Importance Of Political Consultants In Modern Elections

Ten rules of effective language presented by Luntz

1. List three of the “ten rules of effective language” presented by Luntz in the first chapter of his book (1 point) and then explain what Luntz means with each one (1 point. Explain

2. According to Mike Giaccio, what are three types of donors?

3. According to Jef Pollock, modern polling is done to tell us three things. What does modern polling tell us?

4. To build a coherent media strategy Shea mentions five key elements that campaigns must commit to. Mention two of the key elements and explain in two brief sentences (for each element) how they were applied to the Johnson campaign as described in Mann’s Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds book.

Norms that strayed Trump’s Campaign and contributed to his victory

The political strategies used by Donald Trump had five important norms. There were-

1. Silent trump vote: Trump’s victory in the US presidential election proved that the researchers of the polls cannot be trusted because it failed to predict the victory. It was the method of silent Trump vote that polls failed to identify. It nationwide average predicted that Clinton would be leading about 3-point lead and win at more than 300 electoral votes. However, this was the result as the voter of Trump remained silent about their choice and did not cooperate with the pollsters.
2. Celebrity beat institutions: DonaldTrumphad a highly motivated voters and he had been under public observation for more than 30 years. He grabbed more media attractions which helped him to enter the race and gain more popularity (Norpoth, 2016). He never left any opportunity to loose public attention hence used to state controversialthings in his campaigns that captured the attention of the US people that the serious policy speaker could not attain. His victory seemed to be building new scopes for the celebrities in entering politics. Trump proved that in this age of internet and digital marketing, a fascinating media-savvy outcast can gainweighty advantages over the traditional politicians as well as conventional political organizations.
3. Populist revolt:the entire campaignmethod used by Donald Trump was purely based on the populist ideology where he utilised the popular hostility to the liberal immigration as well as free trading policies. From very starting to end he created a situation where he critically attacked on the Mexicans and Muslimsopen and his voters followed him without protest.
4. Division between outsiders and insiders:from the very beginning, Trump followed the strategy of anti-establishment where his vulgar, unorthodox and in temperedstyle of communication seemed to be more genuine than that of very controlled and highly cautioned Hillary Clinton (Bouoiyour& Selmi, 2016).
5. The concept of supreme America:the election and ultimate victory of Trump proved thatAmerica is clearlydivided by class, gender, religion, culture and racial line. Trump took the advantage of the constantly increasing dissatisfaction in the mind of the people and made his campaigning strategies to create implicit division that ultimately led him to earn support of the majorities.

The present electoral campaigns are much intensive and are having more rivalry than ever. Thus, the demand and importance of political consultants are also increasing in the current time. The following sections will discuss about the important reasons to select the political consultants over others. One of the key advantages of having political consultants is the experience of them. The current business scenario is partly driven by the concept of outsourcing in order to have the access to the experience and expertise of the professional experts. In the electoral campaign also, political parties are in the need of the external experts who will have more knowledge about how to market their campaign like a professional. Moreover, the external consultant will be able to determine the different aspects from the point of view of the outside people, which is not possible by the political parties.

There was a time when friends and family members are being used in campaigning activities. However, in the current time, professionalism is required even in the electoral sector also and the manifesto of the political parties should be effectively communicated to the voters. Thus, in this case, professional consultants will be more effective compared to the family and friends. In addition, in the recent time, there are various tools being initiated in the electoral scenario that are changing the entire game. Tools such as using social media campaigning, television debate and telecommunication mediums are helping the political campaigning to be more intensive and personalized (Serazio, 2014). Hence, the traditional way of political campaign is getting changed with the inflow of more modern communication technologies by the political consultants. This is enabling them to design the approach of the electoral campaign according to the feelings and taste pattern of the voters.

However, it can be perceived that the future of the political campaign will be more technology driven rather than going the traditional way. It is also being expected that the common approach of conducting mass gathering for electoral campaign will get replaced with more personalized approach through teleconferencing and social media interactions. Thus, the average trend among the voters will get determined and will be given more preferences compared to the initiation of one way communication in the mass gathering.

Types of donors according to Mike Giaccio

However, there are still some sort of negative factors that affect business of political consultants. One of the key factors is the emergence of the negative campaigns. This becomes more difficult for the political consultants due to the reason that, in the recent time it is being witnessed especially in the electoral debate between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, negative campaigning is ultimately reducing the brand image of the political parties. Moreover, the more frequent will be the negative campaigning, the more will be the negative word of mouth to be emerged around the particular political consultant (Walter, Van der Brug & van Praag, 2014). It will be perceived that the responsible political consultant is pushing for the negative campaigning, which is not expected from a professional expert. Thus, it will affect their future business potentiality.

Political campaign is an organised and collaborative effort that helps the parties today campaigning strategies for influencing the people’s decision making process in order to win a specific election. It is an art because it largely depends on the hard work and attention of the campaign mangers. The high profile campaign managers’ strategies plan for coordinating all the political campaigning operations. For executing a successful political campaign, there is a need of incredible collaboration where all the political consultants participate. They offer everything starting from polling, strategic advices about their allocation of the campaign resources, fundraising for developing the campaign themes as well as messages. The art of campaigning also aims to provide the legal advice about campaign finance laws.

In a political campaign the importance of the candidate is indispensable but apart from candidate, the strategies must cover the most popular face, often the most visible leader of a political campaign. However, in case of high profile elections such as at the presidential level, the modern campaign managers remain mostly concerned with the perfect execution of their strategies, not only setting it. Their chief strategies are especially look into the researchers conducted by the pollsters as well as the media consultants but basically outside the political consultancy. The art of campaigning needs huge financial support as well as people. A successful political campaign needs to have involvement of huge number of staffs as well as volunteers as they need to work in a variety of sections. These people help to work in different segments but are harmonised to coordinate closely with the candidate as well as the outside consultants. Hence, political campaigns are more of art than science.

As the statements of Sun Tzu revels that fact there needs to be a perfect strategy for every political campaign. Since the ancient age the policies of war and art of warfare have been following these mentioned norms. Obviously the quotes of Sun Tzu are applicable for all the modern campaigns. All the campaigns need to have strategies which have many facets. All these segments must be tied to one particular object that is to win the battle or the election. People who directly take part in the election has to be supported by the ideas and strategies o their heads but there needs to be a clear power difference which will guide the whole campaign. Campaigns are the political war where there is always ups and downs. Hence the coordination and relation of trust among the people need to be there. Here the consultants handle most important and sensitive data hence the head must handle with care. All of their moves are decided upon their strength and resources. This is why the political head or the chief must not confuse their subordinated with baffling messages. In case the staffs associated with the campaign gets confused all of the strategies will turn in to ash. This same this happened in the electoral campaign in the year 2000 where many of the political consultants with colourful and successful history switched their own parties.

In the context of winning election, Cicero had introduced some factors with directly influence the art of campaigning. First of all, the candidates must promise to offer everything that the people want to hear. This will help to increase interest among the common people and they will be attracted to the candidate. Campaigning is the process in which the candidates can identify the weaknesses and exploit them accordingly. The art of campaigning focuses on the fettering of the voters for bringing them in favor. In order to win the vote, the candidates must instigate hope in the minds of the people so that is becomes easy to win the election.

References

Bouoiyour, J., & Selmi, R. (2016). Does Trump's election victory divide US stock market into winners and losers?. arXiv preprint arXiv:1612.06200.

Maik Bohne, Alicia Kolar Prevost, & James A. Thurber. (2008) ,Campaign Consultants and Political Parties Today from: Routledge Handbook of Political Management Routledge

Norpoth, H. (2016). Primary model predicts Trump victory. USA TODAY, 7, 16.

Serazio, M. (2014). The new media designs of political consultants: Campaign production in a fragmented era. Journal of Communication, 64(4), 743-763.

Walter, A. S., Van der Brug, W., & van Praag, P. (2014). When the stakes are high: Party competition and negative campaigning. Comparative Political Studies, 47(4), 550-573.