Candidates savvy on communication
As a political candidate myself and someone into communication, I’ve been watching with great interest (and admiration) the snappy mailings and slogans of some of the congressional candidates for the fifth district seat. In today’s mail, I received a particularly good one from the Tsongas campaign: It featured three multiple choice answers done in child-like drawing and printing: a=drawing of a school and a tree; b=rough drawing of map with word Iraq; and c=scrawled words: Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. This was followed by the question: “Where would you rather send more of our money?” When you opened the brochure, the adult-typed text read: “On Sept. 4, give our kids the right answer” (the school drawing). “Vote Niki…” etc. It was cute and creative, and it reminded me of another powerful piece I received from the Donoghue campaign about a month ago, which if I recall correctly, had a photo of a young man about to be deployed and the words: “When the Iraq War started five years ago, he was 13 years old.” (As the mother of a 14-year-old son, this one really resonated with me.) I also liked Donoghue’s “no spin, just experience” frisbees and Tsongas’ cardboard “Niki Tsongas fan” fans that were distributed at the Folk Festival. Obviously, there’s an edgy polish and professionalism to these campaigns that surpasses the political fare we get from councilor and school committee races where limited funding prohibits hiring expensive outside firms to write and design your political communication (including radio and newspaper ads). I like to think the Committee to Elect Jackie Doherty has done well in this area, and as firm believers that quality doesn’t always mean expensive, we will be raising our own bar on campaign communication to come.