The 7 Secrets of Political Consultants

Last month I talked about a few things elected officials would probably rather you didn’t know. And since we here at American Majority are all about stripping the political process down, it’s time to do the same for that modern-day priesthood: political consultants. Now, some of my friends make their living in this arena, but I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you both they and I get pretty disgusted with many aspects of their field. So let’s dig in and suss out 7 of their secrets:

1) It’s said the best trick the devil ever pulled was convincing folks he didn’t exist. This is kind of the reverse of Elected Official Syndrome, where a lawmaker wants you to believe in their godlike qualities. Instead, political consultants tend to vanish like gorillas in the mist between campaigns (especially ones like last year’s—where “insiders” are considered persona non grata). But just like that mosquito you can hear buzzing about in a dark room, you know they’re still there.

2) And not only are they still around, they’re calling most of the shots. Lobbyists get all the bad press, but political consultants have created a cottage industry for themselves. That permanent campaign you’re sick to death of? The negative campaigning you hate? Their baby. A political “military-industrial complex” means endless job security for them. Think of them as those walkers just out of camera sight, directing the gigantic Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons around every twist and turn on 34^th Street.

3) Which leads me to the money they make. I’d never say you can win anything except the most local, grassroots races without both an air and a ground war, but you can take it to the bank that no political consultant ever got rich off volunteers or door-knocking. Oddly, these free things rarely end up in a consultant’s campaign plan. Hmm. Consultants get cuts of media buys (mail, too), which is why by the time an election rolls around you can’t even walk to your mailbox or watch Jersey Shore without seeing a gazillion political ads. Some firms in Washington or state capitols even seek out longshot candidates against Nancy Pelosi or her equal every two years, raising millions of dollars by nationalizing the contest, but, mysteriously ensuring 99% (I’m not exaggerating here) of the funds raised get spent on “consulting services”. Can you say “Madoff”?

4) Here’s another dirty little one: sometimes politics is rigged. Meaning the possible outcomes are managed by political consultants before an issue ever goes public. Trial balloons floated in the press, hearings where cherry-picked citizens testify…they can all be part of the game, and one great big last Kabuki dance before a gavel gets slammed down just like it was always going to.

5) This next one drives me nuts. It’s the Inverse Theory of Political Consulting. Or what I call “Failing Upward”. Right this second I can name you six to ten talking heads who haven’t won a race in years, if not decades. Mike Murphy and Robert Shrum come to mind. You see them every week on the nightly and Sunday news shows. And as long as they continue to be a go-to source for reporters and endless quote machines, they’ll find work (and appearances on cable TV).

6) Political consultants are also at times much more interested in padding their own personal creative portfolio (and profits) than in actually doing the right thing to win the race. Take the director behind the famous Christine O’Donnell “I’m not a witch” commercial. The absolute last thing that campaign needed at that moment was more attention drawn to something eccentric the candidate had uttered. Yet say it in a 30-second spot she did, because a political consultant was more concerned with making news and raising his profile than in, as Charlie Sheen would say “winning, duh”, the campaign.

7) And finally, the ultimate secret of political consultants: you can win a race without them. We can argue about if politics is more art than a science, whether “cometh the hour, cometh the man” (or woman) is true, or how much time, talent and treasure gets squandered every single election. But American Majority exists so that you too can cut out this middle man of American politics, just like you do in every other area of your current lives (Web M.D. anyone?) And in the end, especially in our Information Age, there’s just no excuse for not getting trained and cracking the political consultants’ code.