When presenting, it is extremely important to know your audience. I’ve talked to groups from Kindergarten to Senior Citizens. It’s obvious that you can’t present your materials and thoughts the same way to all groups. Some politicians have taken it too far and only say what they think the audience may want to hear and sometimes even bending their beliefs to fit the situation.

But now we need to expand this just a bit more. We as an audience or bystander need to understand the message being delivered AND how it is being received. The delivery is being tailored to an expectation. This can be very obvious and probably won’t fool those who pay attention.
How about the reactions of the audience? Think about this: a debate has been setup for the presidential candidates. The event is sponsored by the local Republican Party. Obviously everyone will not fit into the venue, so the party has tickets to give away. They give them to the “rank and file” members. Now when you see them on TV and the crowd goes wild for a certain candidate you can see how that might influence unknowing watchers. Rank and file members are known for cooperating with the party wishes. They definitely would not cheer for the candidate who used to belong to another party. Without knowing the audience, you might think that the general public is really in support of one candidate, but that may not be the case.
Think this all sounds too far fetched? It is exactly the scenario that took place in Florida just a few days ago. The game of politics is very broad and is played by many on all sides and all parties. (local politics can be just as ugly).
So how do we guard against these games and keep them from wrongly influencing us. We stress that candidates need to stay true to their convictions and not flip-flop. That is the same advise we need to abide by. Don’t vote for a candidate based upon likability or electability. Make sure that the candidate shares your same moral values, has a strong work ethic and you can believe in what they say. It’s a little more difficult to get a true representation of a national candidate who is a bit less accessible, but there is no excuse for not getting to know your local candidates. I need to meet with just one more candidate to complete my mental vote for the primary. If you need help getting in touch with any of your candidates, your local board of elections office is a great place for public information on each of the candidates.

For those interested, campaign finance forms will probably be the topic of the next entry. Stay tuned and thanks for reading! (sorry for the lack of formatting, I’m writing this on my iPhone, otherwise it might be another week before I could write)