Politics and Bad Editing

Every time I see a statement by Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton, I wince the way I do when confronted with emails written to loves lost five years ago. The unease hits fast, like a drag off a Marlboro Red. Then irritation settles in.

My first thought was that Burton’s sentences were too long. He just needed an editor. Here, for example, is Burton’s statement about that ballyhooed New Yorker cover:

“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

Here’s that statement, edited:

“The New Yorker may think their cover lampoons the caricature of Senator Obama that various right-wing critics have tried to promote. But most readers will find it tasteless. We agree.”

That’s less long-winded. To my ear, it’s also sharper. Most X and Y constructions — i.e. “tasteless and offensive” — are a waste of oxygen. X or Y alone can communicate plenty.

But the editor in me is most bugged by another Burton error: schoolyard sarcasm. It always weakens the argument. Here’s Burton’s response to a Hillary Clinton gambit during the primaries, in which she expressed doubts about Obama’s electability come November:

“For a candidate who 50% of the country says they won’t consider voting for, raising questions about electability is a curious strategy.”

And here, edited:

“Raising questions about electability is a curious strategy for Senator Clinton.”

Smooth? Yes. Slightly mercurial statements last longer, and thus Burton’s failure to grasp the virtues of saying something without, you know, saying something, is worrisome. In the above instance, anyone following campaign news closely would have caught the inference in the abbreviated version — that Clinton’s “negatives” are high. And there was no other audience to consider.

A good editor will not only save you from long-windedness, but also prevent you from imagining you have, as educators would say, a teachable moment, when in fact you’ve no such thing. Here’s Burton trying to cram three arguments into two sentences in his response to President Bush’s veiled reference to Obama in his speech to the Israeli parliament:

“Of course President Bush would attack the one candidate in this race who opposed his disastrous war in Iraq from the start. But Barack Obama doesn’t need any foreign policy advice from the architect of the worst foreign policy decision in a generation.”

This snaps back at Bush, differentiates Obama from Clinton (”the one candidate who…”), and then tries to burnish Obama’s credentials. But the task of getting three distinct ideas across in one punch isn’t helped by stale language. No one wants to hear the word “attack” a year into the campaign. (And probably ever again, come to think of it.)

So consider this edit:

“Bush is the architect of the worst foreign policy decision in a generation. Barack Obama doesn’t need policy advice from the man whose ill-considered lies led our nation to war.”

This statement hews closer to a single core message: Patriotism is not served by incompetence. And what else needed to be said?

Here’s another poorly edited Burton statement:

“…the fact that the same Republican candidates who want to keep 160,000 American troops in the middle of a civil war couldn’t agree that we should take out Osama bin Laden if we had him in our sights, proves why Americans want to turn the page on the last seven years of Bush-Cheney foreign policy.”

And here’s a shorter version that also hits the all-important “God Bless America” button:

“…the Republican candidates would rather keep 160,000 American troops in the midst of a Middle Eastern civil war than take out Osama bin Laden. As a country, we have and will do better.”

Simpler phrasing also helps insert much-needed humor. Look at Burton’s huffy response to a McCain campaign quip about Washington fat cats, and the accompanying suggestion that a vote for Obama portended more of same:

“[McCain] admonished the old, do-nothing crowd in Washington but ignored the fact that he’s been part of that crowd for 26 years.”

Here’s my edit:

“McCain has been in Washington for 26 years. Somehow I don’t quite buy the idea that he dislikes it so much.”

Burton could also have added, “It’s not like he needs the money.” Which comes close to schoolyard sarcasm but skates just above. (Again, not saying… just saying.)

This next one features the unnecessary “and” mistake (twice!), the “attack” mistake, long-windedness, and introduces a new error — generating needless confusion. Here’s Burton’s response to McCain’s kindergarten sex-ed ad:

“It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls – a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why.”

What does he mean by “recycled”? I can venture a guess, but it doesn’t matter — Burton’s point goes missing in all those words. His point was “McCain has lost it.” So he could have said simply this:

“It is perverse for McCain to use a bill designed to protect young children from sexual predators against a concerned father of two girls. Last week, John McCain told Time he couldn’t define what honor was. Apparently so.”

A good editor will also help you avoid journalistic errors. Here’s Burton burying the lede, and the stickiest part of his message:

“We don’t need any lectures from a campaign that waited fifteen months to purge the lobbyists from their staff, and only did so because they said it was a ‘perception problem.’ It’s too bad their campaign is still rife with lobbyist influence and doesn’t see a similar ‘perception problem’ with the man currently running their own vice presidential selection process, a prominent DC lobbyist whose firm has represented Exxon and a top Enron executive, or their campaign chair and John McCain’s top economic adviser Carly Fiorina, who presided over thousands of layoffs at Hewlett Packard while receiving a $21 million severance package and $650,000 in mortgage assistance.”

Compare that to this edit:

“McCain’s staff was choked with lobbyists. The man now running McCain’s vice presidential selection process is a DC lobbyist whose firm has represented Big Oil and a top Enron executive. McCain’s economic adviser, Carly Fiorina, presided over layoffs while negotiating a $21 million severance package and over half a million in mortgage assistance for herself. And these people want to lecture us?”

But Burton’s statement about Sarah Palin was the worst by far:

“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same.”

I would have preferred something like this:

“We welcome Governor Palin to the race.”

This is closer to what Obama himself said. But with this outburst I realized the full depth of Burton’s — and hence Obama’s — problem. He isn’t communicating the jolt one gets from riding the New York City subway. Burton needs to ride the F train for a couple of days, and watch the teenagers, sometimes snotty and angry but to a person ready, anxious, for something new.

Trouble is, most campaign operatives have spent their entire careers in politics, and this specialization creates an echo chamber, and people in echo chambers are prone to forgetting that it’s not enough to say what you’re against. You have to tell people what you’re for. And leave them smiling.

Keep crying foul, and all your audience will remember is “foul.” If you want a more elaborate argument on why short, sweet, and enthusiastic wins hearts and elections, check out Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. If you don’t care to read Smith, read between the lines of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again). I’m not kidding; few got what it means to be modern, American, and beloved better than Warhol. (From Philosophy, p. 77: “But then when they open their mouth, there goes the aura.”)

Nothing shows desperation like excess verbiage.* Here’s my HOPE — that Burton check back in with the visionary at the helm of his organization, and then find himself an editor.

*If you don’t believe me, take a look at how much longer book jacket copy is now,  after years of dwindling book sales, compared to the norm in, say, the 1970s.

UPDATE: Herewith George Orwell’s rules for the English language. Much like the Ten Commandments, impossible to live up to:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never  use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.