If you are involved in politics in any capacity – whether election campaigns, grassroots lobbying efforts, or just actively supporting the things that you believe in – you have a message to communicate.
So how will you do it?
There are three basic types of media for getting any political message out to the public: “social/digital media”, “earned media” and “paid media”. Social/digital media covers online bases like Facebook, Twitter, blogs/websites and viral email. Earned media means just that, you work for it. And paid media is what it sounds like, it costs money.
Which options you might use will have a lot to do with what you are trying to accomplish and what kind of resources you have available.
Social and Digital Media:
Social networks make it easier for a group or campaign to interact with people in the same way that they already interact with one another. They offer a means to not only communicate with supporters, but in a place where they can increase your exposure by “endorsing” you or promoting your content to others and expand your base.
It’s like “word of mouth” advertising for the digital age.
Finally, your profiles or pages on these services, along with any websites/blogs, online groups, email newsletters or downloadable resources that you might have, are known as “owned media”. Since they’re yours, they don’t cost you anything to use, and you don’t need anyone’s permission. It’s worth investing time in building these “owned” resources for current and future use.
Earned Media:
For every campaign earned media is critical. From press releases, op-ed columns, letters-to-the-editor, interviews, press conferences, events, speeches, forums/debates, etc., it all comes into play.
The simple fact is that, other than the work that you put into it, you can’t beat the price – free – which makes it that much MORE important for lower-level races that have few resources to begin with.
Of course the “free” part doesn’t mean that things just happen by themselves. Someone has to put in the time and effort. From writing letters-to-the-editor or guest editorials for the local paper, to arranging events (and encouraging media coverage), to doing media interviews (after someone invested time promoting them) to writing press releases calling attention to your cause…it’s all an investment.
The result can be good (cheap) coverage that you have some control over and that helps get your message out to a larger group of people.
Paid Media:
Paid media can be a powerful tool to get a message out. It can be used to drive a message home because it can be repeated, and it can help overcome low name recognition or negative publicity.
And because you pay for it, you control it.
It can be expensive but effective, and it comes in many forms: radio and television ads, direct mail, the Internet (web banners, rented email lists and paid social media ads), newspapers, magazines, billboards, signs and bumper stickers.
The “broadcast” variety is much more expensive and less targeted. But direct mail and email are more targeted and can be tailored to individuals or groups based on demographics, geography or issue concerns. In other words, they’re customizable, (if you have a database that helps you “know something” about the people that you want to communicate with).
Pretty much the same holds true for internet ad campaigns. Google’s Adwords and Facebook ads offer options that display your message only on targeted sites, targeted content, or sponsored posts that display only to targeted audiences that you choose.
In most lower-level campaigns, you shouldn’t focus so much on paid media that you ignore the other types. View it as an “accessory”, not a necessity.
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Remember, these are just channels. Make sure that the message is effective before you invest time and money in communicating it.
The Thrill is Gone in the Cult of Obama
All the polls are singing in harmony.
According to the latest AP poll, Obama has reached his lowest approval rating ever of 40% and his highest disapproval ever of 59%. More important, 57% now say that he can’t manage the government effectively.
It’s hard to keep a cult going if people think that you are a lousy leader.
On immigration, over 2/3’s of Americans disapprove of how he is handling the issue. In fact, for the first time in a long time more Americans have a favorable view of Republicans on immigration than Democrats, by 29-25% respectively, (a net flip of ten points since May).
Obamacare continues to eat at his political fortunes like a cancer. The latest poll from the Kaiser Foundation showed not only the highest level of disapproval for Obamacare, but the highest jump in disapproval in the history of that poll, with 53% now opposing the law, (an increase of eight points since June). It’s a good bet that personal experience and “word of mouth” advertising are killing it. Add this to the businesses that are now getting estimates on next year’s insurance costs, (and about to take action accordingly), and you get nothing but political headwinds for Obamacare (and its authors) as far as the eye can see.
Regarding foreign policy, (which has been Obama’s best measure with the public), the AP poll now shows outright majorities of between 57% and 60% disapproving of his handling of the major issues of the day; from Israel’s conflict with Hamas, to Afghanistan, to Russia and the Ukraine and Iraq.
Then there is Obama’s latest achievement of presiding over the addition of over seven trillion dollars to the national debt – more than all of our debt from George Washington to Bill Clinton combined, (for a total of over $153,000 per household). Little wonder that the latest NBC News poll shows 76% of Americans believing that their children’s generation will not have things better than they do, up from 60% just prior to the onset of “Hope and Change”.
When people are pessimistic about the future, they tend to lose interest in what you have to say.
The “Too little, too late” award goes to the respondents of the recent CNN/Gallup poll with 53% saying that they would now vote for Mitt Romney, and only 44% expressing support for Obama. This should leave Democrats a little sweaty over whether voters want to send them to DC to support a guy that most of them now wish that they hadn’t elected in the first place.
Most interesting is the flip in support among women, with 52% to 45% now supporting Romney over Obama – almost the inverse of how they voted in 2012, (44% vs. 55% for Obama). Now you know why Democrats keep spending so much time talking about an imaginary Republican “war on women”.
Obama has become so politically toxic that even the Obama-endorsed incumbent Democrat Governor of Hawaii (an Obama “home” state) lost his primary 67% to 31% to a challenger that he outspent by more than ten to one.
Of course all second term presidencies fall prey to diminished enthusiasm. They get mired in either events, politics, scandal or all of the above, and none ever really make much of a comeback once they take a nosedive. People tend to move on. As George Burns once put it, “you can re-light a cigar, but it’s never the same”.
But it’s even worse when your popularity was built on emotion regarding a man rather than ration or reason. When the man ultimately fails (and they always do), what’s left to keep people drinking the Kool-Aid? It’s like an over-inflated market bubble that finally pops.
The politics of emotion are always more prone to manipulation, and can climb quicker and easier than anything built on reason, simply because we are emotional creatures – which is exactly why so many politicians resort to it. It’s the political version of the “Dark Side” which, as Yoda pointed out, is “quicker, easier and more seductive”. But it ends in a bad place.
The Cult of Hope and Change was all about Obama when it waxed and it’s about him now as it wanes. It’s waning because Americans are now well beyond their “emperor has no clothes” moment. And that’s exactly how a cult collapses; people see the leader for what he really is.
“The thrill is gone; the thrill is gone away… You know you done me wrong, and you’ll be sorry someday.”
Someday is fast approaching.