Ron Popeil, the earnest television pitchman who died last week, did not invent the elements of a successful salesman. But he certainly perfected them, and a columnist on The Washington Post website wonders if his experiences could help today’s politicians.
Popeil’s TV commercials and longer “infomercials” were broadcast for decades. He often starred in them, cheerfully hawking things designed to make your life easier, from the Chop-O-Matic kitchen appliance to the Popeil Pocket Fisherman.
Post columnist Megan McArdle noted that Popeil’s genius was that a lot of people liked what they saw of him on TV even though they knew he was trying to sell them something.
“There’s a lesson in this for any politician who wants to command what we might call the Popeil Demographic — most particularly for two named Harris and Trump, who may well find themselves battling for that demographic in coming years,” she wrote.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who aspires to succeed President Biden one day, never has had to seek the support of this so-called Popeil Demographic, described as being comparable to the median American voter: a 50-something person who didn’t go to college and lives in the suburbs.
To get more votes than she did in the 2020 Democratic primaries, McArdle says Harris should “forget glamour demographics and go for the bread and butter,” and “forget the symbolic and concentrate on the practical.”
Following the Popeil playbook, Harris should avoid trying to make people different and better. Instead, convince them that supporting her will help them enjoy the life they already have.
To an extent, this is what Trump did when he got elected in 2016. But McArdle believes his 2020 defeat can be traced in part to the violation of an essential rule of sales.
“Great pitchmen never get mad, because customers don’t buy after you yell at them,” she wrote. “They accentuate the positive, not the negative. ... Popeil didn’t claim that an apocalyptic future awaited anyone who settled for his competitor’s product. A great pitchman offers you more great stuff, not less disaster.”
How true. Trump can be praised and criticized for many things, but ultimately his inability to avoid focusing on negative comments — think of how he needlessly insulted Sen. John McCain in 2015 — turned away enough voters to cost him a second term. Trump’s fans may have loved the way he fired up the verbal flamethrower on Twitter, but nobody understood that it came with a cost.
If Trump runs again in 2024, presumably against either Biden or Harris, the most interesting question is whether his campaign would be more like the train wreck of his first debate against Biden; or more like the second debate, when he acted presidential and successfully pressed Biden to defend key issues.
It may seem odd to find lessons for Trump and Harris in Ron Popeil’s career. But there they are: Cast a wide net. And don’t get mad.
