Hi all, my new political essay, The Ass Is A Poor Receptacle For The Head: Why Democrats Suck At Communication, And How They Could Improve, is available now. If you read this blog (and I think that might be a fair assumption since you're reading this right now), you know I'm interested in language as it influences politics, and in politics as an exercise in branding and marketing. The Ass Is A Poor Receptacle is both primer and manifesto on these topics, and includes references from Shakespeare to Schwarzenegger and from Orwell to Animal House to illustrate its many points. Here's a bit more:
Regardless of what you think of their policies, the sad truth is that Democrats suck at selling their ideas to the public. In this hilarious and hard-hitting essay, best-selling novelist and political blogger Barry Eisler draws on his expertise in narrative, his CIA training in persuasion, his time as an international intellectual property lawyer, and his background in technology marketing to offer Democrats some sound advice on how to improve their communications strategy. Borrowing principles from judo and boxing; using examples from advertising, movies, plays, speeches, and debates; and offering case studies of actual policy rollout successes and disasters, Eisler encourages Democrats to force Republicans to fight on Democratic terms, to use Republicans' own moves against them, and to not just slip a punch, but to hammer their opponents into a rhetorical corner and knock them the hell out.
The Ass Is A Poor Receptacle is about 10,000 words, or about 50 pages in paper. You can download it to your Amazon Kindle, your B&N Nook, or via Smashwords directly to your computer as a PDF. There's also a program called Kindle for Mac, available from Amazon and Apple's App Store, that will allow you to download it from the Kindle store and read it on your Mac computer, iPad, or iPhone.
Thanks for reading, and please help spread the word to Democrats who might want to get their heads out, if only someone would show them how.
