Before we proceed, let’s try to keep three things in mind, two of which are quotes from my soon-to-be bestselling book, “So You Want to Win a Local Election?” 1. “The average American voter has the attention span of an off-meds ADHD sixth grader coming off a three-day sugar and video gaming binge.” 2. “There’s…
The above mailer that hit early last week may well be the WORST case of campaign messaging, timing, and voter targeting I’ve ever seen. As bad as some of these mailers can be, and I’ve seen some really bad ones – this kind of terrible trifecta is still somewhat rare. So why does this mailer…
And I’m using the word “doom” as in Mr. Santayana’s particularly prescient proposition that those who fail to pay attention will soon start feeling like they’re Bill Murray’s character in ‘Groundhog Day.’ And the whole “doomed to repeat it” dynamic is certainly a recurring ‘So You Want to Win a Local Election’ book theme. The…
My favorite campaign commandment in the soon-to-be-released ‘So You Want to Win a Local Election?’ is …drumroll please… pick a race you can win! I may love idealists and their boundless energy, but we campaign managers have another name for those overly optimistic folks – “losers!” And I mean that in the electoral sense only.…
We cover a number of basic campaign commandments in ‘So You Want to Win a Local Election?’ not the least of which are: 1. Don’t let your opponent define you, and 2. Don’t give voters a reason to dismiss you outright The best example of our first postulate is the 20170 Illinois gubernatorial race featuring…
