5 Steps To Oppose Your Opposition

A short & semi-sweet post that I hope you all find helpful …

5 Steps To Oppose Your Opposition

1. Acknowledge that you have opposition, and acknowledge their arguments. It’s an inescapable fact: everything in politics has support and opposition. As an activist or candidate, you cannot be effective unless you acknowledge that this opposition exists. You cannot defeat something unless you understand it.
2. The first step in understanding your opposition is to determine what kind of opposition you have. Generally speaking, political opposition comes in three flavors:
• Ideological opposition – pro-choice vs anti-choice, pro-war vs anti-war, etc. This is usually the most emotional type of opposition.
• Fiscal opposition –This is primarily based on a simple “we can’t afford it” mentality. However, if you eliminate the financial obstacle, you may find that there are ideological undertones here as well. For example, even if the money dropped from the sky to fully fund social security forever, many fiscal conservatives would still oppose the program.
• Strange bedfellows – this kind of opposition doesn’t make sense on the surface. For whatever reason, a particular special interest is opposed to something that appears to be unrelated to their agenda. Personal relationships or quid pro quo transactions may be driving this type of opposition. You will have to peel the onion to find the motivation.

3. Once you’ve done some basic analysis, it’s time to conduct detailed opposition research. Get to know their arguments. You probably know most of what they stand for, but how do they work? How will they push their agenda? There are a few ways you can find out:
• Scour for newspaper clippings and letters to the editor. Are all of the articles favorable? Are they using a particular journalist all of the time? Do they regularly distribute professional press releases? Do the letters to the editor sound remarkably similar? Do they share any particular phrases? If so, this is the message that they will be repeating to the public.
• Scour the Internet – not only will you (most likely) find their website, but you may also find blogs and forums in which your opposition has been discussed. Look for any patterns and little known facts, but be careful of what you take from these sites as “the truth”.
• Join the grassroots network. Attend their meetings to see what they are doing. Sign up for their mailing lists, to get their action alerts. There’s no better way to get into the thick of things that to pretend to be one of them.
• Do not waste time chasing rumors. Focus on policies and procedures; not on personalities.

4. You know your opposition. You know why they oppose you, and you know how they work. Now it’s time to analyze their arguments. Do they play on emotions? Do they use factually correct statistics? Do they lie? How will the public respond to these arguments? How will the news media respond? Think about their arguments from every angle.
5. And now you should be prepared to neutralize their arguments. There are many ways to do this:
• Question the numbers, the statements, or the research methods. If they’re unreliable, say so, and provide alternative statistics to support your position.
• Label the opposition as irrational or unfair, if they really are.
• If you agree with the opposition’s statistics, use them, but redirect the conclusion.
• Use anecdotal evidence. Personal stories can be very persuasive.

Remember, the public may not be aware of your opposition. If your opponents haven’t been able to get their message out, don’t respond to it. You don’t want to spend your time spreading their message.

If you like this post, subscribe to my new email newsletter.