All These Things I've Heard Part I

Hello there readers,

In the next few posts I'll be outlining some of the most interesting speakers we've had as part of the program so far. In this post we'll look at Tad Devine, a media consultant for campaigning and Susan Morrison, a journalist with an extensive background in politics.

Before I begin, I should say that all of the presentations that we're given are strictly off the record so I can't tell you the details but I can tell you about the people and a few anecdontes. Let's just say, the press would have a field day with some of the stories we've been told and if you too want to hear these stories you'll have to wait until you come to the program. (Shameless pitch line)

One of the most interesting speakers we've experienced so far was Tad Devine. He is a political media consultant with his company Devine-Mulvey Media. He is one of the nation's leading political strategists and media consultants and has been for the past two decades. He took over the Gore campaign in 2000 when it was down 17 points and led the campaign to nearly win the election. His client list includes: John Kerry, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, Jack Reed, Christopher Dodd, John Edwards, Jon Corzine, Tom Harkin and Richard Gephardt. In addition to running media in domestic campaigns, he's worked on numerous campaigns around the world and was a central figure in the movie "Our Brand is Crisis." The title is derived from an off-hand comment Devine makes during the film.

Needless to say, this man has a lot to talk about. This is a nice opportunity because I can repeat most of what he said because a large part of his presentation was him showing political ads that he's worked on and talking about why they were designed the way they were.

There are three types of political ads and we've all seen all of them over and over again. The first is a bio ad. This delivers the personal story of the candidate and is used so that we as voters can feel like we have shared values. Issue ads are the second type. Instead of talking about the candidate, or the candidate talking about him/herself, the ad focuses on a hot-button issue and allows the candidate to explain his/her stance on the issue. The final is one that we all know. Attack ads. These are a necessary evil in the current political realm and sometimes become absolutely vital to the survival of a campaign. If there's something I learned about campaigning from this speaker it's that you can try as hard as you want to run an idyllic campaign but reality will always win out and you'll eventually have to do some things you'd rather not have done if you really want to get elected.

He concluded by outlining what makes a winning campaign, from his point of view and extensive experience. Here are the key points:

Use research!
Use emotional and impactful advertising.
Campaign with as many different media outlets as possible (Internet, TV, radio, print etc.)
Make sure the staff works well together.

Now on to Susan Morrison. Her experience includes being an editor at the New York Times Washington Bureau, TV Producer for Court TV, Supervising Producer at CNBC for "Hardball with Chris Matthews. She was also a political reporter for PBS, a News Manager for CBS News Washington Bureau and was the National Affairs Editor at ABC News Washington Bureau. Politically, she was the Deputy Director of Communications for George H.W. Bush and was the Communications Director for the Democratic National Committee.

So basically, she has an enormous resume and it's all awesome.

She spent a lot of time talking about how the news has changed an evolved over time. The meat of the talk focused on the power struggle between the media and the government. The media now leads the conversation as opposed to government being able to decide what stories will make it to the nightly news. Sometimes this leads to important stories being missed and words being mashed. We've all seen the news stories which will skew things to one side and edit clips in order to prove their point, even if they know it's not factual!

She's an amazing story teller and I only wish I could repeat some of things she told us but again, they are all off the record, and with her being a journalist, she understands exactly what off the record means.

Look out for the next post, it'll include Hillary Clinton's Chief Speech Writer, the Secretary of Transportation, and the Honorable James McGovern, Congressman.

See you next time!