Governing Is Campaigning by Other Means

July 29, 2011 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Earlier this week, I pointed out in The Daily Caller how much the new website for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau looks and operates like an advocacy campaign site. The Obama Administration can use the recently launched ConsumerFinance.gov to identify potential grassroots, third-party supporters. Since the agency will undoubtedly be targeted for being both a regulatory behemoth and a waste of already-scarce money, there’s a good chance it will need such supporters.

It’s actually quite a smart move – and the left side of the aisle isn’t the only place you can see it in action. ClickZ points out that a new video from the New Jersey’s Governor’s office looks an awful lot like the type of video a political candidate might use:

And they’re right. The ad wizards who came up with this one – just like the ones who built the CFPB website – understand that winning public opinion while in office is just as important as winning public opinion on the first Tuesday in November.

Newt Gingrich, defined

May 19, 2011May 18, 2011 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Friend of the Program Matt Lewis posted seven easy steps to follow if you’d like to talk like Newt Gingrich yesterday. Here’s one that might be Number Eight: Allow others to define the conversation for you.

The latest news cycle on all things Gingrich revolved around his “rocky” entry into the Presidential race – which was “rocky” because of comments he made on policy ideas devised and proposed by others.

This isn’t the first time a Gingrich campaign has suffered a rough start. Heck, this isn’t even the first time this year a Gingrich campaign has suffered a rough start – the same round of stories were written two months ago, when campaign subordinates couldn’t figure out whether or not Gingrich was actually officially “testing the waters.”

Even Gingrich’s campaign slogan – “Winning the Future Together” – was a phrase he used first, but which has been claimed for 2012 by the incumbent he hopes to defeat.

For another candidate, this might just be a run of bad luck. Gingrich, on the other hand, has a track record of letting issues define him rather than getting out front and defining issues. In fact, he has a 15-year track record, stretching back to the days when his Republican Revolutionaries of 1994 got their lunches eaten by Bill Clinton during the budget battles of 1995.

Gingrich has apologized to Paul Ryan and underscored his opposition to forcing people to buy health insurance. Maybe his comments on both were misunderstood. He’s still a bad candidate because he has to keep answering these distracting questions – and it’s his inability to drive messages that lead to these questions being asked in the first place.

Facebook officially goes to Washington

May 14, 2011May 16, 2011 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Since at least 2009, Facebook has kept an office here in Your Nation’s Capital, but the company became an official part of the DC community this week when their PR consultant got caught trying to recruit bloggers to write anti-Google stories.

As consulting snafus go, this is pretty mild – especially when a reading of the original emails suggests that the PR consultant was not doing anything wrong, underhanded, or illegal. This isn’t Jack Bonner’s “contractors” cooking up fake letters, it’s a PR person recruiting someone to sign an op-ed – in other words, exactly what they are paid to do.

The problem is they asked the wrong person. Sure, Chris Soghoian lists himself as a “security and privacy” researcher. But the name of his blog is “Slight Paranoia.” That’s the type of blogger who asks questions about why you’re barking up his tree and encouraging him to take a public stance against Google.

The situation highlights how trying to wage public affairs battles anonymously can backfire. Clearly, Facebook wanted to sling mud without getting their hands dirty. But they had a legitimate point about Google and privacy. Google collects an enormous amount of information on people, many times without users understanding how they are sending that information. People have had beefs with Facebook on privacy, but the information you put out on Facebook is information you actively put on the internet; if the world suddenly knows you like My Little Pony and Elmer’s Glue it’s because you signed up for a Facebook account and clicked “like” on those pages, you sick, pathetic degenerate.

Facebook isn’t the only big player going after Google; both MicroSoft and AT&T have put big money into public policy campaigns taking shots at everything from privacy to intellectual property.

Like those other companies and many others in all kinds of industries, though, Facebook figured out that the government’s activities could impact their business. Because they tried (through their PR agent) to get too cute, Facebook’s message on privacy is obscured because of a tactical misstep.

Welcome to Washington.

At least AP saved some money by not showing up

May 7, 2011 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The Associated Press and Reuters joined Mitt Romney in not attending this week’s Republican quasi-Presidential debate. A story written by the AP covering the AP’s decision quoted an AP official:

The opening stages of an event as important as the presidential selection process should be as accessible as possible to all forms of journalism,” said Michael Oreskes, the AP’s senior managing editor. “These candidates want to lead the country. The country has a right to see them from various angles, not only where the TV cameras are positioned.

Remember, Journalism school students, there’s no reason you can’t quote yourself in a story you write about yourself. That’s completely fine.

The AP isn’t clear exactly how the rights of the voting public are trampled by Fox News in restricting still photos during the televised event, but not by the AP in refusing to cover the event at all.

The only potential problem is that there will be no embarrassing pictures capturing candidates with their faces scrunched up or with mouths gaping ajar while they pronounce words like “sure” or “capital.” The restriction on pictures would be horrible for the AP if they sold pictures.

Oh, wait, that’s right: they sell pictures.

It is also tough to stomach the spin used by both AP and Reuters in holding up their readers and news consumers like human shields as the aggrieved parties. In reality it was the news organizations who were slighted by the picture ban. This isn’t a First Amendment problem; it is similar in that such cases the “public right to know” is used as shorthand for “the news company’s right to publish.”

But luckily for the voters, the AP is pretty much irrelevant as a news gathering organization anyway. By using their platform for political speech, they become even less so.

Small is huge nowadays

May 6, 2011 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Two seemingly unrelated pieces of patriotism struck me as oddly similar this week. The first was, obviously, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The second was the not-quite-safe-for-work homage to George Washington from cartoonist Brad Neely.

Neely’s work is kind of out there, but for those who share his sense of humor it’s spot on. (A sample line: “And we danced, like those people in the hyper-tight light of fried chicken commercials!” Seriously, what does that even mean?) Even with limited exposure in venues like Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, Neely’s two or three minute videos are especially suited to a YouTube audience.

Obviously, the Navy SEALS who took down bin Laden crafted a much more significant piece of work on Sunday. Their achievement, though, was a reflection of a changing military environment just as Neely’s videos reflect a changing media environment.

The major military conflicts to stop terrorism after September 11 targeted nations – specifically, Afghanistan and Iraq. The plan was to smoke out terrorists by pressuring state sponsors of terrorism. We found that the strength of our armored columns had limited effectiveness confronting the independent contractors who made up Al Qaeda’s network. We could contain the snake, but we couldn’t do the one thing we set out to do.

It’s significant, then, that the bin Laden kill mission was set up by intelligence and espionage, and executed by a couple dozen elite servicemen. There was no invasion of Pakistan, simply a precise action focused on a single piece of property within the country. One can’t help but suspect that had our leaders not announced the mission’s success, the rest of the world might never have known bin Laden was dead.

A small, elite unit was all it took to snuff out the world’s leading terrorist. George Washington (who crossed the Delaware for a surprise attack) would be proud.

3 Rules for Message-Driven Media

May 4, 2011July 8, 2013 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Unsurprisingly, my prediction that Atlas Shrugged would suck proved to be true.

Scathing review notwithstanding, the filmmakers deserve plaudits for the ambitious attempt. The movie might have been a swing-and-miss, but you have to hand it to John Aglialaro, who ponied up the cash to get the picture made, and the team who put the thing together quickly.

The truth is that Atlas Shrugged falls into the trap so many attempts at “conservative entertainment” fall into. It is reminiscent of 2004-2005, when several documentarians from the center-right grabbed a camera to answer left-wing movies like Supersize Me and Farenheit 9/11. Just about anyone who put something mildly amusing on videotape was labeled “the conservative Michael Moore.” In the years since, others have followed in various media. Fox News Channel’s “1/2 Hour News Hour” was supposed to be the conservative answer to the Daily Show. Websites spoofing the news as a conservative answer to the Onion spring up every now and then.

Being “the conservative version of [INSERT ANYTHING HERE]” is pretty much an epitaph, defining a project by its political views rather than its quality. And unfortunately, that’s what happened to Atlas Shrugged.

This is, however, a teachable moment for those on the center-right who want to entertain people with a good message.

1. Be entertaining first.

A major problem with Atlas Shrugged (the movie) was that its commitment to libertarian philosophy led to an unhealthy reliance on the book. Plot points and even dialog were almost directly lifted from Ayn Rand’s text. The result was muddled, outdated, and difficult to follow with characters and characterizations that were difficult for audiences to identify with. With a plot that’s hard to follow and characters who are difficult to warm up to, philosophy becomes the most recognizable element of the film.

2. Give the people someone to identify with.

Speaking of characters, another common mistake of politically tainted entertainment is the lack of attention paid to character development.

Not to continue picking on Atlas Shrugged, but business moguls do not fall into the “warm fuzz” category. That problem isn’t as pronounced in the book, which gives fuller portraits of the characters and allows the readers a peek into their thoughts. In the movie, the titans of industry are simply business executives who happen to be in the story. With the financial problems of 2007-2009 still close in the rear view mirror, that does not make for especially sympathetic characters. (Sure, there are many reasons it’s easier to create compelling characters in a book – dialog doesn’t have to be quite as sharp, and the body language of the actors isn’t as important. But if you take on the task of producing visual media, accounting for that goes with the territory.)

More to the point, though, is the fact that the most memorable stories work on emotion, and having identifiable characters allows the audience to share in that emotion. Star Wars is still celebrated because a generation of kids grew up pretending to be Luke Skywalker (and occasionally fighting with their brothers over who got to be Luke Skywalker even though, you know, you’d think the oldest would get first pick). Everyone thinks of themselves, at times, as the orphan living under the stairs, so we all share in Harry Potter’s elevation from forgotten one to chosen one. We all wish we could spend the day bowling and drinking like Jeffrey Lebowski (or like Luke Skywalker in Episode VIII: Man, It Sure Is Boring Without the Empire).

3. Have respect for your audience.

The show goes on because of the folks in the seats. Politically-motivated entertainers who use the stage as a pulpit to advance messages that are important to them may do so at the expense of what’s important to the audience.

That isn’t a problem for those tuning into overtly political entertainment, where strong views are expected – for instance, dialing up Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann. The people tuning into those types of shows are doing so because they want to hear the entertainer’s views. But the audiences in most movie theaters (regardless of the individual audience members’ personal philosophies) are going for something completely different. Ditto for the family that sits down to watch a sitcom together. (Do people even actually do that anymore?)

In that respect, there’s a sort of arrogance and rudeness in coming to the stage to push a message; it prioritizes the entertainer’s goals over the audience’s. Unless you’re Don Rickles, nothing turns off a crowd faster than disrespect. A little subtlety goes a long way.

Heritage tells a great story about the oil spill

April 21, 2011April 20, 2011 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Like several environmental groups, the Heritage Foundation took some time to mark the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill. Their video, however, documents the impact of the Obama Administrations hesitance to re-open efforts to drill in the Gulf. Most of us have felt the result of this at the gas pump; the people Heritage spoke with (and, more important, who told their own stories to the camera) feel the pain all the time.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I have a current client seeking to establish a more complete national energy policy. I didn’t get paid for this post, though, I just think Heritage did a really good job with this video.)

Actually, it’s the Data AND Facebook…

April 20, 2011 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

President Obama’s first campaign event kicked off on Facebook this afternoon just a few hours after Micah Sifry at TechPresident did a basic overview of the online landscape of for the 2012 race thus far.

Sifry’s attention-getting headline – “It’s not Facebook, It’s the Data, Stupid” – seems to be an indictment of social networks. But his key point is that knowing the audience is more important than having thousands (or even millions) of friends, followers, or likes. It’s a point that many have made since 2008 repeatedly, yet it isn’t repetitive. There are still folks who believe that online success is measured by the easiest metrics of Facebook and Twitter, and not in the more difficult (and final) measurement of votes on election day. Ultimately, success or failure of the online campaign is tied to the success or failure of the overall campaign:

Facebook and other third-party social network platforms aren’t the central battlefield. It’s data and targeting and figuring out how to use online strategies to enable motivated volunteers to identify, persuade and get out the vote.

Sifry does miss an important shift in voter engagement, though. He downplays Facebook, noting that the Obama 2012 effort still has the advantages of the MyBarackObama.com networking infrastructure left over from 2008 (with roots stretching back to the nascent Howard Dean effort in 2003). But that campaign architecture is outdated if it doesn’t work with Facebook.

Consider that in the 2004 and 2008 election cycles, social networking was a varied market. Friendster, MySpace, AIM, Friendfeed, Twitter, and of course Facebook all had significant shares of the market at one point or another. Now, Facebook is the unquestioned market leader. What’s more, Facebook is built as a platform for other services. For instance, the biggest social network to gain traction since the Obama campaign, Foursquare, allows you to sign up for their service by using your Facebook log in.

There’s no room for MyBarackObama.com in the modern online media and networking environment unless it works seamlessly within the Facebook interface. If the Obama campaign tries to copy 2008 tactics in 2012 they will fail.

Sifry talks glowingly about the Facebook apps deployed by the Pawlenty and Obama campaigns – and rightly so, because these little programs are monumentally important in bridging the gap between social networking success and data management. Liking a page is a tangential connection, that can be severed easily and surrenders little information; running followers through an application that allows them to submit contact information and self-identify their interests and issue priorities is much more powerful.

The idea that activity on Facebook is separate from data management is a recipe for a losing campaign; the winner in 2012 will have both working together. (And despite the attention-grabbing headline, Sifry seems to get that.)

Why I fear the Atlas Shrugged movie will suck

April 16, 2011 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ 3 Comments

The timing is perfect for a movie based on Atlas Shrugged. The political debates waged in the last five years offer a nice backdrop to the hypotheticals Rand came up with more than a half century ago. So the opening of the movie this weekend should be a cause for celebration. I haven’t seen it yet (I plan on it), but color me cautious. Here’s the trailer:

The fact that the film being released this weekend is part of a trilogy is concerning; it implies that the filmmakers are sticking as closely as possible to the original text. That’s probably a bad idea. Aside from the oft-repeated concern that stuffing an 1100-page book into a 120-minute motion picture is difficult, the caricatures of lobbyists, crony capitalists, and government officials translate better in print than they are likely to on screen (based on the trailer above).

And, despite the fact that the film is reportedly set in 2016 (the not-too-distant future), the plot revolves around the railroad business. When Rand wrote the book, railroad barons were not long removed from being cast as the villains of American industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s; today’s audiences can’t relate to that. More troubling is the promotional strategy. The Tax Day release, combined with the heavy influence of FreedomWorks, suggests that traditional movie promotions will not work. If that’s the case, then Atlas Shrugged will be viewed primarily by conservative audiences who already agree with its messages. It won’t get widespread exposure to audiences that just want to go see a compelling movie and don’t care about politics.

All of this adds up to a misguided effort to make a movie which drives home a point rather than tells a good story. Media which forgets entertainment at the expense of politics gets lumped into the latter category and loses its widespread appeal.

There are plenty of reasons why books rarely make it to the screen without major overhauls. Mario Puzo’s The Godfathertold of the childhood of Vito Corleone and the back stories of several other characters; then the book was translated to film much of those details were skimmed out. The problem with Atlas Shrugged as a movie is not simply length, but the fact that the book uses that length to unravel a mystery around the core concept of a production strike.

In that central theme is a very compelling movie idea based loosely on (but still true to) Rand’s work. What if the people who held up the world simply shrugged their responsibility? Instead of being national in scope, the idea might have been better set in a small town, perhaps with small business owners rather than moguls of industry as the protagonists. That would help audiences relate to the characters – and ultimately the messages. After all, who wants to root for a billionaire? (That’s why the Richie Rich movie lost money at the box office. Don’t you dare blame John Larroquette. Don’t you dare.)

With a relatively low $10 million production cost, the movie will be true to one core Rand value: it is almost guaranteed to make its money back even if it bombs miserably. Assuming an average ticket price of $7.89, Atlas Shrugged need only sell 1.3 million tickets to cover expenses. Putting a price tag on the missed opportunity to tell a compelling story for our times is much more difficult.