What to Expect in Iowa

This post was originally published on January 3, the morning of the Iowa Caucuses, in the MetroWest Daily News.

Eight years ago, on the night of the Iowa caucuses, I was huddled in my New Hampshire office with fellow staffers on the Howard Dean campaign. We’d taken in the disappointing news that he finished third — a jolt, given his frontrunner status. But with a week until our state’s primary, we were convinced he could rebound — until he took the stage to speak, that is.

“The Scream” began as an innocent rallying cry to supporters; Dean was simply yelling to be heard over the noise of the crowd. But the TV cameras, connected only to his microphone, didn’t pick up any other sounds. What seemed like a stirring motivational speech to people in the Hawkeye State looked like a bizarre rampage to television viewers elsewhere. One of my interns gaped: “He looks like the Incredible Hulk!”

Our campaign didn’t recover, of course — but I had plenty of time in between campaign stops to analyze the lessons the caucuses afforded. Based on hard-fought experience, here are four things I’m expecting to see in Iowa this cycle.

Geography matters. If the presidential nomination could have been decided by an online plebiscite, Howard Dean would have crushed the competition. But alas — in 2004, and still today — elections are won based on actual geography. It seemed like a good idea at the time to import 3500 overly-enthused out-of-staters wearing orange caps to harass Iowans into voting for Dean. Perhaps in retrospect you can see why it didn’t work out. So who appeals to actual Iowans? Polling is historically unreliable for the caucuses, but one trend has emerged among Republicans: they tend to surprise expectations and go for very conservative candidates like Mike Huckabee.

(Advantage: Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, or maybe Rick Santorum. Iowa likes dark horses.)

Passion counts. It’s hard for voters in most states to imagine, but you don’t just walk into a booth in Iowa and pull a lever The caucuses usually take an hour, during which you sit through candidate representatives yakking and a bevy of other business. It’s much less complicated than the Democrats’ arcane caucus proceedings — but nonetheless, it requires a lot of commitment on a cold winter night. That’s why candidates with passionate, committed supporters can make a splash in Iowa.

(Advantage: Ron Paul and his zealous fans.)

Negative ads work. For months, Republican voters have been cycling through candidates in search of anyone who isn’t Romney. In early December, it was former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s turn to be in vogue. Well, no more of that: super-PACs run by Romney supporters went nuclear on Gingrich, driving him down in the polls. Voters consistently bemoan attack ads — but there’s a reason they’re used so often. Back in 2004, independent groups run by supporters of John Kerry and Dick Gephardt ran TV ads eviscerating Dean, including one showing a photo of Osama bin Laden while an ominous voiceover derided Dean’s lack of foreign policy experience. Sadly, it worked like a charm.

(Disadvantage: Gingrich.)

Momentum matters. Luck plays an uncomfortably large role in determining the leader of the free world. Newt Gingrich — like Dean before him — is feeling the pang of ill-timing; if the caucuses had been held a month earlier, either man might well have cruised to the nomination. Instead, the machinations of the next few days will determine who has the elusive “Big Mo” going into the caucuses — and a caucus win will either seal the deal for frontrunner Romney or give voters one last chance to sample an alternative.

(Advantage: Whoever wins. Game on.)

Dorie Clark is a strategy consultant and the author of the forthcoming “What’s Next?: The Art of Reinventing Your Personal Brand.” For more information, visit www.dorieclark.com.

Class in Session: What the Presidential Candidates Need to Learn

This post originally appeared in the Boston Herald.

Massachusetts has long been a political factory, pumping out campaign operatives and presidential aspirants (including this year’s Republican favorite). As primary season approaches, it’s natural to ask: Does our high-octane political culture have anything to teach the current crop of candidates? As a former presidential campaign spokesperson and a veteran of Bay State races, I’m convinced there are five lessons every politician — especially at the presidential level — should take from Massachusetts politics.

1) Friendliness matters. Not every Boston pol has soaked this in (paging the senator from Louisburg Square). But the great ones certainly did, recognizing that no one wants to listen to a bore or a snob on the nightly news for the next four years. In the 2008 campaign, Mitt Romney struggled to connect with voters. This time around, he’s (trying to be) a regular guy tweeting about Carl’s Jr. burgers and his flights on Southwest.

2) The power of touch. Don’t go to a Boston fundraiser if you like to keep your distance: You’re liable to get more hugs than Christmas at Grandma’s. Call it backslapping, glad-handing or just “connecting with voters” — Bay State pols like to get physical. Donald Trump’s presidential aspirations fizzled practically the minute he declared handshakes “barbaric” and a vector of disease. Epidemiologically, he may have a point. But politically, it’s a non-starter.

3) Small gestures can make all the difference. Many credit Ted Kennedy’s success in the Senate to his mastery of small, thoughtful details, such as personally phoning the families of every single Bay State 9/11 victim. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has toiled in relative obscurity this election cycle. But his campaign made a “small gesture” bet that may pay off — becoming the first candidate to visit all 99 counties in Iowa.

4) It doesn’t matter who’s the smartest guy in the room. Newt Gingrich — former college history professor and author of more than 20 books — prides himself on being the “candidate of ideas” in the race. But Massachusetts voters know it isn’t about being the smartest. Robert Reich’s gubernatorial opponents used the word “Professor” as a virtual slur against him (and Elizabeth Warren is getting the same treatment). The lesson for aspiring leaders of the Free World? Voters want to understand your character, not your intellectual bona fides.

5) The first-mover advantage. Bay State elections consistently rank as some the least competitive in America. One easy explanation is that up-and-coming Dems in a virtual one-party state don’t make friends by challenging their elders in primaries. But there’s also the issue of money: Incumbents often build up impenetrable war chests that guarantee them the job as long as they want it. Romney’s cash advantage — prompted by a campaign effort that’s essentially been humming since halfway through his tenure as governor — makes him a formidable opponent.

Bay State politics has a lot to teach any presidential candidate, and it seems even Romney (who regularly mocked Massachusetts on the trail in 2008) has finally taken notes. So this primary season, may the most Bostonian candidate win.

Dorie Clark is a strategy consultant and the former New Hampshire communications director for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. She is the author of the forthcoming “What’s Next?: The Art of Reinventing Your Personal Brand.”

Media Mistakes and How to Avoid Them: From the Harvard Business Review blog

Hollywood stars, media mavens and America’s most influential businessmen and politicians: that’s the crowd at the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner. That night in 2006 newly appointed Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke mingled with CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo, who asked about his recent congressional testimony, which had sent stock markets soaring. He told her he’d been misinterpreted, she reported the comments, and the markets plummeted, prompting a hail of criticism.

Every senior leader, in politics or in business, eventually has to face the media and, no matter how short the interview is, it can have a lingering impact on both your reputation and your organization’s. Here are the three biggest mistakes executives make when dealing with journalists — and how you can avoid them.

1. Not understanding their motives. As Ben Bernanke learned the hard way, you’re always “on the record” unless you specify otherwise. Journalists are always after a story, and more often than not they’re after a specific storyline. My experience working as a communications director for Howard Dean during the 2004 Democratic presidential primary campaign drove this point home. Early on, the Boston press corps loved us, because they could use Dean as a cudgel against “local favorite” John Kerry. (Reporters love to champion underdogs.) About six weeks before the New Hampshire primary, however, the coverage began to turn against us. The poll results were too good and the endorsements (such as Vice President Gore’s) were too major. Dean had become the front runner—and a target. From then on, we had to shift our strategy, becoming more proactive with the media, and more selective about the interviews we gave. My advice for any leader interacting with journalists is to tread carefully and ask lots of questions. What’s the intended focus of the piece? Who else will be interviewed? Where will it run? Which types of stories is the reporter best known for?

Read the rest of my post on the Harvard Business Review website.

Q&A with Dorie: Newspaper and Blog Online Comments

Let’s take a question from the field. One reader in Ohio asks, “Any idea on how often people read online comments to newspaper articles? I often have clients that obsess about these and would love something more definitive to tell them.”

Bring 'em on, readers! Dorie Clark takes your questions.

Here’s my short answer:

1. Though increasing numbers of people are reading articles online, regular folks aren’t scrolling down and ogling the comments section. They really don’t care; it’s an insiders’ game.
2. That being said, one audience that reads the comments (besides your clients and your competitors) does actually matter, and that’s members of the media. Desperate for relevance, they fixate on the number and type of comments. They want to cover stories that generate reader response, and often (sorry, guys) have a naive understanding of the fact that most comments posted, at least in a “campaign-style” context, are planted. Thus, to them it can seem to be  a barometer of public opinion.
3. Thus, I’d advise putting a little bit of time into this (posting online comments responding  to coverage) – but not too much. It’s far less important than other things you can be doing, like direct voter contact (in a political context) or taking your own initiative to create favorable press, such as starting a blog or videocast. To make your efforts  successful, it’s best if you: 1) rely on volunteers and not paid staff to do the posting, unless it’s meant to be an “official response” (you run the risk of too much trouble if a paid staffer is perceived to be masking his/her identity); and 2) have that person comment frequently and over time on a variety of articles. That way, they’ve built up a reputation as a member of the online community, not just someone who dive-bombs in to promote your cause or product.

So readers, did I miss anything? And what are your questions? Let’s have at ‘em!

The Forces of History

More on Sidney Blumenthal, whose book The Permanent Campaign tells how the campaign finance reforms enacted by liberal Democrats post-Watergate (limiting campaign gifts to $1000 or less) were the major factor contributing to the rise of Richard Viguerie, a conservative direct mail master who leveraged George Wallace’s mailing list into an intensely sophisticated operation.

Viguerie raised money and built grassroots support for Republican candidates across the country, leading to their political domination over the next 30 years. The Democrats never caught up in direct mail. It took them until Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign to learn how to compete successfully via the Internet.

History can generate some surprising offshoots from its main narrative. How can we (or can we?) train ourselves to spot the opportunities, to see around the corners?

 

Republicans' #1 fundraising tool. Photo by Zizzy Baloobah.