Tit-for-Tat For Governor

This isn’t about politics. It’s about communications.

Nonetheless, as a public service to registered voters in the state of Wisconsin, I’ll begin by summarizing the communications to date in the current gubernatorial campaign. I trust this will be helpful to those of you planning to join me at the polls on November 7th.

• Democratic incumbent Jim Doyle panders to Casinos and other special interest groups in Wisconsin.
• Republican challenger Mark Green panders to big oil, Enron, W and the like.
• Doyle’s administration traded state travel contracts for political contributions.
• Green’s campaign transferred funds from his congressional campaign to his gubernatorial campaign, which might be illegal.
• Doyle is running miseleading ads about Mark Green.
• Green is running dishonest ads about Jim Doyle.
• Doyle has created loads of jobs in Wisconsin in the last four years.
• Doyle has cost Wisconsin loads of jobs.
• Doyle wants to give illegal aliens welfare and subsidized home loans.
• No he doesn’t.
• Does too.
• Does not.
• Does.
• No way.
• Way.
• Etc.
  

Kinder, Gentler, Better Communications
If you're in the U.S. and have a pulse, you no doubt recognize the name Russ Feingold. You know, the Wisconsin Senator of McCain/Feingold fame? The only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act? Straight-shooting Everyman? Flaming liberal? Pushed to censure Bush? Twice-divorced pinko straight outta Middleton? Sorry, I'll let the idealogues sort that out. This isn’t about politics. It’s about communications.

In 1992, long before Feingold ascended to his current status as political lightning rod, he was one of three candidates vying to be the Democratic challenger to Republican incumbent senator Bob Kasten.

By all accounts, Feingold didn’t have a prayer in the primary. His biggest claim to fame was that nobody outside the state capitol knew who he was. And that became the germ of an absolutely brilliant campaign.

With help from Milwaukee advertising giant Steve Eichenbaum, Feingold launched a series of TV commercials that poked fun at Feingold's obscurity. If my memory serves me correctly, one spot has Feingold holding a Weekly World News-type tabloid announcing Elvis Presley had endorsed his candidacy. Fun, funny and a breath of fresh air in an otherwise dour campaign, the spots created a groundswell that buzz marketers today would kill for. Like all great communications aimed at positioning anything—company, product, candidate, etc.—Feingold’s spots created clear, meaningful differentiation and preference in the minds of the target audience. They also made it easy for people to like him. Imagine that.

During the campaign, Feingold used his quirky TV ads to position himself as a straight-shooting, self-effacing, political outsider. People actually had some sense of who and what they were voting for. Which is more than many could say about Feingold’s opponents. In the end, Feingold won the primary and went on to unseat Kasten. He's won re-election twice since then. All of which says as much about communications as it does about politics. Maybe more.

Sadly, the current Wisconsin gubernatorial race offers nothing in the way of breakthrough communications. I have trouble fathoming how anybody who's not a political partisan could feel great about either candidate based on the nightly flurry of on-air, tit-for-tat exchanges. (Though both sides are no doubt polling furiously to chart the impact of the latest thirty-second salvo.)

In politics, as in business, you are what you communicate...and how you communicate. So in spite of my own ideological leanings, I find myself not liking either one of these guys very much.

Then again, maybe I’m not the target audience.