More PRSSA National Conference notes:

Session: Politics of Persuasion
Speakers: Georgella Muirhead, APR, and Bob Berg, Partners, Berg, Muirhead & Associates

I decided to attend this session because I am currently reading the book, The Political Brain, by Drew Westen. I found this session to be a great insight to recent political campaigns.

Candidates influence votes

Steps:
-Setting the stage
-Campaign messaging
-Campaign timing

Name recognition plays a large role in catching attention & votes (but not always).
example: Gil Hill, ran against Kwame Kilpatrick, starred in two Beverly Hills Cop movies and was a former homicide commander.

Setting up a campaign: examples given were from Kwame Kilpatrick's campaign...funny timing, considering during this conference he was sent to jail for 150 days.
anyways,

Kilpatrick Campaign Kick-off:

Kwame announced that he was running for mayor on the porch of his mother's house, the house he grew up in (Detroit, Mich).
This was a great success, considering his mother was a congresswoman. His announcement was heard on the radio, and was broadcast live on television.

Where did John McCain and Barack Obama announce that they were running for presidency?

John McCain = The David Letterman Show
Barack Obama = in front of the Illinois State Capital Building in front of thousands of people

Obama chose his route because at the time he did not have a lot of media coverage and did not have much money to campaign.

Each political candidate has a slogan.
Mayor Kilpatrick's was "Our future. Right here. Right now.
This slogan was chosen simply because it was time for a new leader and his opponent, Gil Hill, was 70 years old.
The facts of this campaign seemed relevant to the presidential campaigns.
Kilpatrick was young, Hill was older. Much like Obama vs. McCain.

Kilpatrick had an earring in one of his ears & there was great controversy about that such as giving the wrong messages of

• too young
• too immature
• not ready to lead

Therefore, he removed the earring.

A great breaking point for Kilpatricks was his 24-hour campaign which consisted of traveling around town visiting local businesses such as the post office, the hospital during shift changes, and local ma and pa restaurants. The media loved this.

As I have read in, The Political Brain, and heard during this session, it is important for the candidate to emotionally appeal to voters. This 24-hour campaign done by Kilpatrick definitely did that, along with where he announced his running.

Also, when Kilpatrick was up to be re-elected his earring came out again.

Political campaigns have numerous twists and tons and tons of details. The Political Brain has given me great insight on political campaigns and the emotional role in politics. I'll have to write more about this book when I'm finished reading.