When a team is preparing for a critical negotiation, members need to appoint a leader, allocate roles and responsibilities, and discuss their at-the-table strategy. Another key objective that teams sometimes fail to discuss is the importance of staying “on message” – that is, making sure that statements by individual members don’t contradict the group’s agreed-upon positions and goals.
As President Barack Obama rallies his reelection team, he has gotten a preview of how difficult it can be to make sure that strategists, spokespeople, and prominent supporters don’t sabotage his case against Republican opponent Mitt Romney. In April, for example, Obama’s team had to do damage control after Democratic commentator Hilary Rosen said Romney’s wife Ann was ill-equipped to address women’s economic issues because, as a stay-at-home mother, she had “never worked a day in her life” – a remark that offended many across the political spectrum.
More recently, Obama has had to cope with a couple of unwanted comments by a star supporter and fundraiser, former President Bill Clinton. Within a few days in early June, Clinton made two remarks that the Romney campaign and its supporters were able to pounce upon as supportive of the Republican message.
First, during a CNN interview, Clinton said that Romney had a “sterling business career” as a private equity executive. The remark undermined a key Obama message that Romney has made a career of sacrificing American jobs for investor profits. Second, Clinton made an appeal for temporarily extending all the tax cuts that are due to expire at the end of 2012, including Bush-era rates, if Democrats and Republicans cannot reach a long-term budget compromise. Clinton’s opinion clashes with Obama’s stated desire to allow tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to lapse.
“I’m a little rusty at politics,” Clinton admitted at one campaign event. He will have to adapt his gregarious and opinionated nature to the new fast-paced, 24-7 news cycle. Yet Obama is expected to keep the former president at the forefront of his campaign. Clinton remains popular with independent votes, and he has had success getting his own longtime supporters to open their wallets for the Obama campaign, the New York Times writes. When he isn’t veering off message, Clinton has been a passionate and forceful defender of Obama and critic of Romney. Whether the benefits of Clinton’s support will ultimately outweigh the costs remains to be seen.
For negotiating teams, the story illustrates the value of agreeing in advance on talking points, goals, and strategies, in addition to airing personal opinions and deciding which should be left unexpressed at the bargaining table.
