Elite Sales Strategies

10Triangulation Strategy: Helping Clients Decide While Avoiding Competition

The president needed to take a position that not only blended the best of each party's views but also transcended them to constitute a third force in the debate.

—Dick Morris

I rarely write about politics. In fact, I rid myself of anything partisan after my mentor in law school provided me with some One-Up advice: Instead of worrying about politics and presidents, invest your energy into building the life you want for your family. As it pertains to parties, I am a man without a country. For good or for ill, I have been ungovernable since turning 13 years old, the age at which I decided I would govern myself.

In 1992, then-governor Bill Clinton ran against George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot for the U.S. presidency. Some people suggested that Clinton intended this as a dry run for the highest office in the land, so any accusations about his dalliances with women would be old news for his real run in 1996. Instead, Clinton hired an advisor named Dick Morris to help him win the election, something they accomplished through a little-known framework Morris proposed: triangulation strategy. Shuffle a few letters and you get strangulation tragedy, which is how it must have felt to Clinton's opponents. The idea was to position Clinton in a very specific way, one that would make it very difficult for his competition to beat him. Clinton was a lifelong Democrat and ran on their ticket. However, he distanced himself ...