David Ocamb

As I’ve already discussed, it is vital to engage in negative messaging.  However, public affairs campaigns often face a seemingly insurmountable obstacle… how do you push back against a cause that has overwhelming public support?  When an issue advocacy group is defending a position that has 80% public approval, how can you possibly attack it?  The simple answer is… don’t attack it!  One very effective technique is to not directly attack their position but instead to push that group to the absolute extreme and reframe the debate attacking the group for holding an extreme position.  Read the rest of this entry →

In all political campaigns and some public affairs campaigns, negative messaging will provide the greatest return on investment in terms of the number of people persuaded for every dollar spent (See my previous post for further discussion).  However, not all negative messaging is created equally.  It is important to study the opposition research, polling and focus groups data, and overall race dynamics before deciding which type of attack to utilize and how to tie the attack into the overall campaign narrative.

Most first time candidates and corporate executives whose area of expertise is not public affairs instinctually believe attacking their opponent’s weaknesses damages them the most.  However, contrary to what most people would assume, destroying a soldier’s Achilles’ heel isn’t always the best attack strategy.  In fact, on some occasions, the most damaging attacks actually come from going after your opponent’s greatest strength.  Read the rest of this entry →

Every election cycle, journalists interview people complaining about all of the attack ads they’ve seen on TV and then their coverage turns to the talking heads who bemoan the demise of political discourse in America.  Yet, any historian can tell you that politics has been incredibly dirty since at least the Thomas Jefferson/John Adams race and has remained cutthroat since that time.  So, if the public and media complain about mudslinging, why have politicians always resorted to it and why do they continue to utilize it? 

The answer is easy.  It works. Read the rest of this entry →