July 4 is possibly the busiest day for a campaign other than Election Day. It starts with serving pancakes at the Rotary or firemen’s breakfast, then on to walk parade after parade and finally working the crowd at the fireworks display at dusk. It’s exhausting but worth it.
Participating in as much as you can on July 4 can not only boost awareness of your candidate and campaign, it can also grow volunteer and supporter rolls. And with little more than stickers, volunteers and a well executed plan, your candidate can create the perception that he or she is a front-runner.
As with any campaign strategy, every region and race requires a different July 4 approach. Beyond all else, you need to be creative and consider some of these dos and don’ts for the parade:
Don’t let the candidate walk or ride the parade route just waving.
Parades offer an opportunity for voters to physically interact with the candidate and campaign. Allowing your candidate to walk the center line or wave from a convertible prevents voters from “touching and feeling” your candidate. This also creates the impression that your candidate or campaign is better than the voter, who likely arrived two hours before the parade to grab the “perfect” spot and is sweating in the hot sun.
Do hand out something.
Handing out materials allows your volunteers and candidate to get close to voters, putting something in their hands. This also gives the campaign an opportunity to pass along things that are emblazoned with the campaign logo, web address and more.
Don’t hand our candy, do use flags.
Everyone will be handing out candy. It’s cheap, but strategically it’s pointless because only the kids are interested and it has no take-away value. Instead, passing out little American flags on a stick will allow the candidate and volunteers to interact with children and adults. Everyone wants a flag and you can attach a sticker with the campaign logo and web address to the other end of the stick.
Do work the parade route beforehand. Contrary to popular belief, the most important part of the parade is before the first float rolls down the route. Deploy volunteers with bottled water, lapel stickers, palm cards, balloons with the campaign logo (or stickers), voter registration cards and volunteer- or supporter-signup sheets. All of those stickers and balloons with the campaign logo can create the perception that everyone is supporting you. It’s a powerful sign, especially since late and swing voters support who they perceive to be leading the race.
Don’t pass up a parade or event if they occur at the same time.
While the candidate can only be in one place at a time, the campaign should plan to be present at as many events in the district or state as possible. Most parade participants won’t even know that they didn’t see the candidate.
Do recruit and train volunteers.
As with all campaign operations, success is largely dependent on volunteers who have been given good directions. I have found that gathering the night before at a pre-parade launch party is a good way to hand out materials and cover specifics before the events start.
Finally, don’t forget to have fun.
July 4 will be a long, hard (and hot) day, and if your candidate and volunteers are miserable it will show. Make sure there are plenty of perks (and water) associated with volunteering for parade detail. Never forget to recognize and reward volunteers. The campaign’s success rides on their shoulders, especially on July 4.
We are proud to announce that Tyler Harber, WRS’ Vice President and Director of the Political Division, has been named one of Politics Magazine’s 2010 Rising Stars.
“The 2010 class of Rising Stars is a diverse group of political operatives and strategists with representatives from every discipline and from across the entire political spectrum,” said James Klatell, managing editor of Politics. “These 41 men and women are helping campaigns around the world to succeed in rapidly changing environments.”
Every year, Politics Magazine recognizes people under the age of 35 who have already begun to make their mark in political consulting or advocacy. Harber is one of only 15 Republicans to receive the award this year.
Rising Stars were first recognized in 1988 and have gone on to serve in the highest levels of government and political consulting. In 1988, the first class of Rising Stars included Celinda Lake, David Axelrod, James Carville, Donna Brazile, Rahm Emanuel, Alex Castellanos, Mike Murphy, Ben Ginsberg, Ed Goeas and Bill McInturf. A full list of alumni can be found here.
At 29, Harber is among the youngest of the Rising Stars.
Tyler Harber is VP and the dir. of the political division at Wilson Research Strategies. Prior to joining WRS, Harber was project dir. at Public Opinion Strategies. His previous work experience includes serving as a partner and dir. of research for National Public Strategies, senior electioneer for Southern Political Group, as well as campaign mgr. for dozens of candidates from school board to Senate. But today, he is our Consultant Candid.
What was your first job?
My parents are small business owners and fostered a strong entrepreneurial spirit in me. This meant that my first job was also my first business. Every day after school my parents would take me to a candy wholesaler where I stocked a tackle box full of candy that I would sell-out in a matter of minutes. I was in second grade bringing in several hundred dollars a week. Unfortunately, I was shut down after a month by the principal who told my parents that I had cut into the profit margins of the school’s candy operation that was open during recess. My parents were proud.
What is your proudest moment professionally?
My proudest moment professionally would probably be something most people would be embarrassed about. In 2008, I was among the legions of pundits that flooded cable news shows talking about the presidential race. After dozens of hits, I was lampooned by Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” in a segment they called “Who the F@#k is THAT Guy?” that made fun of relatively unknown pundits. The show then highlighted something I said in one of my hits as its parting “Moment of Zen.”
If you could be in any other line of work, what would it be?
Professional poker player.
Of what political campaign (past, present or future) would you most like to be a part?
What individual who does your kind of work for the other party do you respect the most, and why?
Jeremy Rosner of GQR Research. I worked with Jeremy in Ukraine for President Viktor Yushchenko and the Our Ukraine Party. Rosner is a brilliant researcher and strategist, but not arrogant about his talent. I had a chance to pick his brain as we traveled across Ukraine conducting focus groups. He lives an incredibly interesting life and has scored a ton of international political wins.
Negative campaigning — good or bad?
Negative campaigning is necessary. It has both good and bad aspects, but it is as necessary to a political victory as killing the enemy is to a military victory.
What is your favorite restaurant to meet clients?
The Majestic in Old Town Alexandria.
What is the first section of the newspaper you read?
I read all my papers online, and I generally start with the blogs written by reporters. You generally get more out of the extended posts on their blogs than in the restricted column-width of the story itself.
A question from last week’s participant, Danny Franklin of Benenson Strategy Group: Which would make you more likely to resign from a campaign: learning your candidate committed a violent crime or a crime of public corruption?
I would definitely leave for a violent crime, but would welcome the fight of developing a strategy to minimize the damage of the charges of public corruption.
Please pose a question for the next interviewee.
Has the infatuation with social media distracted strategists from the fact that most voters are still moved more by traditional medias?
I again joined Chris Malagisi (the Chairman of the Young Conservatives Coalition) on the Winston Group’s webshow (the Right Idea) hosted by Kristen Soltis to discuss why there is a shift in the way voters identify themselves.
I was invited to talk about the Republican youth vote and coalition building with Chris Malagisi (the Chairman of the Young Conservatives Coalition) on the Winston Group’s webshow (the Right Idea) hosted by Kristen Soltis
If campaigns are a gamble, then Republican pollster Tyler Harber is a true professional. During odd-numbered years, Harber uses his free time away from politics to play in professional poker tournaments.
“It’s like table-top warfare,” Harber said. “For campaign professionals or hacks, we’re attracted to the warfare aspects of the campaign … anything that is highly competitive that pits you against someone else is highly attractive.”
The vice president at Wilson Research Strategies said that while his poker playing is not very profitable, he makes enough to pay for his trips. What’s more, Harber said he has even procured some business playing poker in the same way that some professionals ink deals on the golf course.
“I’ve definitely gotten work from the felt top, if you will, and probably just as much work as some people get on the green,” Harber said. “It’s just a different kind of green.”
Harber is not the only consultant who is enjoying the off year in the campaign cycle. While campaigns are in low gear, consultants will often take advantage of the down time to pursue nonpolitical activities or investments.
“Back among the first and second generation of political consultants, there was almost a tradition of doing interesting stuff, particularly in the odd-numbered year,” longtime Democratic media consultant Gary Nordlinger said.
Nordlinger puts in between 750 and 1,250 hours each year as a volunteer in the Coast Guard, depending on whether he is in cycle. Nordlinger was on one of the many crews that manned the Potomac River in hypothermal gear during this year’s inauguration.
Some of the most successful political consultants have picked choice investments, such as buying a stake in a minor league baseball team or funding a pet documentary film project. Democratic media consultant David Heller jointly owns the Quad Cities River Bandits minor league baseball team along the Illinois-Iowa border.
“I spent a lot more time on it in the early part of an off than in an even year,” Heller said.
Fortunately for Heller, his client Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.), represents the Quad Cities, and he recently landed Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Jackson’s (D) bid for Illinois Senate this cycle.
“It was an attraction for Phil knowing that his media consultant is someone who reads the Rock Island Argus and the Quad City Times cover to cover,” Heller said. “It’s fair to say I know more about Phil’s district than any other media consultant ever would or ever could.”
Photo Courtesy Ken Aravelo
Democratic consultant David Heller jointly owns minor league baseball team the Quad City River Bandits, who play in this stadium in Davenport, Iowa.
Not surprisingly, Heller also produced award-winning advertisements for his team. And talk about a campaign gimmick: The franchise recently hosted a “mega candy drop” by releasing 100 pounds of candy from a helicopter over the baseball field for 1,000 children to collect and take home.
“In minor league baseball, you are selling a fan experience,” Heller said. “It is far less important about whether the team wins or loses than it is the experience the fan has at the game. In politics, you’re in part selling the idea that you’re going to make the experience better under one candidate than it is under another.”
What was supposed to be an off-year project for Duane Baughman has become a full-time obsession for the direct-mail firm president who is producing two controversial documentaries on events in Pakistan and Rwanda. Baughman started thinking about the film on his biannual post-election vacation in 2006, when he went “gorilla trekking in the highlands of Rwanda and Uganda.”
Baughman, who runs the San Francisco-based Democratic mail firm Baughman Co., has poured almost $2 million of his own funds into the two projects — an activity that he calls “film-an-thropy.”
“I work it in with my political business and because [the film projects are] international,” Baughman said. “When everybody is sleeping here, I’m working on their daytime schedule over there.”
Baughman could not talk about the specifics of his two films because, he said, negotiations with networks and distributors were still in the works. But he plans to have a theatrical release in order to be considered for the Academy Awards.
Other consultants have found a way to put their money where their mouth is. Brian Donahue and a couple of other consultants are partial investors in Hook, the high-end Georgetown seafood restaurant. Will Robinson, a veteran Democratic media consultant with the New Media Firm, has a stake in the wine bar Cork with a few other consultants.
Millions watched Philadelphia Democratic media consultant Neil Oxman caddy for professional golfer Tom Watson this year at the British Open. Oxman said he was not available to comment for this story, but the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the two men have known each other since 1972, when Oxman was caddying to pay his way through law school.
For Martin Hamburger and Kelly Gibson of the Hamburger Co., the campaign off season is, luckily, peak season for their moonlighting gigs. The two Democratic media consultants teach weekly ski lessons at Liberty Mountain in Pennsylvania from the end of December to the beginning of March.
Hamburger jokingly confessed to looking for candidates running in states with great ski slopes, such as current client Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
“I definitely make an effort. I say we should really try to pitch the cold pointy states and stay away from the warm flat ones,” Hamburger said. “I pitched a client skiing in Washington state, and we got the race.”
That’s probably a good thing, because Hamburger and Gibson aren’t in it for the money — they make a paltry $7 per hour teaching lessons on the slops. But Hamburger said he has run into Paul Begala and Doug Sosnick on the slopes, the latter of whom, he said, did a double-take before he recognized him in his full ski instructor uniform.
It’s a situation that Hamburger knows well. One quiet evening at his Bethesda, Md., home a few years ago, Hamburger’s partner on Sen. Benjamin Cardin’s (D-Md.) 2006 campaign knocked on his door: Pollster Eily Hayes was on her own fundraising campaign.
Hayes, a vice president for Global Strategy Group, was raising money for the all-volunteer Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad.
“I’d been working with Martin all year for Ben Cardin,” Hayes said. “And then I knocked on his door in full rescue squad uniform driving an ambulance.”
For the past five years, Hayes has responded to 911 medical emergencies such as car accidents on the Beltway, house fires and even driving an ambulance to the metro crash in June. But far from an off-year hobby, Hayes is required to work at least a dozen hours each week for the rescue crew.
In the off years, Bill Fletcher said he likes to do interesting side projects to “keep me fresh.” The CEO of the Democratic media firm Fletcher Rowley Riddle managed the Eric Hamilton Band for several years in the 1990s.
The band was signed to a record label and a talent agency, but the hallmark event for Fletcher was the campaign-style cross-country concert tour.
“The band played 50 states in 50 days, which was a logistical nightmare but earned us some pretty significant coverage in Billboard Magazine,” Fletcher said.
Nevertheless, Fletcher decided not to quit his day job.
“It cost me a lot of money and then the band didn’t make it, but I got a nice leather jacket out of it with the band’s logo on it,” he said.
Check out Tyler Harber’s latest post at Politics Magazine’s Campaign Insider Blog about how Astroturfing is actually just good campaign tactics.
Astroturfing has quickly become a four-letter word used synonymously with cheating by creating a false perception. Accusations of astroturfing find their way into the news (especially here in D.C.) on a regular basis. However, if you examine the strategy and effect of astroturfing, you’ll quickly realize that it is actually just good campaigning and has been used by candidates and organizations for decades to grow actual bases of support.
Astroturfing is generally defined as the use of various tactics to create the perception of a grassroots movement or opinion. Tactics include pre-written letters to the editor, distance-signed direct mail, insider-written blog posts, patched-through phone calls and staged events using campaign insiders or close associates. But, astroturfing isn’t just for lobbying campaigns trying to pressure Congress on an issue of a piece of legislation. Astroturfing is used by political campaigns, too. It’s just rarely termed that way.
Building a legitimate grassroots movement of support for first time or unknown candidates means first creating the perception that there are people out there that are already supporting them. This means finding creative ways to build that perception by using a number of techniques, including events filled with friends and family to show a crowd, letters to the editor written by campaign operatives and signed by supporters, and even blog posts written by a son or daughter of a close friend. These are a few tactics, commonly referred to as astroturfing, that work to create the perception that people are backing this unknown candidate.
As I’ve pointed out before, “Americans love winners.” More importantly, voters have a tendency to back candidates that appear to have momentum and are perceived to be in front. In the campaign world we don’t call it astroturfing, we call it base building. But no matter what you term it, using astroturfing tactics to start the ball rolling in building a base of support is a critical part of creating a winning campaign from scratch.
The Principals at WRS have consulted to influential associations, foreign governments,
political leaders, and over 100 of the current Fortune 500 corporations.
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