The American Political PR Problem
Contrary to all of the current theories as to why the Democratic Party loss the 2004 election; there was nothing, no issue that would have won the 2004 election for the Democrats. It was not the vast networks of small AM radio stations constantly peddling virulent right wing hate mongering in the guise of radio talk shows, or the right wing propaganda that was disseminated by so called TV news shows that created the Republican victory in 2004. It was not the multitude of Christian Evangelical Ministers throughout the south and south west which created the Republican victory in 2004. It was not the National Rifle Associations with its thousands of Gun Owner Clubs around the United States that created the Republican victory in 2004. And finally, it was not the thousands of Pro-life activist groups around the country that created the Republican victory in 2004. Most of these groups were present on the American political landscape long before George W. Bush made his appearance, so it is nonsense to give credit to Him for leading these groups and millions more to the polls on his behalf; whereas others including George W’s own father could not. Therefore, it is obvious that something new must have been present in George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign that was not available in previous campaigns.
George W. Bush squeezed into the Presidency in 2000 and in the course of his term created a laundry list of significant mistakes and blunders in foreign and domestic policies anyone of which would have prevented any other incumbent from being reelected for another term. But George W. had one thing going for him this time around. The business community was in a delicate state and was not in the frame of mind to want to deal with any Democratic President (unless it was Bill Clinton, but no reincarnation could be possible under current American law). If I hazard a guess, I would say that there were a number of factors at play in their decision to support a widespread Republican victory in 2004. The first was the aftermath of the terrorist attack of September 11. Another consideration would be the globalization of industry and finance, Tort Reform legislation, relaxing of anti_monopoly barriers in the restructuring of American business via future mega mergers, and finally the eradication of American unions. With these goals in mind, Business not only supplied the Bush campaign money and resources, but it also loaned the campaign its top level Public Relations specialists. The new element in the Republican campaign of 2004 was the active participation of seasoned professional PR people from the business world.
The power of a well designed Political Public Relations campaign was manifestly evident in the re-election of George W. Bush to the presidency in 2004. The final emergence of Political Public Relations (PPR) as a controlling force in the most significant political event in American politics is both a sobering and awesome, yet frightening experience. In essence, the genie is out of the bottle; effective mind control of voters without subliminal graphics. The tools are the effective marketing of political messages (scripts) utilizing the methodologies of state-of-the-art PPR. From the point of the 2004 election forward, we can no longer compare past elections with future elections; nor past election trends with future election trends. Further, recognition of the major impact that current PPR techniques have had on the presidential election will immediately require that this methodology be used in lower level political campaigns. Under these conditions, the overall cost of standing for public office is bound to skyrocket due to the necessity of incorporating PPR into any viable campaign. The picture of the future of American politics that emerges from the widespread inclusion of PPR is a one of a substantial transmogrification of the reality of the traditional ideal of American politics, where anyone regardless of financial means can stand for political office.
I recently executed a search on Google for the number of references to “Political Public Relations”, and received a count of 4,290,000 listings. As these numbers infer, PPR is a substantial force in America and is no longer a novelty or a gimmick of huckstering in the American landscape. The methodologies and techniques comprising modern PPR and political marketing are as difficult to explain as the science of picking stocks rising on an upward trend in the stock market, and frankly are beyond the range of this discussion. It is sufficient however, to note that currently two systems of electioneering strategies exist in American politics. The old standard method of building a political campaign generally starts at some time normally proceeding the actual Election Day itself and begins to gradually coalesce up to the time the votes are cast. The old style method of campaigning uses the traditional technique of taking some current issue that is highly unpopular with the electorate and hang it on the opposition. Under the old style method of politicking, slogans are generally created with little thought and are mostly contrived novel sayings favorable to the candidate. Under old style politics, there is no measured feedback as to the effect or resonance such slogans have with the electorate.
The methodologies inherent in the strategies of the current PPR are similar to current marketing techniques for commercial products. The object of a winning strategy is to shape the consumer’s belief structure such that subconsciously the customer believes “that this is a wonderful product”, the effect of which is a driving need to acquire the product by the consumer. This is a recent development in modern marketing, i.e., penetration of the consumer’s subconscious to target the consumer’s belief system. Another feature of the current PPR is the fact that it is used by the Republican Party year round, 24/7. It is my belief that in order to do this, the Republican Party developed a new strategy which required creating political messages to use against the Democrats on a continuing basis. The Republican PPR would then field test these message scripts on certain unique targeted populations, and then collect and evaluate feedback to determine the effectiveness of the respective scripts. The metrics of the evaluation data would determine whether the message should be discarded, retuned or escalated up to a full blown attack campaign in the media of the respective market. These techniques were highly efficient in the use and application of campaign resources. (As reported by Frank Rich in the New York Times; “A new report by Congressional Democrats finds that Ketchum Communications has received $97 million of the administration’s total $250 million P.R. kitty…”) It should be noted that PPR staff used a number of message scripts, each customized for resonance with a specific demographic of the population. It is further noted that the application of these PPR techniques are Proactive rather than Reactive, so that each theater of the campaign is on an aggressive offensive footing long before it actually begins.
The success of the Republican PPR techniques of shaping the belief structures of large segments of the population is evident in the confusion of many low income people who voted for George W. Bush even though they knew that once re-elected that he would cut out benefits necessary to their wellbeing. These poor souls could only utter senseless confused clichés when asked why they risked possible loss of their sustenance to vote for George Bush. In the midst of overwhelming evidence and facts that argued against re-electing Bush; these people (whose belief structures were molded by the Republican PPR) were convinced that in spite of these grossly negative facts they MUST believe in George W. Bush as President. Bush himself reinforced this propaganda appeal by continuously asking the American voter to “believe in him”. It should be emphasized here that no matter what the Democrats do in the future, those people who bought into the Republican PPR “Believe in Bush” message will not vote for a Democratic Presidential candidate; because Bush’s “Belief” mantle is transferable to any other Republican candidate simply by a public personal endorsement by George W. Bush. The Democrats should not waste their time and resources trying to “reconvert” those voters who have succumbed to the Republican PPR “Believe in Bush” marketing campaign. They ain’t coming back! The Republicans also know this and they will be retuning their PPR to convert new and uncommitted voters as their next target.
In the grand view of the future of America, the problems that PPR and political marketing create for the electorate is not just a problem of the Democratic Party, but it is a problem for the preservation of the American Republic. The number of non-English speaking emigrants in America is growing at an exponential rate, and though many of those present among us do not have citizenship and cannot vote, many among us are citizens and can vote. Unfortunately, many of these new citizens are highly susceptible to the subtle political marketing techniques of the new PPR and hence become prime targets for unscrupulous wealthy politicians. The many preachments concerning the American desire and interest in spreading Democracy around the Globe become extremely hypocritical when viewed from the prospective of the huge danger that PPR currently poses to our own national political system.
George W. Bush squeezed into the Presidency in 2000 and in the course of his term created a laundry list of significant mistakes and blunders in foreign and domestic policies anyone of which would have prevented any other incumbent from being reelected for another term. But George W. had one thing going for him this time around. The business community was in a delicate state and was not in the frame of mind to want to deal with any Democratic President (unless it was Bill Clinton, but no reincarnation could be possible under current American law). If I hazard a guess, I would say that there were a number of factors at play in their decision to support a widespread Republican victory in 2004. The first was the aftermath of the terrorist attack of September 11. Another consideration would be the globalization of industry and finance, Tort Reform legislation, relaxing of anti_monopoly barriers in the restructuring of American business via future mega mergers, and finally the eradication of American unions. With these goals in mind, Business not only supplied the Bush campaign money and resources, but it also loaned the campaign its top level Public Relations specialists. The new element in the Republican campaign of 2004 was the active participation of seasoned professional PR people from the business world.
The power of a well designed Political Public Relations campaign was manifestly evident in the re-election of George W. Bush to the presidency in 2004. The final emergence of Political Public Relations (PPR) as a controlling force in the most significant political event in American politics is both a sobering and awesome, yet frightening experience. In essence, the genie is out of the bottle; effective mind control of voters without subliminal graphics. The tools are the effective marketing of political messages (scripts) utilizing the methodologies of state-of-the-art PPR. From the point of the 2004 election forward, we can no longer compare past elections with future elections; nor past election trends with future election trends. Further, recognition of the major impact that current PPR techniques have had on the presidential election will immediately require that this methodology be used in lower level political campaigns. Under these conditions, the overall cost of standing for public office is bound to skyrocket due to the necessity of incorporating PPR into any viable campaign. The picture of the future of American politics that emerges from the widespread inclusion of PPR is a one of a substantial transmogrification of the reality of the traditional ideal of American politics, where anyone regardless of financial means can stand for political office.
I recently executed a search on Google for the number of references to “Political Public Relations”, and received a count of 4,290,000 listings. As these numbers infer, PPR is a substantial force in America and is no longer a novelty or a gimmick of huckstering in the American landscape. The methodologies and techniques comprising modern PPR and political marketing are as difficult to explain as the science of picking stocks rising on an upward trend in the stock market, and frankly are beyond the range of this discussion. It is sufficient however, to note that currently two systems of electioneering strategies exist in American politics. The old standard method of building a political campaign generally starts at some time normally proceeding the actual Election Day itself and begins to gradually coalesce up to the time the votes are cast. The old style method of campaigning uses the traditional technique of taking some current issue that is highly unpopular with the electorate and hang it on the opposition. Under the old style method of politicking, slogans are generally created with little thought and are mostly contrived novel sayings favorable to the candidate. Under old style politics, there is no measured feedback as to the effect or resonance such slogans have with the electorate.
The methodologies inherent in the strategies of the current PPR are similar to current marketing techniques for commercial products. The object of a winning strategy is to shape the consumer’s belief structure such that subconsciously the customer believes “that this is a wonderful product”, the effect of which is a driving need to acquire the product by the consumer. This is a recent development in modern marketing, i.e., penetration of the consumer’s subconscious to target the consumer’s belief system. Another feature of the current PPR is the fact that it is used by the Republican Party year round, 24/7. It is my belief that in order to do this, the Republican Party developed a new strategy which required creating political messages to use against the Democrats on a continuing basis. The Republican PPR would then field test these message scripts on certain unique targeted populations, and then collect and evaluate feedback to determine the effectiveness of the respective scripts. The metrics of the evaluation data would determine whether the message should be discarded, retuned or escalated up to a full blown attack campaign in the media of the respective market. These techniques were highly efficient in the use and application of campaign resources. (As reported by Frank Rich in the New York Times; “A new report by Congressional Democrats finds that Ketchum Communications has received $97 million of the administration’s total $250 million P.R. kitty…”) It should be noted that PPR staff used a number of message scripts, each customized for resonance with a specific demographic of the population. It is further noted that the application of these PPR techniques are Proactive rather than Reactive, so that each theater of the campaign is on an aggressive offensive footing long before it actually begins.
The success of the Republican PPR techniques of shaping the belief structures of large segments of the population is evident in the confusion of many low income people who voted for George W. Bush even though they knew that once re-elected that he would cut out benefits necessary to their wellbeing. These poor souls could only utter senseless confused clichés when asked why they risked possible loss of their sustenance to vote for George Bush. In the midst of overwhelming evidence and facts that argued against re-electing Bush; these people (whose belief structures were molded by the Republican PPR) were convinced that in spite of these grossly negative facts they MUST believe in George W. Bush as President. Bush himself reinforced this propaganda appeal by continuously asking the American voter to “believe in him”. It should be emphasized here that no matter what the Democrats do in the future, those people who bought into the Republican PPR “Believe in Bush” message will not vote for a Democratic Presidential candidate; because Bush’s “Belief” mantle is transferable to any other Republican candidate simply by a public personal endorsement by George W. Bush. The Democrats should not waste their time and resources trying to “reconvert” those voters who have succumbed to the Republican PPR “Believe in Bush” marketing campaign. They ain’t coming back! The Republicans also know this and they will be retuning their PPR to convert new and uncommitted voters as their next target.
In the grand view of the future of America, the problems that PPR and political marketing create for the electorate is not just a problem of the Democratic Party, but it is a problem for the preservation of the American Republic. The number of non-English speaking emigrants in America is growing at an exponential rate, and though many of those present among us do not have citizenship and cannot vote, many among us are citizens and can vote. Unfortunately, many of these new citizens are highly susceptible to the subtle political marketing techniques of the new PPR and hence become prime targets for unscrupulous wealthy politicians. The many preachments concerning the American desire and interest in spreading Democracy around the Globe become extremely hypocritical when viewed from the prospective of the huge danger that PPR currently poses to our own national political system.
posted by beckdow at 9:02 AM
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