Barack Taps Malia as Proxy

We haven't talked Barack in quite some time. But that doesn't mean we're not keeping up on the POTUS's daily deployment of influence strategies.

To wit President Obama tapped a new surrogate this week to carry forth his influence agenda. His 11-year-old daughter Malia was spotted in Rome wearing a t-shirt with the famous logo from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Barack's play is conventional: He's Screen the efforts of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to promote his disarmament agenda. His Proxy however is not. Choosing his daughter is savvy -- it's sure to gain attention -- but also risky.

Posted by: John Koval

Photo Credit: EPA

McCain and Obama Have Bad Week with Good Friends

Scott Walterman for President! Our fellow contributor and branding guru, Thom Mozloom of the M Network, had the idea and, well, we can''t help lend our strategies to the candidacy of the silver-tongued POTUS 08 host.

Alan tells Scott, Get a VP that''ll carry the water, a surrogate who''ll behave. His play: Tap the Eastern European tax lady. Mike''s got a better idea: Be realistic. Offer yourself to McCain and Obama as their VP. You''re jaded. You''ve got Florida. And, most important, you''ve got the voice -- a killer baritone for the debates.

Will Scott tow the line? That''s the question every presidential candidate puts to surrogates. But junkies will appreciate that there are different kinds of surrogates -- see our periodic table of politics for details.

• There are Partners , co-equals who work for a common agenda, but who aren''t specifically on the dole (think Union Boss and candidate).
• And there are Proxies , credible players who happily support a candidate for some kind of consideration, and who can be expected to show a high degree of loyalty and control (think Oprah for Obama or Lieberman for McCain).

This week, in the convention run-up, no surrogate (partner, proxy or otherwise) seemed too well behaved or very on-strategy. Consider the slips:

• Jesse Jackson goes off-mic and off-script on Obama''s Father''s Day lecture to black dads.
• Hillary Clinton stumps for Obama...so long as his contributors are defraying her debt, or so it seems.
• Economic advisory to McCain, Phil Graham, thinks the recession is all mental and that the electorate are all whiners.
• And McCain''s other economic advisory, Carly Fiorina, drops the Viagra bomb in a right-wing chat. Oops.

However you score it, surrogates come in many forms and are crucial to their candidate''s success. But not these four, at least this week.

Click on the left for this playmaker''s free podcast, and tune in to XM POTUS 08 (channel 130) on Fridays at 5:30 p.m. EST each week to hear Plays for the Presidency live.

Post by Alan Kelly

Political Play Action Analysis

In the 1980s, the newly-minted Islamic Republic of Iran and the Baathist government of Syria were both weak players in the Middle East. Iran was embroiled in a war of survival against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Syria was slowly recovering from its defeat to the Israelis in the Yom Kippur War. Neither of them was confident in their abilities to confront the Israelis directly, so instead, they Partnered up and created a Proxy. The group in which they created is called Hizbullah, and has functioned as a paramilitary group cum-political party since its inception in southern Lebanon during the early stages of the Lebanese Civil War. The group has been and currently still is being utilized by Iran and Syria as an alpha player to engage the Israelis militarily on the northern border and also to influence domestic politics in Lebanon.

In the view of the playmaker, the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah relationship demonstrates many key aspects of a Proxy relationship. Hizbullah, created by the Iranians and Syrians, was seen as the only legitimate group within Lebanon willing to fight the Israeli occupation, therefore giving it an aura of authenticity. In turn, Hizbullah gave the Iranians and Syrians the perfect opportunity to step back from confronting the Israelis directly by running a Pause. Furthermore, Hizbullah acted as a beta player during times of peace and allowed Syria and Iran to vent their verbal frustrations -- Peacocks and Labels -- at Israel without having to do it militarily.

In return, the Lebanese leaders of Hizbullah benefited from the sponsor-proxy relationship as well. They demanded money for weapons and appealed for cash to provide social services to the marginalized Shi’a of Lebanon, which made the group extremely popular and politically influential within the Lebanese political landscape. When Hizbullah fought Israel to a stalemate in southern Lebanon in the summer of 2006, Iran ran a complete Recast when it capitalized on Hizbullah’s success to position itself as a champion of the Palestinian-cause, even though it had never supported the institutional mechanisms of the PLO due to the PLO’s Sunni dominance and secular charter.

While the history of the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah proxy relationship is obvious, the astute playmaker may be curious in asking, “What does the future hold for this proxy alliance?” The answer is that while Israel is distracted by Hizbullah on its northern border, Iran is actually running a combination of Pauses and Pings, which allows it to slowly but surely develop its nuclear program. Furthermore, Iran and Syria will continue to use the political capital of Hizbullah within Lebanon to destabilize its pro-Western government in the form of Fiats, Baits, Challenges and Preempts, which destabilizes not only Lebanon, but also preoccupies Lebanon’s Western supporters – namely France and the U.S. – in their broader agenda for the Middle East.

Post by John Koval III, MA candidate