept of acknowledge the question, bridge to your answer, and deliver your SOCO (Strategic Operating Communications Objective).

Your SOCO response is your agenda.

Biden knew going into the June 27 debate, he was going to be questioned about his collaboration with segregationist Democratic Senators James Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia.

Even though he is a white, straight male (all demographic negatives for the Demo presidential nod), what is Joe Biden’s ace in the hole?

He was chosen and served as vice president to America’s first president of African-American dissent.

Envision Joe Biden looking right into the eyes of Senator Harris last month and saying: ‘When Barack Obama was seeking a running mate, he chose me. I served President Obama and our country with distinction for eight years. I am proud of my longstanding record on Civil Rights.”

Bingo. Joe Biden just uniquely separated himself from the pack. No other Democrat can make that (Obama-Biden ticket) assertion.

Almost DailyBrett is 100 percent certain Kamala Harris would come back with a rejoinder – heck, she’s an attorney — including the glorification of the failed busing social engineering experiment.

Macht nichts!

Biden would have been seen as defending his turf with a strong Acknowledge-Bridge-and-SOCO (e.g., Obama VP) response.

The stories would have undoubtedly still focus on Kamala challenging the former vice president, but they wouldn’t have been so lopsided. There would have been two strong sides to the televised exchange.

Motor City Meltdown? We Have A Problem, Houston

The second Democratic debates, hosted by CNN, will be held in Detroit, July 30-31.

The third round, moderated by ABC, will be located in Houston, Sept. 12-13.

Will the “frontrunner” be ready for these crucial encounters? Their is little doubt that Kamala Harris and others are sharpening their verbal knives.

As political strategist Mary Matalin said repeatedly: “Politics is a contact sport.”

How will we know that Biden is truly serious about running for president? He was Hamlet in 2016.

The answer lies with Acknowledge, Bridge and SOCO.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/06/biden-apologizes-segregationist-2020-1399254

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/06/biden-segregationist-eastland-talmadge/592228/

Anne Ready

What, No Media Training?

Busing Nostalgia?

What Happened To The Exceptional Nation That Twice Elected Barack Obama?

To Blog or Not to Blog?

. . . That is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged blog readers, Or to take aim through social media against a perceived sea of troubles, And by commenting, end them? To die: or to employ conversational marketing, No more; and by a blog to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks . . . or merely to build personal brand . . .

Okay Almost DailyBrett will stop now and offer my apologies for butchering William Shakespeare in his posthumous state and his literary masterpiece, “Hamlet.” http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/385300.html

Seriously, should you start your own blog to build your personal brand, become a thought leader and develop a cadre of readers and colleagues? When I ask the question that way, the answer is an obvious, “yes.”

Here’s another way of posing the same question: Should you burn up valuable personal time on at least a weekly basis to become just another voice in the crowded blogosphere? How do you know that anyone will even care, let alone read your blog?

And can you run afoul with your employer, leading to your quick demise in the face of the worst economic downturn in the modern era? If that is the standard then Mother Teresa (if she was still around) wouldn’t even attempt to post a blog on comforting the sick and the poor.

One of the key reasons to post a blog is that traditional means of getting out your messages are rapidly declining, particularly the pencil press. The invention of digital media, yes those ubiquitous ones and zeroes, are providing us all with the ability to self publish. We can now climb on top of our virtual soap box and speak to the masses.

Keep in mind that the trend is toward Facebook (400 million reported users), Twitter (75 million users), LinkedIn (60 million users) and MySpace (57 million users). Technorati www.technorati.com may track 70 million registered blogs, but the dirty little secret is that only 15 million or 21 percent of this total number can be considered to be active. Blogging may have peaked. http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2007/04/blogging_growth.html

There is no doubt that it is much easier to write quick little quips on Facebook, Twitter (only 140 characters), LinkedIn or MySpace then to come up with four or five paragraphs of copy for a blog.

Almost DailyBrett found that most would-be thought leaders pass on starting a blog because of bandwidth concerns. They just don’t have the time (or don’t believe they have the time). Instead, they have suggested working on a contributed article, which probably eats up 8x as much time when you prepare and submit abstracts to editors and go through the same exercise on the actual article. Besides why do want to be the subject of the whims of external editors, when you can just self publish in a fraction of the time?

Another concern is what will you write about? That is a legitimate consideration. The answer lies with the famous quote by former US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart when he was asked to define hard-core pornography, “. . . You will know it when you see it.”

The key is not panicking. There are so many things in your life and your work that are fascinating to you that may also be something that interests somebody else. So why not take the plunge? In a later blog, I will discuss the key steps in starting and maintaining a blog. The real question that you should answer in the interim is: To blog or not to blog?