The McCain Team Masters the Magicians Art of Misdirection

Sept. 28, 2008 - PRLog -- Like a five year old watching a magic trick, the entire world is transfixed on Washington as the American financial markets teeter on the edge of collapse and bedrock financial companies disappear right before our eyes.  However, if you watch closely you can see through the smoke and mirrors of the current political landscape and watch it all unfold from a different perspective.  As the public becomes even more skeptical of the words coming out of the mouths of its political leaders, they might gain some insight by going to the local library and picking up a book on the art of prestidigitation, illusion, legerdemain, or sleight-of-hand.  Yes, we are talking magic.   While many people joke that politicians are skilled in the art of deception, few realize that some politicians are digging even deeper into the magician’s bag of tricks.

According to Paul Gertner, a corporate speaker and magician from Pittsburgh, PA, most politicians would make excellent magicians if they ever wanted to change careers.

“Politicians use the very same techniques and principles that magicians use to fool you.  Misdirection, Inferred Connections, and Generalizations are just a few of the techniques that magicians use to keep you from discovering the secret to a magic trick and that politicians also use to keep you from focusing on what they don’t want you to see.”

“For example politicians often shift your attention from an important issue to a different trivial topic, this is a standard technique magicians refer to as misdirection.  In the political world it’s called ‘spin’ but it’s really just plain old  ‘misdirection’ in disguise.”

It’s like the magician getting you to watch his left hand so you don’t see him slip the half dollar up his right sleeve.  The McCain campaign recently decided that if they announced the “suspension of their campaign” they might be able to shift the public’s attention away from their Vice Presidential nominee’s questionable performance in an interview with Katie Couric on CBS.  It sounds too simple to really work right?   Surely intelligent people cannot be fooled by something as simple as misdirection can they?

As Gertner explains:  “You would be surprised.  People are very easily fooled.  And while they are being fooled they don’t even know it.  That’s why magic works.   If misdirection did not work, magicians could not fool anyone, and magic, one of the oldest art forms, would have died out long ago.  And if  ‘spin’ didn’t work, and politicians could not misdirect our attention from what is really important, chances are we would not be as easily misled.”

Other techniques from the world of magic like Inferred Connections are also useful to the political prestidigitator.  It works this way:  If you tell someone that something is a fact, his or her natural reaction is to question its validity.  Which means they want to see “real proof.”   However if you simple “infer” what you want them to believe and let them come to the conclusion on their own, then it becomes a bona fide fact in their mind, even if it is totally false.  

The masterful use of an Inferred Connection can be extremely powerful even in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary.  This was the technique from the magician’s bag of tricks that was used by the Bush Administration to connect Iraq to 911 and help insure the American public would support invading Iraq.  By simply inferring a connection between Iraq and 911 in many different venues, (and by many different members of the administration) a large portion of the American public came to the desired conclusion on their own.  By September of 2003 polls showed that 70% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 911 attacks, even though no proof of a link between the two has ever been found.  How’s that for a magic trick?

So the next time you see a politician trying to shift your attention from the real issues at hand to something trivial, watch a little closer and take look up their sleeve; they just might be hiding something they don’t want you to see.

And if you want to know the secret to seeing through the “smoke and mirrors” of this political season, just go to YouTube and search on the phrase “The Political Shuffle.” At the very end of this short video that’s making the Internet rounds is a magic word, a simple four letter magic word that every American should memorize and use on November 4th.

I’d tell you what it is... but... magicians never reveal their secrets!

Go to:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXGl9W6XeKE