"Coffee is for Closers"

If you have a great salesperson at your office, would you describe him/her as a great leader? In a crisis, is your company's top salesperson the one everyone turns to for guidance and support? Is your top salesperson always the smartest person in the room? If you answered "no" to all of these questions, I would guess that you are not alone. If you laughed out loud after reading the questions, you probably have a lot of company. So why do we pay so much attention to the quarterly winners of the money primary?

The money primary for 2nd Q 2007 was won on the Democratic side by Barack "The House" Obama. Apparently, he sold his brand better than the other candidates sold their "brand". He didn't win first place in "Best Health Care Plan" or the "Most Viable World View" sweepstakes. Obama knows that people buy on emotion, and he's generated the most emotional response in his buyers. He offered us all a blank slate, and has allowed us the freedom to project enough of our own views into him. Of course donors like him. We think he thinks what we think, because we have nothing concrete to determine what he really thinks - yet, anyway. Less substance at this point equals more sizzle.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that the Obama Phenomenon is good fro the process. Anything that brings in more people to the political discourse is welcome - if in fact those donors remain engaged and are truly interested in dialogue and not venomous monologues. We just don't know enough about him.

Perhaps succeeding at the Presidency is really all about sales. In the great movie "Glengarry Glen Ross", Alec Baldwin chides Jack Lemmon by telling him that "Coffee is for closers." Barack, this latte is for you. Just keep a picture of Howard Dean nearby, as a reminder of closers who peak too soon.

JS