[agere_contra]

Ah yes! Covert hypnosis, also known (IIRC) as Neuro-linguistic Programming or NLP

Absolutely correct. The key to this technique is to start with very obvious truisms, to remove resistance to the trojan horse idea which comes in later.

“concerned about politics, you are alive”

“concerned about politics, you are breathing”

“concerned about politics, you are in this room”

“concerned about politics, you will vote for hopey-changy-changy hope”

Ok I blew it at the end there, but you all see what I mean. Obama also makes key signals to reinforce his take-away points. There’s a PDF analyzing his technique - I bet sticking “Obama Neuro linguistic Programming” into Clusty will come up with it.

[mnehring]

This conversation is very helpful, wouldn't you agree? Of course you would? Imagine if all our conversations on FR where this productive, that would be an improvement, wouldn't it? Yes, I know you agree, anyone who doesn't just want's to control the conversation anyway. By the way, thanks for that million dollars, you are a great person for giving that to me. But you know you are a great person, right? Now how can I get that money wired?

Sorry, old NLP joke...

[concerned about politics]

There’s a PDF analyzing his technique - I bet sticking “Obama Neuro linguistic Programming” into Clusty

Heck, I bought an entire training manual. I wanted to know how Obomas speeches, which said absolutely nothing, were building such a following. No one knew anything at all about the guy, he had no job training at all, and never said anything that mattered, yet people still voted for him. I figured he must be doing something under the radar. I decided I was going to find out how he did it.
No one in their right mind should have voted for this guy - for any position. He hasn't even had a job at Mc Dolands yet! That makes millions of teenagers more qualified for the presidency than he is.