This evening is Barack Obama’s chance to close the deal with the American People. If you don’t close the deal, you have no sale; and in this case, no sale means no future for America.
I was a salesperson (financial sales) at one time in my life. One of the first things I learned was the axiom, “He who talks first loses”. What that means is that if you are selling something to someone, you’ve made your pitch, and now there’s that awkward silence between you and the prospective buyer. If the buyer talks first, odds are they will buy (or they “lose”); if you talk first, you lose your sale. Think about this the next time you’re being sold something; because if the sales person has to talk after that silence, then they HAVEN’T closed the deal…they feel a need to reinforce or add on to what they have said. Good sales people keep their mouth shut at the end of the pitch. They can also REALLY screw up the sale by saying something incredibly stupid.
I’m not so worried about Senator Obama having a loose lip, but Good Ol’ Joe Biden better keep quiet from now until Tuesday. Senator Obama makes his pitch tonight in a 30 minute Prime Time campaign ad (I hate that they are calling it an “infomercial”. Sarah Palin is the type that would do an infomercial for designer AK-47s with dancing moose in the background. SNL was probably incredibly on target, with the target sitting right there!). At the end of the campaign ad, Obama will speak live. I don’t know what he will add, but let’s just hope that by him having that coda is not akin to losing the sale by talking too much.
I’ll be back later on with some thoughts on the ad.
“Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won’t taste good.” – Joe Paterno
Intersections In Real Time 
I thought the transition to the speech at the end was seamless. I was totally choked up at the end of the thing. I felt the way I did when Clinton won… like there was hope for the future. Next Wednesday,I am going to either feel a million … oh hell it’s such a popular number lets call it a trillion times better … or possibly I’ll be hospitalized. One way or the other, Next Wednesday is the first day of a whole new world.
Hubby was watching a ball game of some sort so I missed the whole thing. Then the boys decided to hang out chattering between me and the TV so I missed the speech with Obama and Clinton.
To listen to the chatter, I now feel as though I may have missed something akin to spiritual. A defining moment in history.
Rats… 😦