Influence in the News: Republican Primary Edition

Influence is around us every day.  Influence is defined as the power to sway or affect based on prestige, wealth, ability or power.

In other words, we’re trying to get other people to do the things we want them to do, and we want it to be their idea!  Years of behavior research studies have lead people to realize that they can speed up the rate by which influence is created, mainly by triggering a response in those we want to influence.

With that in mind, following are several examples of influence tools at work, specifically in the very busy world of presidential politics.

“Do you want the true conservative, Newt Gingrich, or the Massachusetts Moderate?” Newt Gingrich after the debate preceding the Florida Primary (Contrast)

“If elected,” a) Michele Bachman promised that she would bring back $2 gasoline; b) Herman Cain promised not to sign any legislation or bills longer than three pages; c) All of the candidates have promised to repeal “Obamacare”; d) Mitt Romney promised to create 11.5 million jobs; e) Ron Paul promised to remove US troops from all overseas engagements (Reciprocity – vote for me and…)

Rick Santorum has consistently held socially conservative views and has advocated “compassionate conservatism” (Commitment and Consistency)

Donald Trump endorses Mitt Romney; Herman Cain endorses Newt Gingrich (Social Proof)

In the business I had, we invested in over 100 different businesses and net-net, taking out the ones where we lost jobs and those that we added, those businesses have now added over 100,000 jobs.”– Mitt Romney, Jan. 7, 2012 (Authority)

Ron Paul is America's leading voice for limited, constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, sound money, and a pro-American foreign policy (Scarcity)

Conclusion—Just shy of 130 million votes were cast in the 2008 presidential election. It takes a lot of influence to get that 65,000,001st vote!

Image: “Florida Republican Primary Candidates” Cartoon by DonkeyHotey. No endorsements are intended or implied.