The Art of the Spin Doctor

The network I watched took us into the Spin Room after a recent presidential debate. There, a few dozen spin doctors bobbed and weaved and chattered like robots. Each was programed to dodge, elude, evade, change the subject, “reframe” the question, and misdirect.

Your candidate said there is no problem raising taxes by a trillion per year. Is that an official position now? “Actually, the question should be whether our opponents believe in the tooth fairy…”

You know their tactics. Here, I will switch analogies. Imagine the slippery running back who spins and spurts, sidesteps, shoots, and slithers down the football field. That’s the Spin Doctor.

Of course, their candidates won the debate. Of course, theirs made the most telling points. And struck the knockout blows. And all that.

Lately, candidates have deployed their spin doctors during the debate — to Tweet out the spin instantly, minute-by-minute. Blow-by-blow.

We are not the only country where this species breeds. But we have certainly encouraged it to proliferate. Just think, some folks spend their entire careers “spinning” for political candidates. Or for companies or causes. That is called PR. Or messaging. Or massaging the message.

Spin doctors prize the jewels they discover in the language. They take credit for coming up with phrases and words that soften the reality. A good example is: “undocumented worker” to replace “illegal alien.” 

As for political spinmeisters, the television industry ought to have an Emmy Award for “Best Performance By A Spin Doctor.” Business schools should offer courses in spinning. Perhaps they do. Maybe there should be a Spin Hall of Fame.

I bet you don’t envy the spin doctors their work. It is a form of make-believe. Like having to come up with a good excuse for why you forgot your mate’s birthday. But having to do this every day and no duplicating.

Spin docs have to babble about how powerful their awful candidate was in the big debate. He got bloodied and decked a few times. “But we feel his plan to tax shoelaces absolutely dominated this evening’s debate and will prove a winner come November.”

Part of the spinners’ job is to interpret what their candidates said. “She grunted and smiled during that question. Most viewers will know that those gestures clearly conveyed that…”

“When I was a wee boy, most neighborhood kids couldn’t understand me. So my older brother interpreted for me. He was my spin doctor. I would mumble something the other kids couldn’t possibly make out.

Kids would ask what’d he say, what’d he say? My brother replied, “He said you stepped in dog doo.”

I also acted as a spin doctor when I was a young executive. Harry owned our company. I had to explain to our employees why the company was making “cost adjustments”.

I spun out a dozen reasons and excuses. And I loaded up for another half-dozen. I was rolling along like a pro. When one of our managers, June, shouted from the back of the room. “Cut the crap. The only reason we’re cutting is because Harry is the cheapest SOB this side of Glasgow!”

As a roar went up, I knew that I would never make a career as a spinmeister.

Imagine you live with a professional spin doctor. Suppose you demand to know how he could blow $20,000 in Vegas.

He’d say: “Actually, that figure is exaggerated. We should first look into why you insist on exaggerating. I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate. As for the money, philosophers assure us that we are enriched by our experiences. Tonight’s experience has enriched me beyond anything I could have imagined. Why, if experiences enrich us, we have become millionaires in terms of experiences. Why don’t we celebrate!”

Imagine a spin doctor visits you in the hospital. “You know, two weeks to live is just a figure of speech. It can mean any number of things. And that word ‘terminal’? A terminal is where you start out on a journey, am I right? And disease is a relative term. It combines ‘dis’ with ‘ease’. And you know that ‘ease’ is a description of comfort. So I think what your doctors are trying to say is…”

By the way, like all serious professions, spin doctoring boasts its own list of fancy terms, like misdirection, framing, impression management, truthiness, limited hangout, non-denial denial, and non-apology apology. That’s when the spin doctor spoon feeds the candidate to say: “If there is anyone who takes offense at my remarks I want to assure them it was never my intention to…”

Communists call spin propaganda. The regulars in my father’s saloon called it bull-tweedie. Actually I had to spin that into a word this newspaper would allow. The regulars weren’t that good with massaging the message.

From Tom…as in Morgan.      

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial, and other subjects from his home in upstate New York. Write Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com or read more of his writing at tomasinmorgan.com.