Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

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Democrats need a lesson in public relations

Last week was one heck of a week. In an unusual election where the president’s party did not lose seats, but rather gained them in midterm elections, the Republicans are screaming mandate, whereas the Democrats are wondering what they did wrong.

The nation’s politics were changed Tuesday night, and the Democrats need to regroup and figure out what went wrong. Mainly, they lost the public-relations war with Republicans in that they had no concrete message.

On Iraq, most Democrats voted with the president, and the few that went against worried about how their vote would affect their political careers.

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They bantered about the economy as much as they could, but they didn’t have a good enough marketing strategy to sell it to the media with a war going on. Could the Democrats have hit the economy and other domestic issues enough, the Republican landslide that happened Tuesday never would have. Rather, it was the suburb marketing campaign of Rove and Co. that stole the show.

Politics is about perception. Sway people with the right advertisements, say the right catch phrases and have the right responses to what the other side is attacking you with and you’ll win the election.

Take Minnesota for instance. Wellstone voted against Iraq, and while he was worried it would cost him the election, polls around the time of his death suggested otherwise. He was still leading. The public felt that while they may not agree with what he believed, they respected him for his convictions. And they were going to vote for him anyway. Now when Wellstone died, everything changed. After the memorial service the week before the election, people on both sides of the political spectrum were outraged. No amount of damage control could fix what Rick Kahn’s speech had done, and the Republicans just needed to put forth a flawless campaign for the next five days. Norm Coleman and the other Republicans sold themselves right. It was the right mix of respect and campaigning, which should be looked at by any good public-relations person. It was damage control at it’s best.

Meanwhile, Walter Mondale, while being a legendary political figure, was not enough on his own to combat the negative image the memorial service had created. Five days was also not enough for him to launch his own PR campaign. And in the end, he lost, thanks a lot to the many independent voters who went for Coleman due to the memorial service events.

Minnesota was not alone. Across the country, Democrats had a problem. I still firmly believe that Scott McCallum would have won in Wisconsin had Rove and Co. not given up on him. Neither McCallum nor Doyle are charismatic figures. In fact, they are downright boring. But Doyle had the advantage of some better PR and McCallum’s clumsiness. In addition, while Wisconsinites may be cheering that Doyle won, they have to remember the Republicans control the Assembly and Senate. Not an easy combination for Doyle to get anything done.

For the Democrats to rectify anything that happened Tuesday, they need to start developing a message for 2004. Otherwise, barring a big screw-up by Bush, Republicans will win in another landslide. Wooing the media, working the message, opposing Bush and hammering it to death are how the Democrats are going to win. It didn’t help that most Democrats voted for the Iraq resolution, but what choice did many have when they would have lost votes had they voted against. They were in a classic catch-22.

In the end, to be a challenge at all to Republicans in 2004, Democrats need to get new leadership (no Al Gore, please) and a new public-relations team. They need to come out with a message that says they know what they are doing and have passion for the job. This time around, they showed neither, and the results at the polls reflected that.

Katie Harbath ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism and political science.

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