As we prepare for tomorrow’s much awaited press conference announcing the latest endeavor by a group of GOP Senators to pursue a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment, I’d like to talk about light bulbs.
A symbol for ideas and inspiration, light bulbs also became a sort of Senate communications meme the other day. Cleverly employing bulbs, along with mentions of other less glamorous but likewise metaphorical home appliances, Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, dressed down – and quite utterly invalidated – what was to be a routine piece of testimony by a deputy assistant secretary, US Department of Energy.
It was a skillfully amusing, even entertaining interaction. It was billed on YouTube as – “Senator Paul questions the Department of Energy's commitment to protecting consumer choice during consideration of Appliance/Light Bulb Energy-Efficiency Legislation” (Senator Rand Paul, Deputy Assistant Secretary Kathleen Hogan, March 10, 2011.)
Yet it was almost nothing of the sort.
Rather, it was an example of communications technique and method. One usually seen at press conferences rather than Senate hearings. One that’s more familiar to speechwriters than legislators. But perhaps today’s U.S. Senate is more about rhetorical and contextual goals than legislative ones?
I don’t mean that negatively. Nor do I criticize Senator Paul. I’m calling his interaction out to illustrate it as a truly fine example of contextual argument twist. One which I expect you’ll see flavors of tomorrow in the announcement of the newest, latest version of a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment. One which will not include Mr. Paul, but will include a group of his Senate colleagues, both freshman and seasoned. An intriguing assemblage to be discussed in tomorrow’s post, within discussion of the proposed amendment itself.
How that assemblage might communicate their objective? Is my quick topic for today.
(New York Times1) “…At a hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Thursday, Mr. Paul lambasted Kathleen Hogan, deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency at the Energy Department, telling her that the department’s “hypocrisy” and “busybody nature” has “restricted choices” for consumers rather than made life better for them.
The hearing was called … to consider two proposed bills, one that would update energy efficiency standards for appliances and a second that would repeal a measure passed in 2007 to phase in new efficiency standards for light bulbs beginning next year.” (end quote)
Senator Paul opens his comments to Ms. Hogan with what appears to be an unrelated question. He asks her if she supports a woman’s choice to have an abortion.
Light bulbs? No. Abortion. The connection? Choice.
What he has done is
1) Throw her off from her expected script;
2) Change the subject pathway;
3) Irrecoverably reframe the question.
Ms. Hogan arrived, I assume, prepared to talk legislatively about light bulbs. Efficient, savvy, attractive light bulbs. Ones that helped each and every citizen be part of a cleaner and greener future.
Mr. Paul didn’t want to talk about that. So he skillfully changed the subject.
This was no longer going to be a climate-slash-business discussion about setting goals and meeting them. It was going to be a moral argument around human emotional choices. There were going to be two sides. A good one. And the other one.
Now choice is a quintessentially moral topic, one which is found in some form in every world religion, hero’s journey, major novel and life milestone. It’s impossible to engage the word or idea of choice without having some sort of emotive association.
Speaking of emotive association, Paul chooses an example that he knows that at least half the country – no, almost all of the country – has some sort of emotional feeling about. The choice to have an abortion. A choice that has two very definite sides. And not any gray area in between.
It thought this association was both infernal and brilliant. Senator Paul even frames one sentence with “In America we believe…” actually inferring, in inspired uplifted language, that a woman reporting to a member (deputy) of the President’s Cabinet is not familiar with or affiliated with our country. It was bold. So was his brazen mention of faulty toilets.
I waited to see if Ms. Hogan could play it back. She tried. It was a noble effort.
Yet anything she said after Senator Paul’s situational re-context fell flat. Flatter than a crushed light bulb.
**
Communication is more than just being eloquent. It’s about far more than truth or substance. It’s about structuring the argument itself.
That's the 'beauty' of messaging. Issues themselves - and how issues are messaged and contexted - are two different things that often can’t be conflated.
Paul’s statement is rife with emotional and visceral sorts of “truth” - enough truth in it to sound reasonable.
He asks, and I paraphrase here “So to accept the right to one choice, does one then validate all choices?”
Valid question. Does one imply all?
Yet it has nothing to do with light bulbs. Paul’s argument path – essentially engaging an opposite direction to scientific sorts of method - is designed to prove a theory in *individual context* by establishing truth via emotional association (this is how communications people think, in general, along with their siblings, advertising creative execs and marketing geniuses.)
Paul gains good foothold here by framing his real question - then asking it: what is the realm of the federal government insofar as individual choice? Within that lens, he makes his opinion (federal government should not be telling people what appliances to purchase) very reasonable.
Within just a few moments he has framed the context in the room.
He is a warrior fighting the system. Ms. Hogan is an annoying irrelevant bureaucrat preventing his heroism. And this notion sticks, truthful or not.
**
What does this mean for tomorrow? We’ll see. My request is that you listen to tomorrow’s press conference, scheduled for noon Eastern time on March 17th, with a communications director’s hat on. Ask yourself these questions:
1) What is the topic at hand? An amendment to the US Constitution.
2) What is being proposed? A requirement for a Federal Balanced Budget.
3) What is the speakers’ goal? To convince you of its, and their reasonableness. To persuade you of its, and their sheer indubitability.
4) How are they framing their argument? That’s the part to which you need to pay attention. Is it framed morally or economically? Fearfully or confidently? Via association or elevation, with history or science, or even science fiction?
Communication is more than just being eloquent. It’s about far more than truth or substance. It’s about structuring the argument itself.
1) -137274">http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/rand-paul-blames-energy-department-for-faulty-toilets-among-other-things/-137274