Managing Expectations

Managing expectations is an important concept that we have talked about number of times throughout the course. Effectively mastering this tactic is invaluable—it can easily allow campaigns to spin losses as wins (or vice versa if not handled properly). The quickly approaching primary in Pennsylvania is an excellent example of the importance of creating expectations. Today on KDKA radio in Pittsburg, Obama told voters, “I’m not predicting a win. I’m predicting it’s going to be close and that we are going to do a lot better than people expect.” With Hillary’s initial lead in Pennsylvania somewhere around 16 percent, recent polls are suggesting it is somewhere closer to 5 percent. While there is a strong chance that Hillary will win Pennsylvania, it is entirely a question of degree. Headlines on websites like Bloomberg are currently arguing that Hillary will need both a record turnout and record margins to have a shot at winning the race. One of the best ways that Obama can ensure that this does not occur is to make it appear like Hillary is not controlling the momentum. As the California primary helped illustrate, even if it looks like Obama is slashing leads there remains a strong possibility that Hillary will state dominate states that were considered controlled by her. It will be interesting to see how everything plays out.


Relevant citations
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0408/Obama_Im_not_predicting_a_win.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2IYkr2D8ZGk&refer=worldwide