Ground game is crucial for all political campaigns
(Editor’s note” This is the second part of a column on the four “M&Ms” of a successful political campaign.)
The second of the four “Ms,” is message. We valued campaign message discipline and benefited mightily because of it. Our campaign’s message, like the candidate, was positive and uplifting. Change that would benefit everyone and respect of their values. Change, with specific well defined and practical ideas, not just a slogan. Any campaign’s message can get lost, though, if a campaign becomes a victim of internal conflict.
The media will seize on conflict as conflict is one of the main determinants of what makes news. We avoided conflict and instead hammered at the campaign’s message of change. Ours was a compelling message that garnered media attention. Staff was united. No staffer’s ego got unhinged.
We reinforced our message through paid media — advertising, mailers, billboards, phone message scripts, etc. Our opponent’s on-hand money and fund raising ability far exceeded ours. Leveraging our paid media with free media was so important, so many fronts that it helped us win.
Donald Trump has a pithy slogan — “Make America Great Again” — that has resonance among those who don’t already believe America is great. Yet he is undisciplined, unable to stay on message. On top of that, campaign turmoil has become as much, perhaps more, of a hallmark as his slogan.
Hirings, firings of key staffers and questions about who is advising Trump have taken a lot of oxygen out of his campaign’s focus, even becoming the headline news of the day when Hillary Clinton’s missteps should have been the news of the day.
And Trump has backed up his core message (immigration) with only minuscule advertising. Admittedly self-funding a political campaign, as Trump trumpets, has considerable appeal. But the billionaire real estate mogul turned presidential nominee isn’t spending any of his own money on paid-media to advance his core message and themes. As he did in his real estate ventures, Trump uses “OPM,” other people’s money.
Money is the third of the four “Ms” needed to win a political campaign.
Political campaigns are expensive. The money spigot must always be on. Political candidates, even sure-to-win incumbents, dislike having to raise money. But no campaign can win without money. A campaign need not raise and spend more money than the opponent.
The campaign, however, needs to raise and spend enough money to be viable. That’s how we operated while opposing a far better financed candidate. Each day ended with a meeting or at least email to all staffers informing everyone what hours on the candidate’s next day schedule were blocked out for “D4$”- dialing for dollars — the candidate making phone calls to potential donors or attending a fund raiser. The candidate’s D4$ time was sacrosanct and could only be interrupted by something more urgent and approval of the campaign manager.
Money matters and our candidate worked hard to earn campaign donations. Trump doesn’t. He claims to be very, very rich (so why not prove it by releasing his tax returns?) yet he doesn’t invest in his own campaign on the same scale that he marketed his casinos and high-rise condos. Trump is a prodigious Twitter user (it’s a free service, by the way) so why doesn’t he back up his message with paid advertising dollars rather than just tweets?
The fourth “M” of a winning political campaign is mobilization. It’s not last because it is the least important. Mobilization refers to the crucial GOTV — Get Out The Vote.
Even for a local campaign, an army of staffers and volunteers is needed to target and win supporters, and then get them to the polls on election day. This is the so-called “ground game.” It starts early in the campaign by identifying die-hard supporters and undecided voters who can be persuaded to vote for the candidate. Knocking on voters’ doors, making follow-up phone calls and email messages, yard signs and billboards, providing transportation to the polls for supporters is all part of the ground game.
After losing the Iowa caucuses earlier this year, Trump admitted he didn’t know what a “ground game” was. Now with less than a month before the presidential election, he doesn’t have a ground game even in critical battle ground states, including Pennsylvania.
Management, message, money and mobilization are crucial to win any political election. Our campaign believe it, lived by the strategy and we won. The late night drink with the candidate, staff and supporters after our candidate was declared the winner was savory. The M&Ms were even better.
On election night, Nov. 8, a bag of M&Ms will be within my reach, confirmation of how to win a political campaign.
Richard Ringer resides in Uniontown and is the managing director of MW Group, a “virtual” public relations agency. He can be reached at ringer.mwgroup@gmail.com.