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Why do presidential contenders recycle losing political operatives? This has always baffled me. If the purpose is to win, why would you want advice from people who have managed a number of losing campaigns in the past?
"Wordsmith and 20-year political operative Eric Woolson has signed on with likely presidential candidate Scott Walker's team...Last cycle, Woolson was state manager for social conservative Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign, at least for a short stint from October 2011 until January 2012 when the Minnesota congresswoman dropped out. When religious conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats ran for Iowa governor in 2010, Woolson was his communications consultant and campaign manager. Vander Plaats lost the GOP nomination battle to Terry Branstad. In 2008, Woolson was the Iowa campaign manager and communication director for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor... He was senior adviser for former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's presidential campaign in 2011..."
Simply put there are not many people who do political campaigns. It is a very niche set of skills, once more a lot of it has to do with interpersonal connections and not so much skill at winning elections.
On top of that there are something like 25 candidates looking at the GOP nomination, which probably well exceeds the number of folks with campaign skill sets. Couple that with loyalties e.g. someone who worked with Terry Bransted is probably going to offer his services to the person Terry Bransted privately wants and you can see why things can be difficult in hiring.
I remember hearing talk host Mike Reagan complaining about this almost 20 years ago. Bob Dole had hired a bunch of usual suspect GOP strategists who had poor track records, and sure enough Bob Dole lost.
Hillary Clinton by contrast is busily gathering up many of Obama's strategists and consultants from 2008 and 2012. She's keeping a few of her longtime confidants such as Huma Abedin around. But it looks like her 2016 campaign will be more Obama 2.0 than Hillary '08 2.0.
Simply put there are not many people who do political campaigns. It is a very niche set of skills, once more a lot of it has to do with interpersonal connections and not so much skill at winning elections.
On top of that there are something like 25 candidates looking at the GOP nomination, which probably well exceeds the number of folks with campaign skill sets. Couple that with loyalties e.g. someone who worked with Terry Bransted is probably going to offer his services to the person Terry Bransted privately wants and you can see why things can be difficult in hiring.
Maybe it should be a college major. What do these people do for a living between campaigns?
Simply put there are not many people who do political campaigns. It is a very niche set of skills, once more a lot of it has to do with interpersonal connections and not so much skill at winning elections.
On top of that there are something like 25 candidates looking at the GOP nomination, which probably well exceeds the number of folks with campaign skill sets. Couple that with loyalties e.g. someone who worked with Terry Bransted is probably going to offer his services to the person Terry Bransted privately wants and you can see why things can be difficult in hiring.
That sounds very reasonable.
It does remind me of a Dilbert cartoon.
Dogbert advises Dilbert to ask for a huge budget for a project that is doomed to fail.
Dogbert explains that people will not dwell on the failure of the project, but only that Dilbert was the leader of a project with a huge budget.
Hence, Dilbert will have credible 'experience', and so will receive promotions based on his failure.
So it probably is with such campaign organizers. Look not to their success rate, but how many money they handled.
Maybe it should be a college major. What do these people do for a living between campaigns?
It is not uncommon for them to go straight to political staff of the elected official if they win. Many more work for issue advocacy groups or non-profit fundraising initiatives. Some just take Dec-Feb. off.
Honestly though, I think it is a very useful set of skills to have, and while I don't know if it would work as a college major, it certainly gives someone who knows what they are doing, and is willing to work very hard, a chance to really have an impact on politics especially on the local level and possibly beyond.
There are also the candidates themselves to consider.
Some just don't have the right stuff, whatever that may be, to win an election, while another who does have the right stuff seems to win against all odds ever time. Those powers come from the candidates, not those who work for them.
Sometimes headstrong candidates never listen to the advice they pay people to give them, and this will doom their election, while the next candidate a pro works for will heed his advisors and will win. In either case, it was the candidate, not his manager, who made the difference.
It's all part of the deal. The same client-professional differences happen in lots of professions, and most often, because it's the client who's paying the money, he gets it his way, whether that's going to be winning or losing for him. There's nothing the pro can do about it.
Why do presidential contenders recycle losing political operatives? This has always baffled me. If the purpose is to win, why would you want advice from people who have managed a number of losing campaigns in the past?
"Wordsmith and 20-year political operative Eric Woolson has signed on with likely presidential candidate Scott Walker's team...Last cycle, Woolson was state manager for social conservative Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign, at least for a short stint from October 2011 until January 2012 when the Minnesota congresswoman dropped out. When religious conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats ran for Iowa governor in 2010, Woolson was his communications consultant and campaign manager. Vander Plaats lost the GOP nomination battle to Terry Branstad. In 2008, Woolson was the Iowa campaign manager and communication director for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor... He was senior adviser for former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's presidential campaign in 2011..."
Marketing doesn't matter if you have a product that sells itself and everyone wants one.
Your product just has to be seen and played with.
Michelle Bachmann was a bad product.
There are only 2 people in the contention on the GOP side, everyone is talking about, that sell themselves very well and need very little marketing.
One has the Media doing the marketing for him and the other is Mr. cool.
Also it looks like Bush is "retaining" the services of all the successful firms and demanding an exclusivity contract "or else".
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What do these people do for a living between campaigns?
