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Consultant's Corner
Developing Your Campaign Message
By Stacy D. Cole
September 29, 2004
The message of your campaign should give reasons to the voters to vote for you. The message is how you stand on issues (lower taxes, cutting government waste, etc), ideology (liberal vs. conservative, big spending vs. fiscal responsibility), change for the better (right way vs. wrong way,reform vs. the old way) or individual virtues (integrity, accountability, independent thinking). Or, it can be a little of each one.
To begin the analysis of these components, we will begin by looking at a candidates' stances on issues. One of the easiest ways to set yourself apart from your opponent is to look for issues that you differ from your opponent on. He may want to increase spending on education, you may want to increase accountability in the classroom. That is one issue you can highlight.
Ideology is another area that you can highlight as part of your message. If you are more realistic in your solutions against an opponent who may be more ideologically pure, voters will more likely go with the realist. They will vote for someone they feel can get the job done, not just someone who holds to their beliefs, come hell or high water.
If the seat that you are running for has been Democrat-controlled for some time, you can run on the message of change. Speak of how you would change the way things are done now. Speak of a new way of doing something and removing the old, broken down way. Speak of how you feel the area (district, city, state, country) is going the wrong way and how you will propose to change these wrong ways. There are different avenues within this "change" mantra that you can use to your advantage. You just have to find it.
Personal virtues are strong enough to base your message, especially if you are a first time candidate with no legislative record on which to run. Your personal values can be the foundation for your message. For example, your message could be based on integrity and accountability, especially if your opponent has exhibited neither characteristic.
To combine the different parts, lets use an example. Say you are a first time candidate running against a longtime officeholder. For the sake of argument, lets say this person has not met a spending bill they could resist. The first timer can run on a message of accountability, lower taxes, and budgetary restraint. You can emphasize his legislative record of big spending and not an effective caretaker of the people's money. Your new way will lead to more prosperous times for the area (district, city, state, country) for which you are running.
With the different parts of the strategy listed above, you can develop a winning campaign message that is thoughtful and understandable by all.
Good luck!!!!
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