I complained to Yoon that while waiting, I had to suffer through three Steve Pagliuca “just an ordinary millionaire’’ ads and two Tom Menino friend-to-all-the-animals commercials. Where’s your stuff, I asked? “We’re not going to be on the air,’’ he lamented. “We’re going to do mail. The strategic advice we got said don’t compete in a medium that you can’t dominate, and we can’t dominate Menino on TV.’’Few things are more annoying to the Dog than when he's so startled that coffee is forced up his sinuses. Here for all you folks out there are rules for (comparatively) underfunded campaigns:
- If you don't have as much media money as your opponent, but you have enough to run TV spots, be creative: go for cable placement, use the sheer creativity of the spots to earn free media (e.g. the Tim for Treasurer spots that Cahill used in '06), make your relative poverty part of your message. If you're slick enough, use it as part of your fundraising message.
- Use your field operation as a means of getting free media: endorsements are nice; endorsements in front of huge cheering crowds are better. The purpose of field is to supply and place the crowd.
- Go to radio. Get booked on whatever talk show will tolerate your presence (making sure to do debate prep for those hosts less than well-disposed to your candidacy). This does not include shows hosted by implacable enemies; however a candidate that holds his own in debating a radio host will tend to get respect in the Boston media market. Get your folks to slice and dice the Boston radio market. Place radio spots.
- Mix and match all the above with print ads in neighborhood newspapers. They're more cost-effective than the dailies and your cheering crowds (see above) look better in a half-page ad than in a palm card insert.
- Use direct mail (targeted whenever possible) to reinforce the above. Vary the mix and repeat as necesary, as conditions allow; and remember:
Most mail pieces are circular-filed unread by their recipients. The purpose of mail is to reinforce a dynamic. In a post-literate society it will not change a preexisting political condition.
Regarding that last point: Republicans traditionally do well with direct mail, but this is because (thanks to years of refining their lists), Repubs are preaching to the converted, and reinforcing their targets' pre-existing biases.
All pure mail does is kill trees, and that looses you the greenie component of the goo-goo vote.
