With next week’s GOP Michigan primary a coin toss, new plays are driving a new narrative in the 2012 race.  Isn’t Tampa just down the road from Jeb’s place?  Boy it’s a shame Mitch Daniels never got vetted.  Mitt or Rick are gonna make Barry Goldwater look like a winner.

You get the idea.  With party elders nervous, conditions are ideal for low-engagement stratagems that assess and probe what’s possible without sending pulses of panic or peril.  Some are hard to see.  Others are more obvious but tougher to attribute.  Either way, they're harbingers of a brokered late-August convention or a late-arriving Obama-beater.

What are the influence strategies at play?  And who’s employing them? Here's a handy decoder:

TESTING PLAYS

• THE PING. To hint and hide; the oblique reference or suggestion.  Conservative Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson is sounding the alarm, though more through suggestion than overt objection:  “The longer these controversies continue, the longer President Obama has to regain his political balance.  …As long as Republicans are focused elsewhere, they are providing Obama with his own private bailout.”

• THE MIRROR. To expose inconvenient facts; the introduction of facts or contradictory information.  Here’s a snippet from the left-leaning Eugene Robinson, also of The Post, who seems keen to help Mr. Gerson and other GOP hand-wringers to their conclusion:  “Mitt Romney…is incapable of putting away a couple of – let’s face it – political has-beens.”  In the same piece, he uses terms like Romney flameout and the dragooning of Governors Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie and Jeb Bush into a brokered convention.

SURROGATES.  In our system there are three distinct kinds:

• THE PARTNER.  A third party aligned with the player who operates as a coequal.  Here’s where we find Gerson and Robinson, each theoretically independent of their party, but each carrying its water.

• THE PROXY.  A hired gun; an associate who advocates for and supports the agenda of a player.  This is the row and seat number of the GOP and DNC leaders, Reince Priebus and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, respectively.  They’re on the dole, on-script and on-strategy.

• THE PLANT.  A secret ally, a trusted and confidential player who seeds information.  Here is where party elders whisper on deep background.  They are the unattributed but confirmable sources whose Pings and Mirrors are driving the call for a fresh face in Tampa.

And what about Sarah Palin?  By this analysis, she's well off-strategy, running self-serving Peacocks, directly and on her own.  Think Pa-Lin-Sanity.  She is not who Gerson, much less Robinson, are expecting to dance in Tampa.

Posted by Alan Kelly

Photo credit: Planet of the Apes

Click here to listen to "Plays for the Presidency" on Sirius-XM, POTUS Channel 124.

With Sen. Rick Santorum’s sweep of primary contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri this week, the 2012 GOP plays for the presidency took a new turn. The stunning wins placed Santorum as a head-to-head competitor to Mitt Romney and a viable alternative to the all-but-dead Newt Gingrich.

The consequence, in playmaker’s parlance, is that the former Pennsylvania Senator can now draft the leader instead of crowd him. Here's how it might play out:

def. CROWD (i.e., JOIN IN). The attempt by a player to match or adopt another player’s position or to affiliate with a trend, idea or issue.

• Sports: The Jamaican bobsled team – just wanting some cool runs in 1988 Winter Olympics.
• Business: Kenwood ramping up iPod aftermarket accessories – happy to get a bite of Apple’s exploding new market.
• Entertainment: ABC’s copycat launch of the period drama Pan Am – all to get a piece of AMC’s Mad Men fan base.
• IPOs: LinkedIn, Zynga and Groupon – each going for a Wall Street brass ring.
• Politics: Amb. Jon Huntsman throwing his hat in the GOP POTUS ring – wanting more limelight than leadership.

def. DRAFT (i.e., FOLLOW, FEED-OFF, THEN PASS). The attempt by a player to feed off the energy of a developing marketplace, innovation or best practice with the intent of overtaking incumbent leaders.

• Sports: Dale Jr. riding Jimmie Johnson’s bumper – saving gas, looking to pass.
• Business: Steve Jobs stalking the MP3 market – plotting a music revolution.
• Entertainment: Simon Cowell pushing his The X Factor sing-off – hoping to out-do his old American Idol friends.
• IPOs: Facebook learning, studying, preparing for its public offering – aching to set a new Internet stock price high.
• Politics: Rick Santorum coming from behind – sapping and stealing Mitt Romney of his inevitability credibility.

So what does a rival do when it’s being Drafted? Standard guidance offers some clues. For Romney, it’s a game of hindering or countering the drafter:

• If a trailing opponent seems well behaved, run a Pause, and watch them carefully. Enjoy the company because their presence builds legitimacy for your efforts and leadership.
• If your trailing opponent tries to overtake you (a) run a Bait on the rival's credibility, (b) Recast your message to test their ability to start a new parade, or (c) Pass on the initiative and let the trailer wither.
• Run the Crazy Ivan. They are following you: they don't expect you to suddenly turn and attack.

For Gingrich, it’s a game of helping or complementing the drafter. (Newt, after all, is going for a brokered convention; so best he help Santorum break Romney’s delegate grip…for a while):

• Recast the leader as having good ideas, but paint it as unable to follow through and meet the market’s needs.
• Label the drafter, your new partner, an underdog. And let the market cheer them on.
• By way of a Screen, point to other drafters who passed their opponents and became leaders (e.g., Obama on Hillary)
• Run a Preempt to build a competitive hedge.  Position your ally as the only player able to feed off and pass the leader.

Post by Alan Kelly
Photo credits: www.totalfilm.com and www.racintoday.com

Click here to listen.

This morning on SiriusXM, POTUS channel 124, I spoke about the Audacity of Strategy with host Tim Farley (@morningbriefing).   If you didn't catch it, President Obama used his State of the Union address to preempt Republicans on key GOP issues where he'll likely be vulnerable come election time.

PREEMPT, def. TURN THE TABLES. Action or communication that reverses competitive position.

Here's a summary of a few of the Preempts we discussed on the air this morning.  You can tune in to listen to Plays for the Presidency on Fridays at 8:35 a.m., on SiriusXM, POTUS channel 124.

ON NATIONAL SECURITY, Obama robs the GOP of the ability to paint him as being a weak Commander-in-Chief.  Said Obama:

• "For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home."

• Now, if you're the GOP, how do you counter Obama's audacios preempt?  Consult the Standard Guidance of a Preempt's play card, and you'll see one option for countering:  Run a Crowd. You've been beaten to the punch, but you still need to fight. Match your rival's timing, match its rhetoric, match its position and force it to share the stage.

ON ENERGY, Obama preempts the GOP yet again.  He negates the GOP's ability to claim that he's anti-fossil fuel.  Said the POTUS:

• "Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right – eight years. Not only that – last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years."

• How do you counter this energetic preempt?  Standard Guidance suggests the running of a Bait on the preemptor, Obama. Ask him publicly, "Where'd you get that idea?!"

ON TAXES, Obama plays to the populous, turning the tables on the GOP's accusations of class warfare.  Said the President:

• "Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense."

• How might conservatives counter, if at all?  One of the Standard Guidance options recommends against countering at all.  Choose your battles wisely.  Run a Pass. Abandon the contested space. Give your opponent a meaningless win. There will be no fight if only one party shows up.

You can listen for free to the whole show by clicking here. 

Posted by Alan Kelly

Photo Credit: Betty Glad and Chris J. Dolan