{"id":21562,"date":"2010-09-14T14:39:27","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T20:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=21562"},"modified":"2010-09-14T14:39:27","modified_gmt":"2010-09-14T20:39:27","slug":"messaging-from-the-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/09\/messaging-from-the-master\/","title":{"rendered":"Messaging from the master"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more-->I\u2019m sitting in Austin, Texas today with a conference full of very smart Democrats, and I don\u2019t say this lightly. I was feeling slightly like a fish out of water, until my very balanced and politically acute mentor and friend, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mark_McKinnon\">Mark McKinnon<\/a>, walked in to address the conference.\u00a0 (Thank goodness for centrists \u2013 they bring people together.)<\/p>\n<p>Briefly, from Austin, allow me to relay some of Mark\u2019s thoughts on political messaging.\u00a0His perspective is always refreshing and blunt (and, yes, it\u2019s possible to pair the two).<\/p>\n<p>And, do pay attention to this political messaging bit\u2013 because no matter what your position or predicament is in this current life, being an effective communicator can only help you personally and professionally.<\/p>\n<p>Here we go:<\/p>\n<h3>Effective communication and political messaging<\/h3>\n<p>Most campaign staffs and candidates don\u2019t understand messaging or what their political message should be (sadly).\u00a0 We\u2019ve all endured enough ridiculous political cycles to understand this.\u00a0So, what is a successful message all about? According to message-maker extraordinaire Mark McKinnon, when it comes to political messaging and effective communication here are three simple rules to bear in mind:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Rationale matters.<\/strong> What\u2019s the rationale for your candidacy?\u00a0 (Or, in my words, what\u2019s the rationale behind your fight?) \u00a0Wow, wouldn\u2019t it be great if every candidate understood this\u2026\u00a0 Hearken back to Nov. 4, 1979 when then-candidate Ted Kennedy was asked a simple question on <em>60 Minutes:<\/em> &#8220;Why do you want to be President?\u201d<em> <\/em>Kennedy had no answer, and guess what, Ronald Reagan ran away with the presidency. Knowing the rationale behind your reason matters.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Emotion always trumps intellect. <\/strong>Recall the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ExjDzDsgbww\">Daisy<\/a> ad, which I blogged on a few weeks ago. The Johnson campaign was playing off of a fear of nuclear war.\u00a0 It was essentially \u2018vote or die\u2019 (as Mark so eloquently put it). Emotion matters.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Relevance matters.<\/strong> Just as emotion matters, so too does relevance.\u00a0 The reason the Daisy ad was so successful is that the message was relevant to Americans at the time.\u00a0 Americans were in the midst of a long, Cold War and were petrified of the Soviet Union.\u00a0 The message hit home because it was relevant.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>The Take Away<\/h3>\n<p>Whether you&#8217;re campaigning, selling a product, or communicating with your partner \u2013 bear in mind rationale, emotion and relevance and see if your success rate goes up.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of the 2010 political cycle, I go back to Clinton\u2019s 1992 political slogan,\u00a0\u201cit\u2019s the economy stupid.\u201d\u00a0 Americans would be well served if the candidates who are voted into office truly make the economy the No. 1 rationale behind their campaigns and overall agendas.\u00a0 Goodness knows the economy is relevant, and we are all running scared as a result of it.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sarah Lenti is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net\u2019s <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/the-savvy\/\"><em>The Savvy<\/em><\/a><em>. E-mail her at <\/em><a href=\"mailto:sarah@nmpolitics.net\"><em>sarah@nmpolitics.net<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m sitting in Austin, Texas today with a conference full of very smart Democrats, and I don\u2019t say this lightly. I was feeling slightly like a fish-out-of-water, until my very balanced and politically acute mentor and friend, Mark McKinnon, walked in to address the conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1196,181],"tags":[108],"class_list":["post-21562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-the-savvy","tag-2010-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}