Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

John McCain’s presidential campaign was a study in effective crisis management last week.  On Monday, the New York Times and the Washington Post published stories alleging that McCain, who had nurtured the reputation as an independent political maverick, did senatorial favors for a lobbyist with whom his staff thought he might be having a romantic relationship.  
 
If you have trouble following the garbled syntax of the previous sentence, you see why McCain was able to effectively deny the charges.
 
Here’s what McCain did right:
He denied the charge at 9 a.m. the morning the stories were published.  He responded firmly and quickly.
He got his wife – frozen smile and all – to knock down the stories, too.
He counter-attacked the Post and the Times for waging liberal jihad against him.
He enrolled other conservatives who were lukewarm toward his candidacy but unstinting in their suspicion of mainstream media.
 
More important, behind the scenes, McCain loyalists were knocking down the story with such ferocity that by Sunday, six days later, even the Times’ ombudsman wrote that the newspaper should not have published the charge that staff were concerned about the alleged romantic relationship.  The Times and the Post had NO hard evidence of a romantic relationship.  Only one McCain source admitted on the record that the staff was “concerned” about the possibility of a romantic relationship.  That further endeared McCain to conservatives who had been slow to support McCain.
 
We learned in 1992 that voters can overcome their uneasiness about a presidential candidate’s martial fidelity (remember Bill Clinton and Jennifer Flowers?) But they at least expect their candidates to be forceful and unequivocal in their denials.  It endears a candidate to his or her base voters.  And that, more than anything else, is what John McCain needs right now.
 

Earlier this week, I published a commentary  piece in The News & Observer that attempted to capture the commoditization of the political process in the term ‘branditics.' 

In a nutshell, branditics is the fusion of branding and politics that often results in over-simplified messages, bigger-than-life promises and, if the current administration is any indication, a brutal hangover the next morning. 

You may be able sell politicians as brands, but at some point successful candidates have to lead by negotiation and consensus - and that's where being boxed into a brand can cause trouble. 

What does New Hampshire add to this picture?  Well, an oldie but goodie has roared back onto the branditics stage - John McCain driving his Straight Talk Express. 

But the big news is that the fierce back-and-forth of the primary so far is working against branditics.  Obama, Clinton and Edwards will hold each others' poor, sore feet to the fire - making sure there's substance to back up the style.  Ditto the Republicans, who will probably be playing a tough game of catch-up all the way up to election day.      

The polls were right.

"Shock waves" is an overused term in the news media and politics. But that's the only way to describe Hillary's win in New Hampshire.  Just hours before voting ended, polls indicated that Obama was running as much as 10 percentage points ahead.  

What happened, especially in light of John McCain's big win in the Republican primary?  How could the polls have been so right in the GOP race, and so wrong in the Democratic primary?

They weren't.

And there are several reasons why.

The support for Obama in New Hampshire polls was soft and fluid.  Much of the large-scale movement toward Obama was a reflection of his big win in the Iowa caucuses and the tidal wave of favorable media coverage in the days that followed.  The Obama campaign in New Hampshire violated one of Abraham Lincoln's cardinal rules of politics:  don't start believing your own press clippings.

New Hampshire voters are famously irascible, and the Democrats didn't want the race to be over.  Neither did the Republicans, by the way, because they were stingy toward the GOP winner in Iowa, Huckabee.

More than ever, there is more information for voters until the very last minute.  Contrast the 24/7 cable news coverage, not to mention Internet and other communications channels.  Then compare it to elections even four or eight years ago.  Voters get more and later information.  And in this case, whatever late breaking information they absorbed about the Democrat race changed their minds.

Finally, some evidence from exit polls showed that Hillary made some good adjustments between Iowa and new Hampshire.  She attracted a greater share of female and younger voters.

New Hampshire's Democratic outcome is a good reminder of what polls are: a snapshot at a specific time.  Polls are nt a predictor of outcome in a fast-moving, dynamic election campaign where voters are getting multiple messages until decision time.

The polls were right - when they were conducted.  

On to Michigan and South Carolina!