|
Originally published 7/30/2012 at Townhall.com. In case you haven’t heard, fellow women, we are at war. Barack Obama’s new ad tells us that “it’s a scary time to be a woman.” According to President Obama, we should vote to give him a second term on the sole ground that under a President Mitt Romney, we may not get free birth control. The fact-free nature of these claims aside, it is my hope and confident belief that the American woman of 2012 will stop and think for a moment about how demeaning it is for the President to suggest that a substance available for $9 per month is somehow a stronger indicator of her vote than her economic welfare, her level of opportunity in the job market, and her ability to live out the American Dream. Let’s take a look at some of the rhetoric from the left:
First off, haven’t we been hearing from the Left for years that Mitt Romney is a terrible, slippery flip-flopper when it comes to abortion? What happened to that? Even accepting the premise that a President Romney would be in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade (something he would need the Supreme Court that upheld Obamacare to accomplish), I’m guessing the majority of American women – certainly the swing voters that will decide this election – find 8.2 percent unemployment and $4/gallon gasoline more ‘extreme’ than a potential president supporting a potential Supreme Court decision. Now for my personal favorite:
No need to mourn the level of political discourse in this country, given the Lincoln-Douglas-worthy eloquence on display here. American Bridge is a liberal PAC supporting President Obama by…trying to help him lock up that coveted “lesbian mom” vote? No, what is really insidious about this ad is that it comes from the antiquated assumption that all you have to do to get a woman’s attention is mention another woman. Obama’s ad touting the Lilly Ledbetter Act uses the same tactic in its intro, “Son of a single mother. Proud father of two daughters.” It’s tantamount to waving his hands in the air and shouting, “I know women! My mother was a woman!” In the above American Bridge ad, it’s as if a bunch of (male) copywriters sat in a room and picked the two most “woman-identified” words they could think of and figured it would thus appeal to all women. You know, sisterhood and all that jazz. Someone cue the Chaka Khan. Okay, you may say, but hasn’t the Right has used ‘war on women’ rhetoric as well? Yes, the RNC released a video using Obama adviser David Axelrod’s own words defending big Obama donor Bill Maher’s reprehensible statements about women, and footage of mainstream journalists reporting on the Obama White House as a “hostile workplace for women.” Republican-aligned Super PAC American Crossroads pointed out that the number of unemployed women has grown by 780,000 and the number of women living below the poverty line by 800,000 since Obama took office. A bit more substance there. The RNC spot brings us to what is perhaps most troubling about the beating of (male) breasts we are seeing from Obama and the Democrats, which is that for all their Gloria Steinem-esque rhetoric, they come up woefully short when its time to put their money where their collective mouth is. In the Obama White House, female employees earn an average of $10,000 per year less than their male colleagues. Democratic female Senators Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, and Diane Feinstein – all of whom have been quick to declare their outrage about unequal pay for women – have similar compensation gaps that favor men in their Hill offices. This rhetoric vs. reality gap begs the question: Does Obama and his ilk almost, in their heart of hearts, want women to be confined to some Gloria Steinem stereotype for the sake of keeping them as single issue voters? At the very least, given this revelation its hardly surprising that the nearly all-male Obama campaign seems to be getting its information on what women care about from a 1970s Berkley College Women’s Studies textbook. It is patronizing and insulting for the President of the United State to try to stuff every American with two X chromosomes into the same narrow, tiny, virtually nonexistent box. We’ve won that war. Women are CEOs, entrepreneurs, world leaders, power brokers, and, in 2008, viable and credible presidential and vice-presidential candidates. As a young, professional woman living in 2012 America, I don’t need to burn my bra. What I do need is an economy flourishing, one that lets me capitalize on the educational and professional opportunities available, or one that allows me to provide and care for my family if that is the path I choose. As Obama’s own ad says, “There’s so much to do, we need to attack our problems,” not hear another verse of “I am woman, hear me roar” sung by an all-male chorus.
Amelia Chassé is a Republican communications consultant. She advises candidates, political committees, advocacy organizations, and corporations on new media strategy as at Hynes Communications.
Published in Campaigns & Elections Campaign Insider blog on February 17, 2012. How to stop rival surrogates from disrupting your campaign events, causing a scene, and stealing the spotlight. There’s nothing more annoying than hecklers or protestors disrupting a campaign event except, maybe, when those hecklers are high-profile surrogates for your opponent. It was a strategy Mitt Romney recently deployed in Florida, dispatching big-name backers – including Reps. Connie Mack (Fla.), Mary Bono Mack (Ca.) and Jason Chaffetz (Utah) – to attend rival Newt Gingrich’s campaign events. Even Sen. John McCain and former Sen. George LeMieux (Fla.) considered the Romney camp’s antics bad form, but the crashers successfully forced the Gingrich campaign off message and garnered massive media attention. Down-ballot candidates took note, and the crashing tactic is sure to be imitated later this cycle. Going forward, your campaign is better off figuring out how to mitigate your opponent’s tactics than whining about the unfairness of it all. Here are some rules to live by when confronting campaign crashers: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I previously discussed the importance of a strong advance operation for any campaign, whether it be paid staff or a volunteer force. It’s situations like this that make advance crucial. A key task of your advance team should be to note any VIPs — friend and foe — in attendance and communicate that information back to the traveling staff. More often than not this simply allows your candidate to give some local dignitary or other a shout out, but in the case of a rival’s surrogate in attendance, being forewarned allows you to prep your candidate, arm your press secretary with relevant talking points and formulate a plan to neutralize the opposition and prevent disruption of the event. A crasher should be able to surprise your campaign exactly once. If your campaign is being routinely caught off guard by opponents’ surrogates—as the Gingrich team was—the first thing to do is tighten your advance operation. Know thy enemy. Knowledge is power, and you can be sure that any campaign crasher will be well armed with talking points to use against your candidate and will target reporters attending the event. It’s essential that your campaign, particularly anyone talking to the press, have opposition research at his or her fingertips to be deployed in the event of a confrontation. Arm your press secretary with one-pagers to distribute to assembled reporters that debunk your opponents’ claims and highlight your candidate’s competitive advantages. Keep your eye on the ball. Your campaign’s public events have two target audiences: undecided voters and the press. With rare exceptions, no one else matters—to focus firepower elsewhere is wasted time and effort. When your campaign is facing a challenging situation like this one, your field team should focus solely on ensuring assembled voters have a positive interaction with your candidate, and your press team should move to corral reporters and avoid process talk. Reporters rarely write about issues when they can write a juicy process story instead. Case in point: the Gingrich campaign won nothing but an embarrassing news cycle when a campaign spokesman engaged directly with one of the Romney crashers, providing a sort of spectator sport for reporters. The media coverage focused wholly on the confrontation rather than on either campaign’s message. Keep calm and carry on. The worst possible outcome for your campaign is for your candidate to directly engage with the crashers in any way. As a rule, the only person your candidate should ever confront in an adversarial way is a fellow candidate. You can be assured that the crashers will be taking video, and they’d love nothing more than some footage of your candidate getting down and dirty. Now, if your boss is the famously bombastic Newt, you many not have a choice. But most of us aren’t shepherding presidential contenders and American political icons, and thus should be able to school candidates to keep their cool, do their best to ignore any disruption, and if the situation becomes un-ignorable, be friendly and treat the crasher as just another attendee, and then get on with the program. Frame it your way. The Romney run-ins were endlessly dissected in the media, and the armchair quarterbacking occupied the punditry for days. So you can be sure that your campaign will get its chance to respond in the press, which you can use to your advantage. The proper response depends on the identity of the crasher and the campaign that sent them. The most effective of the Gingrich camp’s varied responses were those that scoffed at the desperation of a supposed frontrunner sending polo shirt-clad members of Congress to stir up trouble at suburban rallies. Unfortunately, the famously inconsistent Gingrich campaign undercut that message when their own surrogate subsequently crashed a Romney event, but that’s another story. The takeaway remains that if the crashers represent a true rival, then the spin is that the campaign must be in trouble to be trying Hail Mary tactics. If, as more often is the case, the invaders are representing a lesser-known candidate trying to punch his or her way up, get some valuable earned media, and spook your candidate, then its time to be gracious and take the line that you welcome so-and-so to the conversation, you look forward to seeing him or her on the campaign trail, and you hope you can proceed with civility and respect. When rival campaigns use asymmetrical tactics like sending in high-profile crashers, it’s easy to feel outraged and want to go to war, and that’s exactly what your opponent wants you to do. Instead, keep your cool, run a tight ship and stay focused on what matters. Like a schoolyard bully, they will quickly lose interest when they fail to get a rise out of your team. Amelia Chassé is an account director at Hynes Communications, where she advises political campaigns, corporations and advocacy organizations on new media strategy. A veteran of campaigns at the state, local and presidential levels, she currently resides in New Hampshire.
PORTSMOUTH, N.H., January 12, 2012– Hynes Communications, the nation’s leading new media public affairs agency headquartered in New Hampshire, announced it has hired two new team members and promoted a third. Leonardo Alcivar has accepted the role of Senior Vice President of Public Affairs; Andrew Clark joins the team as a Strategic Partner and Account Executive; and Amelia Chasse has been promoted to Senior Account Service Director. Based in Boston, Alcivar will lead the agency’s Public Affairs department. In addition to developing and evaluating top-line strategy for meeting client deliverables, Alcivar will assume responsibility for online communications staff management and recruitment, and play a key role in the performance and profitability of the agency. Alcivar has been running national and statewide communications campaigns for more than ten years, most recently he served as Communications Director for Bill Brady’s gubernatorial campaign in Illinois, and consultant to the Republican Governors Association. In 2004’s successful re-election of President George W. Bush, Alcivar served the Republican National Committee as Press Secretary for the Republican National Convention in New York City, and later as Field Director in Miami, Florida. Alcivar began his career with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, first as Deputy Press Secretary to the Mayor, then as Director of Press Operations at the New York City Police Department. He subsequently served as a Manager of Public Affairs for Burson-Marsteller. Clark is a social media specialist who will help Hynes clients assess the virtual landscape, reach target audiences online, and utilize rapid response strategies to help clients drive messages. A native of Southern California, Clark is currently pursuing his Master’s degree in media and public affairs at the George Washington University, where he also achieved his undergraduate degrees in political communication and public policy. Prior to accepting his role at Hynes, Clark previously worked at CRAFT | Media/Digital, Engage, and served in the John McCain 2008 presidential campaign war room. Writing as a conservative columnist for the G.W. Hatchet throughout his college tenure, he also has contributed pieces to Campaigns & Elections, Politics Daily, and The Daily Caller. A veteran of political campaigns at the state and national levels, Chasse began working for Hynes during the summer of 2010 as an account executive serving clients across multiple industries and working collaboratively with the Hynes team in all phases of account management. Her ability to communicate with senior level clients and advanced-level writing skills and new media relations, earned her a promotion to Senior Account Director. In her new role she will be responsible for uncovering new media outlets and placement opportunities for Hynes clients and continually aid in improving the firm’s research, analysis, and reporting. Chasse is based at Hynes headquarter offices in New Hampshire. About Hynes Communications Turning the unexpected into money and momentum for your campaign. Originally published in Campaigns & Elections magazine on December 12, 2011. It was during an address to a joint session of Congress that a relatively unknown South Carolina congressman became a household name overnight by calling President Obama a liar. After Rep. Joe Wilson pointed at the president and audibly shouted, “You lie!” in response to an Obama claim that his healthcare proposal would not cover illegal immigrants, the South Carolina Republican was suddenly thrust into the spotlight. The moment galvanized politicians, pundits, and voters—both pro- and anti-Wilson. As congressional leaders condemned Wilson’s outburst and pleaded civility, a viral movement swept across the online community mirroring the Tea Party dynamic that would govern the 2010 midterm elections. Both Wilson and his Democratic opponent raised millions of dollars online in a matter of weeks for a congressional race that wasn’t on anyone’s radar screen before Wilson’s outburst. Leaving ideology aside for a moment, what’s a campaign to do when faced with its own “You lie” moment? In an age when the most nimble and responsive campaigns are often the ones that win online, it’s not a bad idea to give a game plan some serious thought. Start by realizing that events of this nature are extremely time-sensitive and the narrative surrounding them can quickly become muddled. It’s crucial that your campaign leverage the Internet and social media to fundraise, garner positive earned media, recruit new supporters and rally your base—quickly and efficiently. A few dos and don’ts when it comes to converting controversy into cache online: DO Strike While the Iron is Hot—and Keep Striking. The very moment your campaign has its own “You lie” moment, the clock starts running on how long you’ve got to make effective use of it. Within days, if not hours, it will have been analyzed to death on cable news and you’ll have lost your ability to get your message out. In the case of Wilson’s big-money moment, his team knew they had to work quickly and were able to bring in over $1 million from conservatives online in the hours immediately following “You lie.” In late 2010, liberal lion Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) took to the Senate floor to filibuster the extension of Bush-era tax cuts. He stayed there for more than nine hours. The “Bernie-buster” was a surefire earned media goldmine and his staff immediately took to Twitter to create a social media sensation. Within hours, as Sanders still held the floor, he had acquired over 4,000 new Twitter followers and became the top-trending Twitter topic for most of the day. Team Sanders used outgoing tweets from the senator’s official account to define the message, creating a drumbeat that was quickly echoed by liberal groups like MoveOn.org. DO Money Bomb. Money bombs are an online fundraising tool that became part of the campaign lexicon during the 2010 midterms, when candidates pulled in Tea Party-fueled millions via online donations from all over the country. The number one item you need for a successful money bomb is a specific, galvanizing message or event, which you’ve got. Now you need to turn it into a catchy fundraising email to blast to any and all campaign lists. The Sanders campaign, for example, could have emailed supporters repeatedly during the “Bernie-buster” and asked them to donate $1 for each hour he remained on the Senate floor. Small asks are key and most will give more. DO Solicit Voter Responses. This will likely be a love-it-or-hate-it moment in terms of how voters feel about your candidate. You won’t convert anyone who was turned off by the remark, so your time is much better spent activating those who thought it was right on. Social media is key here. Develop a dedicated Twitter hashtag and special Facebook badge to allow supporters and surrogates to spread the word, encouraging like-minded folks to repost or retweet. Be sure to harvest the new supporters you’ve recruited. DO Be Open to Criticism. In a situation like this, is it better to open up your campaign’s social media platforms for comments—both positive and negative—or should you closely monitor and police feedback? We think it’s important that you are, or at least appear to be, open to criticism. This doesn’t mean that you need to accept or placate your opponent’s point of view, but actively stifling negative feedback merely gives your opponents another talking point and creates a process story. That being said, if your candidate’s comments have really fired up the opposition, things can get ugly. If detractors are making extreme accusations against your candidate, you should delete selected comments that truly cross the line. Allegations of racism or use of profanity would fall into that category. Just be prepared to defend it on the grounds that you’re committed to maintaining a Facebook page appropriate for viewers of all ages. DON’T Engage Opponents. In the wake of any moment that generates significant controversy, comments and tweets directed at your candidate will often be unfair and he or she will likely be chomping at the bit to respond. Resist the temptation to engage directly with individual opponents via social media; it is a no-win situation for you. If there are serious allegations being made that the campaign decides must be addressed, do so via a press release or cable news interview which you can push out via YouTube and encourage supporters to post and tweet. John F. Kennedy famously pointed out, “When written in Chinese, the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” Many would view a moment like Wilson’s as a crisis to be avoided; but if your campaign reacts quickly, intelligently, and maintains message discipline, you can turn a potential crisis into an advantage. Patrick Hynes is the founder and president of Hynes Communications, a global agency focused on new media and online communications for public affairs clients. Amelia Chasse serves as an account director at the firm. Originally published in Campaigns & Elections’ Campaign Insider blog on October 17, 2011. Road appearances are tougher than they look. Some tips to help your advance team pull off seamless events. A well-planned advance operation ensures that, even with the chaos that can seem routine on the trail, your campaign will still be able to pull off seamless events. If done right, events can be a powerful tool for your campaign to harness, allowing your candidate to appeal directly to voters and score some earned media. On the other hand, a poorly planned and executed advance presence shows your candidate in the worst possible light. It also leaves voters attending to wonder why, if your candidate can’t even get logistics right, should they consider entrusting him or her with elected office? To ensure maximum effectiveness (and minimum hiccups) in your advance operation, here are a few pointers: There’s no such thing as too early. Being the first on the scene, even if it is just one volunteer there to reserve a table, accomplishes three key goals: (1) Ensuring that your campaign has the best placement. (2) Intimidating the other campaigns and throwing them off their game. (3) Giving attendees the impression that your campaign, and by extension your candidate, is polished, professional, and ready to win. All armies must have a general. So your team is on the scene and ready to go. Now what? When there are multiple people advancing, it is critical to have a designated leader. This leader is the person with the most experience and authority, whether it’s a member of your field staff or an experienced volunteer. Aside from directing other team members and ensuring that everything gets done, the advance lead is responsible for making the on-the-fly decisions that are so often required in these situations, and acting as the point of contact with the traveling staff. Be the home team. A strong advance presence is as much for the candidate as it is for the event attendees. You want your candidate to feel like the star player for the home team, not a challenger playing a road game. This is true for all candidates, even those running as outsiders. Portraying the candidate as the outsider or underdog is a job for the communications team, not the ground operation. A candidate who walks into an event and sees a sloppy advance presence from his team, especially at events where the competition is present, is often left to believe that he has a lazy staff and unenthused volunteers. Not the best mindset for a successful performance at the event. Use your eyes and ears on the ground to troubleshoot. Think of your advance staff and volunteers as special forces sent to conduct reconnaissance before a military operation. They are on the scene early, and are able to convey key information about the event to the candidate and traveling staff, such as any unexpected VIP arrivals or other candidates in attendance, issues with the venue, or changes to the format. When the going gets tough, the tough get creative. Even if a campaign follows all of the above advice, there will still be times where directions are wrong or someone forgets to grab the box of collateral (campaign literature, signs, stickers, etc.). In instances where your advance team finds itself late to the scene, or unprepared, it can be a mistake to continue to plow ahead with the usual game plan. Changes can be as simple as having staff or volunteers hand out palm cards at the doors as attendees enter instead of rushing to place them on each seat. If time allows, dispatch someone to pick up forgotten collateral (or a cheap and available substitute like small American flags) to pass out as attendees leave. Relieve and reward volunteers. A good advance volunteer is worth his or her weight in gold. They are willing to perform a task that often requires getting up very early in the morning and tends to involve a lot of hurry up and waiting. Once the event is underway, encourage volunteers to step out for coffee or water, and make sure they get a big “thank you” from the candidate. Amelia Chassé is an account director at Hynes Communications, where she advises political campaigns, corporations and advocacy organizations on new media strategy. A veteran of campaigns at the state, local and presidential levels, she currently resides in New Hampshire. How to Recruit a Grassroots Army by Amelia Chasse / Oct 03 2011 12:46pm Five clinical case studies to help you recruit, manage and retain your campaign volunteers. Democrats routinely field more effective volunteer armies than Republicans, largely due to the help of their allies in organized labor. But Democrats have also had more success building grassroots organizations because they’re often better at communicating with and organizing their base. Even in the 2010 midterms, when GOP voter enthusiasm was supposed to have been at a 15-year high, campaign staffers across the country were at a loss as to how to get enough unpaid boots on the ground. As the 2012 cycle ramps up, down-ballot candidates—particularly in the early states—face the added challenge of competing for volunteers with half a dozen presidential campaigns. Some campaign managers may simply throw up their hands and hire paid workers rather than recruit volunteers. But don’t put out the call for resumes before spending some real time trying to build a homegrown volunteer effort. From my observation, volunteers tend to fall into five distinct categories, which I’ve developed into five “clinical case studies.” Using these in your recruiting process should help identify the right volunteers for your campaign and help you manage and retain them once they’re on board. 1. The loyal foot soldier Diagnosis: The foot soldier is the Republican version of the Democratic union faithful. These are the tried-and-true volunteers that turn out every election cycle. Their stomping grounds are county GOP meetings, civic organizations (think Rotary, Kiwanis), VFW halls and trade associations. Common varieties include middle-aged local businessmen, grannies who could stuff envelopes with their eyes closed and wiry old veterans with their phone-dialing fingers at the ready. Benefits: Good foot soldiers are worth their weight in gold. They’ve been there, done this, so they understand what volunteer duties consist of and won’t get bored or require constant attention. Risks: They’ve seen campaigns, and campaign hacks, come and go, and are usually not shy about expressing their opinion of your operation. To retain these volunteers, it’s important to present a competent and professional front. Also, as they trend older, they occasionally resist new technology, so they may need some coaxing to get comfortable with innovations like VoIP phones. Prescription: Cherish your foot soldiers. Let them do their preferred task, and rest in the knowledge that they will do it well. Use them to train other volunteers in their age range, and reward them with campaign merchandise, they probably collect it. 2. The groupie Diagnosis: These volunteers are all about your candidate. They either have some personal connection to him or her or, on a larger race, they might just be a big fan. The thrill of being around the candidate, and the idea that they are making a difference for him or her, is the driving force behind their involvement in the campaign. Benefits: Groupies will literally walk over hot coals for your candidate. You can’t instill that kind of devotion in anyone else, paid or volunteer. As long as these volunteers believe that what they are doing is the best way they can help the candidate, they will do just about anything. Risks: Because they are so invested in the candidate, often on a personal level, groupies tend to rank relatively high on the high maintenance scale. They can also be fiercely critical if they feel that the campaign is putting their candidate at risk, such as by releasing a negative TV advertisement. Prescription: You know what they want, so give it to them. These are the ideal volunteers for visibility and crowd building at events, walking in parades and handing out literature at fairs. The caveat here is that these volunteers need to be well trained, or well supervised, so they understand what they are there to do and don’t spend the entire event trying to chat up the candidate. Still, once the event is over, make sure they get rewarded with a personal thank you, and get a photo-op sometime along the campaign trail. 3. The architect (in his own mind) Diagnosis: This Karl Rove wannabe is the consummate political junkie that desperately wants to be on the staff. He’s typically convinced himself that if he were in charge, the campaign would be on a straight path to victory. Benefits: There aren’t many. They probably know all the insider terminology, and will employ industry terms like “micro targeting” unnecessarily in conversation. If they are local, they may have a body of knowledge on past races and major players that could be useful. Risks: Architects view themselves as strategists, not grunt workers, so they are generally long on advice and short on actual help. Because they put themselves before the campaign, it is difficult to get them to be team players. Prescription: Pair them up with a tolerant fellow volunteer and a GPS device and let them drive and pontificate while their partner knocks on doors. 4. The eager beaver Diagnosis: The eager beaver is the loyal foot soldier without the experience. Generally high school or college kids, these volunteers are enthusiastic and all about helping the cause in any way they can. Benefits: Eager beavers are energetic, personable and open to instruction. They will likely be thrilled just to be a part of the campaign and are willing to do anything asked of them. Risks: With all teenagers, the tendency to be flaky goes with the territory. As a result, they will occasionally no-show when club meetings, sports practice and trouble borrowing the car get in the way. Eager beavers tend to glamorize the staff, so they can be pesky. But at the end of day it’s worth spending five minutes of your time chatting them up if it results in 500 phone calls. Prescription: Although they require a bit more time and effort on your part, these volunteers will be among your best. Try to recruit them early by staking out local college campuses or posting on social networking sites, and then get them to recruit their friends. Eager beavers tend to be friendly and outgoing, so they’re great for direct voter contact. 5. The resume builder Diagnosis: The resume builder is often similar in age and outward appearance to the eager beaver, but is involved with the campaign for an entirely different reason. He or she is in it primarily to pad their resume. Generally college kids or recent graduates, resume builders are typically competent and tend to be comparatively reliable since they are looking to get a recommendation for their efforts. Benefits: The resume builders are easy to understand, because their motivation is clear. Agree with it or not, you know what they’re in it for. Risks: Resume builders’ self-interested approach will be off-putting to true-believer types. Prescription: Make it clear what’s in it for them, and they will do what you need done. Resume builders are all about the bottom line. If they seem dissatisfied with the work they’re doing, offer them a title promotion to sweeten the deal. They will generally clean toilets as long as they get to put deputy something-or-other on their resume. Each volunteer is obviously a unique individual, but many of them can be categorized. The sooner you figure out what they’re looking to get out of the experience, the easier it will be to develop the tools to get what you need out of them. After all, if your campaign can’t motivate people who are already supporters, how can you expect to influence voters? Amelia Chassé is an account director at Hynes Communications, where she advises political campaigns, corporations and advocacy organizations on new media strategy. A veteran of campaigns at the state, local and presidential levels, she currently resides in New Hampshire.
The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) performed an online survey of 260 House and Senate staffers in Fall 2010. A plurality of those surveyed occupied senior staff roles in their offices. The survey respondents as a group were representative of the composition of Congress at the time, and therefore do not represent the current balance of power following the 2012 midterm elections.
Key Findings: 1. Online communications from constituents are increasingly influential to Senators and Members of Congress. 2. Quality of online constituent communication is more important than quantity to staffers and their Members/Senators:
3. Social media tools are viewed as more useful for disseminating elected officials’ positions than gathering information on constituents’ views:
Recommendations: 1. Quit Sending ‘Snail Mail.’ The most expedient way for advocacy campaigns to influence their legislative targets is through organizing constituents to send individualized emails to legislative offices. Staffers give the same weight to emails as to physical letters, so why waste the time and money on mailings and postage? This means that outreach to blogs and online media read by activists is an important component of advocacy campaigns. 2. Ditch the Astroturfing. The practice of organizing comments on blogs and online publications to create a perception of popular support or opposition, known as “astroturfing,” has become an increasingly popular tool for advocacy campaigns, with some PR firms charging large sums to orchestrate efforts. However, the study shows that comments rank relatively low on the influence scale. Moral of the story: if it happens organically, great, if not, better to spend time and money generating individual emails to targets, and pitching and securing articles, blog posts and stories that will be picked up by Google alerts and therefore seen by senatorial/congressional staff. 3. Be Unique. To maximize the effectiveness of each communication, place emphasis on ensuring uniqueness. Under no circumstances should form language be used. 4. Target Your Tweets. While social media platforms are viewed as valuable tools for disseminating information, they are increasingly becoming important sources of constituent input where directed at the Senator/Member very specifically. To ensure maximum impact of social media activity, postings should be on the target’s Facebook account, or Tweeting directly @ target. |
