Campaign Strategy 101
A friend of mine is a high-powered campaign consultant. We were once working on a campaign where we were having trouble finding the precise number of times that our opponent had done something bad. He told me that I should just write up my piece with my best estimate. If the opponent had done the bad things more than that, he wouldn't fight it. But if he'd done the bad thing fewer times than my estimate, it would be great. He would say, "I didn't vote to let criminals off easy 22 times! I only did it 20 times!" And then you'd have him confirming something bad. In his own words.
I couldn't help but think of that when I saw this tweet from Byron York yesterday:
@ByronYork OK, 13. RT @politifact: Is Romney right that Obama has raised taxes 19 times? At least 13, many narrowly targeted. http://ow.ly/8pMeu
Oh that Politifact, working so hard to help their man Obama. And then what they did is confirmed something that I didn't even know -- he'd raised taxes 13 times! And since it's Politifact, which is so very biased, if they're admitting he's done it 13 times, it must be -- what -- twice that amount?
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Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Campaign Strategy 101
The best insulation from uncomfortable facts is money. You just drown the uncomfortable facts in a sea of advertising that's full of earnestness and good intentions.
Edited on Jan 12 at 7:40amAug '10
Re: Campaign Strategy 101
Well this is exciting ! Since I live in a town where it is very difficult to buy a copy of the New York Times, I think I'll steal my neighbors delivered copy and read this story when it appears. Any idea when they will be doing a story on Obama's tax increases ? Tomorrow, the next day ?? just looking for an estimate so I don't steal too many issues.
Dec '10
Re: Campaign Strategy 101
All future ads can now include, "According to non-partisan political analysis site Politifact, Obama has raised taxes at least 13 times." The debunker's name now endorses the a version of the claim they set out to debunk.
Apr '11
Re: Campaign Strategy 101
I'm not keen on our side spending money on claims that Politifact is non-partisan, or on making it look so. Better to find a liberal newspaper which prints the story, and then cite to that. People don't need to be told if the NYT is "non-partisan" or not.