Developing
and Delivering a Winning Message
By Ali Ahmad
Office Director
American Muslim Alliance
No matter the political affiliation,
the strategies in forming winning and effective
campaigns usually revolve around the same essential
ingredients of: polls, strategy, advertising,
organization, fundraising and message. Packaging
and marketing a candidate’s message succinctly
to one’s electorate is critical to success.
Hence, for those interested in running for political
office, having a strong and effective message
that resonates with voters is paramount to garnering
votes, creating a responsive public persona, and
ultimately securing a seat in public office.
Candidates from any political party must develop
a sound message that catches the attention of
voters and the media. This means staying consistent
with specific policy proposals and how that ties
with your message, values and, reasons for running
for office.
De
Developing the message
A message, in this instance, is
“a set of symbols that contains a theme
or a big idea, and ties a problem to a solution,
a community to a cause, and a candidate to desirable
goals and outcomes.” (Saeed, 2005).
Part of an overall strategy involves defining
the right message(s) to be communicated to specific
target groups, or the electorate as a whole. Whatever
the message, it should be clear and easily understood
by everyone.
In formulating a message the first and most important
question a candidate must ask is ‘what do
I stand for’? It requires the candidate
to understand his values, illustrate to voters
why he is running and demonstrate to them how
he will do a better job if elected. If you can’t
articulate in 25 words or less why you are running,
then nothing else matters; your race will be over
before it begins.
According to Ronald Faucheux , author of Winning
Elections, a “campaign message may be based
on a candidate’s personal virtues and flaws
(i.e. experience, competence, independence, integrity,
compassion, stability, preparation, etc.); or
(b) ideological and partisan differences (liberal
vs. conservative, moderate vs. extreme, inconsistent
vs. consistent, pragmatic vs. purist, etc. or
(c) the situational context (change vs. status
quo, right track vs. wrong track, reform vs. the
old way, etc.; or (d) a combination of any of
the above.”
The campaign’s message is what is said to
voters to position one’s candidacy; it’s
the reason you give voters as to why they should
elect you over the opposition.
A campaign message isn’t merely an empty
slogan or catchy sound bite. It isn’t meaningless
rhetoric or a generic theme. A campaign message
is about substance, it is about real things that
matter to real voters.
Mr. Faucheux recommends constructing a “message
box” to illustrate the campaign message.
A simple diagram divided into four quadrants,
explaining a) what your campaign will say about
your candidacy, b) what your campaign will say
about the opposition, c) what do you expect the
opposition to say about themselves, and d) what
you expect the opposition to say about you.
To develop a message, which resonates with one’s
constituents, a candidate must determine the district
makeup of his constituents. For instance, if a
Muslim American were to run for a local city council
seat in his district, he/she should intimately
know the issues that face the whole community.
If advantageous, he/she could gain positive notoriety
by developing policy proposals to help bridge
the understanding between immigrant communities
and the American public at large.
A prospective candidate can also utilize his/her
community involvement combined with his/her understanding
of many cultures as a way to illustrate his leadership
skills. Immigrants who wish to run for office
can utilize a variety of examples in order to
hone their message by evaluating election cycles
and view how candidates work with their media
operatives to help in their campaigns and ultimately
win elections. Even in the post-9/11 world, we
Americans are looking for candidates that have
answers to the problems we face not only abroad
but in our local city, district or state.
ROLLING A MESSAGE FORWARD
In his remarks at a recent DNC conference, Toby
Chaudhuri, Communications Director for the Campaign
for America’s Future, noted that it is important
for candidates and their campaigns to understand
a message and how to move it forward.
The essence of political strategy is to concentrate
your greatest strength against the point of your
opponent’s greatest weakness. This is done
through positioning- which is, in effect the development
and delivery of messages that present voters with
a choice based on candidate differences that are
clear, believable and connected to reality.
Most Muslim candidates who are running for office
are challengers running against established incumbents
who have more money, experience, and established
social and political networks. With this in mind,
Muslim candidates must understand that while this
may be a disadvantage, they can take advantage
of certain strategies that will help perform effectively
on the campaign trail.
The challenger in most races generally calls for
a change in direction and leadership, while the
incumbent asks for continuity. For a Muslim American
running for a school board seat, for example,
and against an established incumbent, one way
to gain attention and a positive message is to
contrast themselves with their opponent, and demonstrate
why they would be the better choice.
The importance in developing goals and a plan
to help market the candidate through “contrast
messaging”, contrasting himself from his
opponents---this does not mean resorting to negative
tactics to win elections—although negativity
has proven to keep the attention of voters and
ultimately decide elections—voters are capable
of remembering candidates if they have a unique
message that keeps getting repeated.
OFFENSE OR DEFENSE?
Many campaigns according to Mr. Faucheux like
to start positive but wait until the opposition
throws the first punch. But other campaigns prefer
to frame the choice right out of the box, explaining
from day one the differences between your side
and the other side.
The saying ‘Defense may win football games
but staying on the offense wins wars and political
campaigns” to bring home the magnitude of
adopting an offensive strategy. “Keeping
one’s opponent at bay” (in this case
by keeping them on the defense) allows one to
more easily define the issues, oneself, and one’s
opponent, rather then being defined by them.
This requires analyzing the strengths and weaknesses
of the opponent. What did they accomplish while
in office? What were there difficult times in
relation to formulating policies and gauging support
among their constituents and colleagues?
A candidate must also be careful not to diffuse
his/her message(s). It is better for a candidate
to concentrate on a few strong messages than offer
a laundry list of 12 or 15 messages. If your opponent
has a tarnished record, then ‘character’
may be a powerful message- but if he happens to
be a person of impeccable credentials then ‘character’
wouldn’t be appropriate.
“Messages,” says Mr. Foucheux, may
be used to de-emphasize candidate qualities and
to highlight issues or, inversely, to de-emphasize
issues and highlight candidate qualities. The
bottom line is that you want to frame voter’s
choice around those factions that are most favorable
to your candidacy and most unfavorable to your
opposition.”
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