Energized by the momentum of resounding GOP victories in
Virginia and New Jersey, Republican candidates are lining up in
throngs to run for offices across the country in 2010. Having
worked with multiple Virginia Republican campaigns in 2009, we
offer two insights that could prove invaluable for Republican
candidates, party chiefs, and operatives in 2010:
In a center-right electorate, the center is holding
— to the right.
One year ago, the independent voters of America put
President Obama in the White House and delivered Congress
overwhelmingly to the Democrats. But oh, how times have
changed.
As renowned political pollsters Scott Rasmussen and Douglas
E. Schoen asserted in their Wall Street Journal-Opinion
Journal
article, “Obama Is Losing Independent Voters,” it’s these
very same folks — independents — who are now telling the
President to govern “in a more fiscally conservative, bipartisan
manner.” Whether or not the past election cycle was truly a
referendum on President Obama himself, it’s clear that Americans,
particularly independent voters, are growing restless with the
Administration’s statist policies (e.g., Obamacare,
cap-and-trade, corporate bailouts, etc.).
Given the continuing dismal state of the economy, Virginia
Governor-elect Bob McDonnell’s chosen path to victory holds great
promise for GOP candidates in 2010. Dubbed the “McDonnell
Strategy” by Politico’s Jonathan Martin in
his recent piece,
“GOP eyes McDonnell Strategy,” 2010 Republican candidates would
be wise to “run on economic policy, downplay divisive cultural
issues, present an upbeat tone, target independent voters and
focus on Democratic-controlled Washington — all without
attacking President Barack Obama personally.”
So, how does a 2010 GOP campaign actually translate this
“McDonnell Strategy” into a meaningful plan? The obvious first
step is to address the important local issues of the district and
determine which national themes can be localized. The even more
important second step is to tell voters what you specifically
plan to do for them. As the voters in 2009 demonstrated, they are
very aware of the problems. What they desperately want are
leaders who are really listening and who are willing to offer
solutions — not just slogans — that make sense. This need to
communicate with voters brings us to our second point.
Social media matters.
Matt Drudge may regularly trumpet the continuing
circulation and audience declines of traditional media, but he
won’t be covering your campaign unless you do something
scandalous. With thousands of offices up and down the ticket on
ballots across the county in 2010, unless you are running in the
top-line race in your state (e.g., Governor or Senator or maybe
Congressman), you are going to have a difficult time attracting
media coverage and getting your message out to voters through
traditional news channels.
If you’re lucky, you have a hometown paper that still sends
a reporter to political events. Most candidates, however, will
end up emailing press releases to a drop box at a paper that no
longer even has a reporter to cover your county, much less your
campaign. Fortuitously, there is a political blogger network (in
a very loose sense of network) that is growing to fill this gap
left by the decline of traditional media. The trick for campaigns
— large and small — is to figure out how to connect effectively
with this proto-network of bloggers.
These bloggers are just one aspect of the larger network of
online activity that is often referred to as “social media.”
Email, web2.0, video, social networking, micro-blogging, social
bookmarking — all are different aspects of a larger approach to
distributing information and encouraging activity. The common
thread woven throughout these concepts is the distributed
self-service nature of the various activities.
Traditional media relied on the paid efforts of gatekeepers
(reporters, editors, producers, etc.) whom campaigns could easily
identify (even if they were not always receptive to your message)
to reach specific audiences. In the social media environment, the
audiences are fractured, transient and often desiring of being
active participants in the communication process. The campaign
that can apply a sustained effort to harnessing these
participants will have a significant advantage over opponents who
stick with a more passive approach designed for a bygone
era.
It would be too easy to dismiss social media and digital
campaigning as the province of well-funded top-of-the-ticket
campaigns like those contesting the recent Virginia Governor’s
election.
The truth is: effort, creativity and focus are better
indicators of success in this realm than dollars invested in
technology. Done properly and consistently, social media can
provide campaigns up and down the ticket with three significant
payoffs — Money (online fundraising), Messaging and (voter)
Mobilization. At best, a campaign that ignores social media or
takes half-hearted attempts is leaving lots of opportunities
unrealized. At worst, ceding the social media field to an
opponent (even an under-funded third-party candidate) could leave
a campaign vulnerable to all manner of unanswered attacks.
Both the message and the medium are in play for 2010. For
the future of our country, we hope that Republican candidates can
master both.
