OBAMA’S PERCEPTION PROBLEM

Imagine walking into your darkened home one late evening, turning on the lights, and seeing your husband or wife laying in bed with a stranger.  But in that instant, what’s more important to you: the truth, or the perception of what it looks like?

If you’re being honest, your first reaction will be directed toward what it “looks” like and you’ll worry about what it may really be later. That’s because perception is incredibly powerful.  And whether we realize it or not, most of us actually react to or lean toward believing how something looks versus how something actually might be. In reality, perception is EVERYTHING. Yet it seems the White House and the Obama administration have yet to figure this out.

President Obama came into office with perhaps one of the biggest mandates in political history.  Many Americans crossed many political partisan lines to support the one man they believed could “fix” things. And after 8 years of questionable and failed Bush administration policies, the weight of the world was literally on the shoulders of Barack Obama.  So what happened?  Less than half-way through his first term, why have so many Americans turned on him and are already predicting this may very well be his ONLY term?

Obama’s approval rating comes in at around 47%. And if the election were held today, Mr. Obama would only get an alarming 28% of the vote. How can this be possible??? In short, President Obama has a “Perception” problem.  If you ask any White House employee to name some of Obama’s greatest success stories, they could probably provide you with a laundry list of presidential accomplishments.  But if you ask any ordinary unemployed American the same question, they’d likely fail to spell out even a handful of accomplishments.  And for an administration trying hard to make a difference while in the midst of perhaps one of the worst economic disasters in U.S. history, that’s not a good sign.

It’s a decades old marketing strategy:  if I don’t see it or feel it, then it doesn’t exist. Or in other words, PERCEPTION is the key. For example, President Obama could take to the airwaves tonight and announce to the American public that the recession is over.  But if I or my family or my neighbors don’t “feel” it and still remain unemployed or financially vulnerable, the words “the recession is over” are meaningless.  So how can the president fix this perception problem?

Basically, the president needs a “one-two punch” of political victories.  He needs a very visible foreign policy victory that is undeniable, and he needs some domestic home run that Americans can “feel” is making a significant improvement in their daily lives.  Capture Osama Bin Laden.  Put one million Americans back to work.  Do something along those lines that would make a huge splash for John and Jane Doe to feel like the president and his team are making progress.