Occam's Razor

I’ve been having a hard time getting a hold of Liz Warren, my senator and my preferred presidential candidate. She has had no trouble getting a hold of me because I’ve donated twice to her presidential campaign. Pretty much every day she (or rather her campaign) is hitting me up for more money. So far I’ve given her $100.

I’ve also tried to give her a really good idea. Replying to her many automated emails doesn’t work. Crawling her website, I did find a contact form. I first vetted my idea with my friend Tom, who works in advertising. He thinks my idea is good one, but advised that campaigns are pretty insular so they probably wouldn’t pay attention to any unsolicited suggestions. Why? First, they tend to have ad teams that do most of the media strategy and they are pretty insular and know best, unlike us unwashed masses. Second, campaigns tend to be overloaded and constantly play triage. Anything I send in as a comment goes to the bottom of the barrel, probably never to be read. I did look for a phone number that I could call, but one simply doesn’t exist.

Heeding Tom’s advice I sent a short note on their comment saying I wanted fifteen minutes of someone’s time and no I wasn’t trying to make any money. It didn’t have to be at the national level. Let me talk to someone running her campaign here in Massachusetts and if they like it they can pass it up the food chain. It’s true I didn’t say what my idea is. I don’t want them to reject it out of hand. But I will tell you and I’ll post and link to this post this on the campaign’s Facebook page. But I have a feeling it will linger there too, unread. If you like my idea, please promote it and share it. Then maybe someone will actually consider it.

Liz is my favorite for reasons I wrote about in this post. At the moment though she is just one of 23 Democrats who have announced they would like to be our next president. The good news for Liz is that she is at least in the top tier, or was before Joe Biden got into the race. She was in the #2 spot in a number of polls, but usually polls third or fourth.

Given that Liz is just 1 of 23, the challenge becomes for a candidate to distinguish themselves in a memorable way that can’t be forgotten, will command national attention and generate lots of dialogue. But how?

Like my most recent nightmare, this came to me in the middle of the night: 2 AM to be specific. This one though I could not shake. I never really got back to sleep. The next day I wrote it down and sent it off to Tom, thinking that 2 AM ideas are inherently suspicious.

Strangely, it all went back to my time in parochial schools. I spent ten years in their system. For eight of them (elementary school) the good sisters had a hard time getting our attention, particularly when recess was over. The solution: a big, loud, brass hand bell.

It was the idea of the bell that I could not shake. You cannot not hear a bell; it commands attention. And that’s what all candidates want: attention. The idea was for Liz to literally use a hand bell in her campaign and in her advertising to distinguish herself but also to rally America to the huge task ahead.

Imagine that Liz brings a hand bell to one of these to her major rallies. (Make sure there is plenty of media on hand.) Imagine if she kept it under a small box next to the lectern. As the crowd gets riled up and she moves toward the close of the rally, she raises her voice and says something like, “My friends, the status quo is simply unacceptable. Things must change!” Then she lifts the box and reveals the bell. “And so we ring this bell for change!” And she starts clanging it. People start cheering. “We are ringing this bell for future generations, so they can live on a green and peaceful earth again!” She rings the bell. “We are ringing this bell so women can have the right to make decisions about their own bodies again!” She rings the bell again and does the same for other prominent issues that must be addressed. “We are ringing this bell to restore government of the people, by the people, and for the people again!” Lots of bell ringing. Crowds cheer.

Tie this into an ad campaign. Show a student on the ground in front of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, where alleged gunman Nikolas Cruz killed seventeen students and injured 17 others. There are tears in her eyes as she rings a small bell of mourning. Cut to similar scenes, like one with someone in front of a black church that was recently burned down in Louisiana. More snippets on this theme with crowds growing larger and the bells growing more intense, less mournful and more hopeful, not to mention louder. Cut to Liz at a campaign rally ringing her bell and her theme, something like: “Together, we are going to make America America again!”

Liz is the only candidate I can think of that can pull this off. But even so, it will have to be done deftly. Liz has a tendency to smile goofily sometimes. Not when ringing the bell, however. This will need to be practiced privately until she’s got the act down just right.

If it’s done right, I think it could be devastatingly effective. The bell could serve as a rallying cry and theme for the campaign. Like all good campaigns, to persuade voters it must make an emotional connection plus provides imagery and an sound and urgency that cannot be unheard. It has to hit voters on many levels simultaneously.

Ringing of bells could become features at all her rallies. People with hand bells could ring them in front of Congress, or the statehouse in Alabama, or any place where they need to be heard. It symbolizes the change that is needed and will be coming in 2020.

Liz, you gotta ring that bell!