Archive for February, 2012

The news that Rick Santorum has won the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and Missouri primary has provided another twist in this meandering GOP race. As soon as one candidate gathers momentum they seem to be bested at the next possible occasion. Mitt Romney was frontrunner before the Iowa Caucus and Rick Santorum won. Santorum then gained momentum and then performed poorly in South Carolina and Florida. Newt Gingrich then swung to the fore with Mitt Romney also delivering strong results. They then spent the 2 weeks slugging it out in a series of heavyweight contests and Rick Santorum resurfaces, all of his Google and other problems, seemingly forgotten. This shows one thing clearly: in the eyes of the voters it is an underwhelming field of non-Presidents.

Photo courtesy of wikipedia

Mitt Romney has thrown millions at the race, has brought in heavyweight endorsements from John McCain, Donald Trump and celebrities across the board, but still appears lightweight. His whole campaign appears an effort to divert from a man who is just deep down not a President. Daniel Finkelstein wrote a great piece along a similar line about Ed Miliband. You can have as many pollsters; advisers and communication specialists as you like, but sometimes you just don’t look the part. Miliband doesn’t look like a Prime Minister and Romney doesn’t look like a President. Both are playing at the roles.

Photo courtesy of www.newt.org

Then there is Newt Gingrich, who appeals to the votes through debate performances, but because of his controversial time as Speaker and then a series of allegations about his private life never appears as anything more than a curve ball candidate, who can flare up and win the odd contest, but only as a protest vote at a more serious contender. He doesn’t appear to have the necessary public image or track records to stand as a strong candidate in his own right.

Photo courtesy of www.ricksantorum.com

Finally there is Rick Santorum - the dilemma. An impressive lawyer with a reputation and background that suggests he can get things done in Washington, a great contrast to Barack Obama, but whose religious beliefs and social conservatism means he could never be elected as the leader of the world’s biggest nation. How frustrating Santorum is! Seeing all of his gifts and abilities, which make him personally appealing, but also seeing his singular stubbornness to deviate from his views on abortion and same sex marriage, in fact he actively goes out of his way to put these issues at the centre of his campaign. This gives him a fervent, but small group of core supporters but means he will not be able to win over enough to gain the White House. The world has moved too far on issues like abortion and same sex marriage, his idea to put ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ back in place for the armed forces would be a visible step backwards in championing freedom in the US and is not feasible.

So as Rick Santorum swings back into the limelight with his victories in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado the twists and turns in this race continue and further highlight that the field is made up of candidates who have some of what it takes, but nowhere near enough to be a strong Republican Candidate or President.

Politics combined with Hollywood glamour last night to make a spectacular impression on America’s showcase sporting event. The US may have reached fever pitch as Eli Manning’s underdog New York Giant’s snatched victory from future Hall of Famer, Tom Brady’s New England Patriots, but many will have been more than quietly impressed by Clint Eastwood’s halftime advert for the car giant Chrysler.

Adverts during the Super Bowl are big business. With families around the country, and perhaps around the world, glued to the television, the average cost of a 30 second slot is an enormous $3.5 million. The Eastwood directed ‘Halftime in America’ lasted a full two minutes and deliberately channelled Ronald Reagan’s famous 1984 campaign advert ‘Morning in America’.

The twee, plunky score of Reagan’s original may have been replaced by a darker, more melancholic arrangement but the message was broadly the same. It was about hard times, jobs and economic recovery. Reagan’s message told of an America on the up, it was hopeful and optimistic. Eastwood’s croaking, paternalistic voiceover drew parallels between Detroit’s battle-scarred automobile industry and a plucky underdog football team who, finding themselves down at half time, have the heart and the courage to come out swinging and drag themselves back into the game.

This was an advert which pulled on the heart strings of blue collar America. It’s places like Detroit that are suffering most from the effects of the global economic crisis. Above everything else, the next Presidential election will be won by the candidate who best convinces the electorate that he feels their pain, empathises with their struggle and can lead them back to economic prosperity.

Eastwood is no stranger to politics. He famously registered as a Republican to vote for Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 Presidential election and has served terms in public office, as Mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea in California and as a member of the California State Park and Recreation Commission. Eastwood’s politics may have occasionally switched between right and left, however he has always been a man with his finger on the pulse of blue-collar America. From Dirty Harry to Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino, Eastwood knows how to tell an underdog tale. The victory by the less fancied Giants provided a suitable parallel.

Tom Brady’s last gasp Hail Mary may have missed its intended target but Eastwood’s Chrysler advert should have scored a direct hit with working class families in America.

The PAC to elect Clint starts here!

In an article for this week’s New Statesman, David Miliband authored what the Guardian yesterday termed: a ‘scathing attack’ on two of his brother’s key political allies, Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley. In the article Miliband outlined a 7 Point Plan to get Labour back on track and resist the temptation of lurching towards a “reassuring” position on the left.

The article was written in response to Hattersley’s own clarion call for the party to win back the trust of the electorate by re-embracing its social democratic credentials. Whatever its intention, it is extremely difficult to read the article as anything other than an attack on his brother’s leadership. Miliband is a shrewd media operator and in this article he has given the feverish hordes exactly what they want, a return to a favourite post-Brown narrative: fratricide in the Labour party.

If Miliband’s intention was to re-assert his claim as Labour’s leader in waiting, then his timing couldn’t have been better. After a difficult Christmas and New Year period, for analysis see Red Ed or Dead Ed (24 January), Ed Miliband has shown signs of recovery in recent weeks with two highly accomplished performances at PMQs and clear conviction and moral leadership on pay and bonuses in the banking sector. The timing of David’s 7 Point Plan could easily be seen as an attempt to derail any momentum in Ed’s nascent recovery and restart his own Labour leadership challenge.

So, what did the article say? What is the 7 Point Plan? The answer holds, unsurprisingly, very little in terms of vision or detail.

Miliband is in favour of reforming the state, promoting localism, defining equality, driving growth, championing internationalism, modernising the Labour Party and defending Labour’s record in Government. So far so good, but little to distinguish him from his brother or anyone else in a party which is still suffering from a serious crisis of identity. Is this the Labour Party, New Labour, ‘old’ Labour, ‘Blue’ Labour or ‘Purple’ Labour? Are they the party of the left, the ‘progressive’ left or the left of centre? The Miliband manifesto fails to answer these key issues and offers very little to encourage party members or potential members alike.

If one can be identified, the central plank of the Miliband’s manifesto seems to be public service reform, in particular shrinking its size and prioritising choice over quality of provision. At a time when public sector workers are losing their jobs; a further fiscal stimulus may be needed to kick start the economy; the Government is a majority shareholder in major financial services institutions; and the welfare state will be severely tested by public and private sector job losses, the state has a huge role to play in economic recovery. A commitment to cutting it in size and decentralising authority might appear an afterthought to many when there are more pressing economic concerns.

Miliband’s cautioning against retreating to a position of comfort on the left may play well with former Blairite colleagues, with traditional Liberal Democrat supporters disenchanted with the coalition and floating moderate voters. It also implies that he is confident of attracting strong support in the electorate for a relaunch of a New Labour-esque project. Whether there is an appetite for such a lurch to the right amongst the Labour faithful is less apparent. Having lost swathes of core support in Scotland and with support among public sector workers and union members dwindling, Labour faces as significant a challenge in energising its traditional base as it does in attracting the kind of metropolitan, middle-class professionals that would help them to steal the centre ground from their opponents.

The political resurrection of David Miliband has only just begun. He has powerful supporters in the party and well placed friends in the media. 2012 may yet be the year that Cain and Abel return to the nation’s political front pages.

So what exactly is Public Affairs and how can it be beneficial to your business?

Image courtesy of robertsharp’s Photostream, Flickr

Parliamentary Affairs, Stakeholder Management, Government Relations, Lobbying, Government Affairs, Political Consulting - Public Affairs is a highly specialised field which operates under a number of different names.

To put it simply, Public Affairs is about the effective management of an organisation’s most important relationships. We all know that managing relationships is an important part of life. We do it in our personal lives and we do it in our professional lives. In fact, it’s become such an important part of our daily routine that technology firms are endlessly competing to design new and innovative ways of connecting us with our friends, our family and our business contacts. In this respect, the daily life of a business operates in much the same way.

At various stages in their development, businesses and other organisations may need to mount a campaign or manage relationships with the media, with the political world or with a wide range of stakeholders. Often the thing that most distinguishes a successful business from its competitors or defines a successful campaign is how effectively these more specialist relationships are managed.

For those who don’t have extensive experience of dealing with the political arena or with the media, managing these relationships can be an extremely daunting prospect. Even for those with some level of experience, a fresh approach can breathe new life into a company’s business prospects or into a flagging campaign.

These are exactly the kind of scenarios where specialist Public Affairs advice can help. Public Affairs can help your organisation with reputation management, political and media liaison, detailed policy research and event management. We can help with campaigning, crisis management, coalition building, overcoming regulatory issues and a whole host of other communications challenges.

Where Public Affairs advice really comes into its own is in managing relations with the labyrinthine world of politics. Effective communication with MPs, Peers, MEPs and local officials all require a thorough understanding of political processes and institutions. It also requires a detailed understanding of the pressures faced by elected officials, civil servants and local authorities. Public Affairs expertise can help businesses to design and implement effective strategies for managing these relations and develop messaging which makes an impact with their target audiences.

Whether it’s mapping and analysing stakeholders, helping charities to raise awareness of a cause or helping a business to bring innovative products to new markets, Public Affairs can be a vital tool in an organisations arsenal.

Often it’s about having the right conversations with the right people at the right time.

In the present economic climate, with finance being squeezed in both the public and the private sectors, can your business afford to miss these conversations?