PART ONE
In my recent free podcast, I explained how Kennedy raised, in his launch-speech (*) for the Presidency, what should be THE killer issue in this campaign season:
THE DECIMATION OF THE MIDDLE CLASS IN AMERICA.
I explained that, if he does it right, he can create a massive tidal wave that cuts across all other issues the candidates are talking about.
IF HE DOES IT RIGHT.
Because the decimation of the middle class is the tragedy of millions of lives and the utter cancellation of what people believed was the American dream of rising up from the bottom.
And the decimation is mirrored in the horror show of the chronically impoverished sinking lower and lower despite the famed War on Poverty.
So for the sake of clarity, I’m framing DOING IT RIGHT as a focus group Kennedy’s team assembles for him. The group is…
Composed of 20 middle class people who have been depleted and decimated, financially, over time. These 20 people represent MILLIONS OF similarly decimated middle class Americans.
In their eyes, they did all the right things to take their place in society, as SUCCESSES. They went to school, they studied, they graduated, they started a small business, or they landed decent jobs, they worked their way up in their companies, they demonstrated competence and determination, they raised families, they bought homes, they sent their kids to good schools…
And after a period of time, they saw their assets and their money depreciating; and then the job layoffs came…
All sorts of other bad things happened to them, and now they find themselves on the short end of the stick. Dazed, confused, and pissed off.
In a room with these 20 people in the focus group, Kennedy asks them to describe what happened to them. IN DETAIL.
He listens to their stories.
THEN he repeats back to them what they just told him.
They moan. “No, Bob, you’re writing script. You’re imposing your own picture on ours. You didn’t really LISTEN.”
So they go back and forth, and finally, after some hours,…