It’s the single most important element of effective communication. You must be credible in the minds of normal people for them to even consider voting for you. That’s common sense. What’s not common sense – and what’s often misunderstood by candidates – is what credibility really means to normal people.

Most candidates will tell you that their credibility comes from the college degree(s) they earned, the business success they experienced, or even the legislative plans they developed. (If they don’t tell you that, take a look at their bio and I bet you’ll see all it there.) Those things don’t have much at all to do with establishing credibility, though.

Credibility in the minds of normal people means that you know what it’s like to “walk a mile in their shoes.” In other words, credibility comes from knowing how the decisions you make in office will impact the lives of normal people. If normal voters don’t think you understand their lives, then you won’t be credible in their minds. You can trumpet all the advanced degrees and business success you want, you still won’t establish credibility.

Here’s an example.

I’m a young professional many years from retirement. Is there anything I can say that would make me credible to senior citizens when it comes to protecting and improving social security?

What about if I told you I’d published seven papers examining all the proposed legislation to change social security? Would that establish my credibility? It would tell you that I’m an expert, but being an expert and being credible are two completely different things.

What about if I told you that my 81 year-old grandmother depends on social security? Now we’re talking credibility. I may not know as much as the social security “expert,” but I’m certainly not going to support any legislation that would hurt my grandmother.

Bill Clinton understood this better than anyone. Ask most people, Republicans in particular, and they’ll laugh when you ask them if Bill Clinton was credible. The reality is, though, that he was very credible. Think about the 1992 election. It was a contest between a “small town called Hope” and a “compound in Kennebunkport.” Ignore that you already know which candidate goes with which descriptive and ask yourself who you’d vote for. A “small town called Hope” would win out every time.

The lesson? Take a look at the bio in all your campaign materials. Think about how you are introducing yourself when you meet voters and give speeches. Then, figure out a way to better establish your credibility by highlighting the things that would give normal people confidence that you know what it’s like to “walk a mile in their shoes.”

Look forward to your comments.

Until next time, remember, being on the defensive is really just losing slowly.

NOTE: You’ve obviously never met me if you think there is even a possibility I’ve actually published seven papers examining all the proposed legislation to change social security. That was just for illustrative purposes. The smart people are the ones who do all that policy work. The rest of us are relegated to the political work

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