“Yeah, but…”
You start with the premise that no one is paying attention.
So it’s your job to get their attention. When you finally have it, you won’t have it for very long.
I learned that lesson three decades ago in political campaigns. Keep the message simple and short. Repeat it until you’re sick of hearing it.
“Bill Graves packs ‘em high and tight.”
In a campaign, the candidate has two jobs: Be at the right place at the right time and stay on message. The campaign itself has one goal: Earn more votes than your opponent. Everything else is simply a vehicle to deliver a message.
Consider the humble yard sign. Its purpose is name identification. Give me your last name and the office you seek. White letters on a dark background. That’s about all I’ll absorb while bound for Dara’s to fetch a half-gallon of Rocky Road. Candidates who clutter their signs with “vote,” “elect,” and assorted inspirational hoo-hah are defeating their own purpose.
Another cardinal rule is to define your opponent before they can define themself.
When Gov. Bill Graves sought re-election in 1998, the threat came from within the Republican Party. Then-state GOP chair David Miller led a conservative faction that had successfully taken control of the party apparatus. Before becoming party chair, Miller served in the legislature. Opposition research revealed he had voted for tax hikes.
Boom.
Within hours, television spots were telling GOP primary voters: David Miller raised your taxes. There was context, of course. There is always context.
“Yeah, but…”
Those may be the two most dreaded words in political communication. If you’re explaining, you’re losing.
Which brings us to the current U.S. Senate race.
A New York Times investigation reported that while Roger Marshall was an OB/GYN in Great Bend, he sued more than 700 patients over unpaid bills. Eighty-one were subsequently arrested after failing to appear for court hearings stemming from those collection cases.
Adam Hamilton’s campaign found one of those former patients, handed her a script, and pointed a camera at her. She says she was arrested eight months pregnant after missing a $50 payment.
What does the Hamilton campaign want the barely attentive voter to think?
“Good Lord. Marshall did what?”
Marshall’s lawyers responded with a cease-and-desist letter. They argue the ad creates the false impression his former patient was arrested for missing a single $50 payment. She was arrested, they say, for failing to appear in court.
That’s a meaningful factual distinction. It also illustrates the difference between lawyers and campaign operatives. Lawyers argue fine points. Campaigns deal in impressions.
Imagine the independent voter, busy adjusting to new school bus route times, or this week, seeking the sweet spot between a flash flood watch and a warning.
“Cease and desist? Cease and desist what?”
“Why, Hamilton is making claims that are not true.”
“What claims?”
“That as a doctor, he sued his own patients for non-payment.”
“Seriously? What kind of a doctor would do that?”
And just like that, the attempt to rebut the allegation has repeated it.
None of this determines whether Hamilton’s ad fairly characterizes what happened or whether Marshall’s lawyers are right about what it implies. Voters can sort that out for themselves. I’m more interested in what happens between the campaign war room and human hearts and minds.
Campaigns spend millions crafting messages, testing language, researching opponents and responding to attacks. Lawyers parse words. Reporters add context. Columnists supply fodder for the second thought.
Then a voter catches four seconds of it while making dinner. That’s the part of politics we sometimes forget. Much of campaigning is really a competition to determine which tiny fragment of reality survives in your consciousness.
And somebody, somewhere, is hoping you remember it all the way to Election Day. Even if you’re just headed to Dara’s for Rocky Road.
Mike Matson’s column appears every other weekend in The Manhattan Mercury, and he cultivates the second thought as host of ‘Within Reason,’ Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 9 a.m. on NewsRadio KMAN.
Comments