I guess I been dun seen about ever-thang...
... or a politician who's trying to get elected and isn't 'PR-obsessed'.
The party needs to have credible candidates. Sure, they don't need to be Blair clones - the sort of middle-aged, middle-class PR obsessed clones currently running all three major parties. - link.
'PR obsessed'. It's a facile sneer used by political losers to thumb their noses at political winners, most of all those at those who've been put into Government by the electorate.
It's a favourite with angry wannabes of various stripes: agitators who have never been elected but know they're naturally superior to those who have, and with incumbents awaiting political defenestration at the hands of the enemy. Its deployment is mandatory for Labour Party members and their tame hacks when referring to Tories, obviously.
Being Right (and you know you are... sigh) is not enough. The only way to get elected is to campaign for votes and persuade people that they want you in office rather than the other bastard.
Political Campaigning For Dummies is a slim volume describing how to assess voter perception of you in order to improve it, with any luck to the point at which they might consider not positively ignoring you.
Chapter One deals with finding out whether voters know you exist. It moves on to how to assess your relationship with those who do know you exist and how to advertise the fact to those who don't.
Chapter Two addresses the business of contacting a very large number of people with the aim of getting them to listen to you. This assumes that you have something to say which won't elicit the reflex response of a fart in your general direction.
The next few chapters deal with how to assemble and present your persuasive arguments in terms intelligible to your audience, as opposed to your mates and your mum, which leaves electors pondering their choices. Those choices are:
- You're a complete tosser
- You're not a complete tosser
- You can't be any worse than the current tosser
- You are a tosser but what the fuck. Yeah, all right. Now go away.
The final chapter covers post-election analysis: if you failed to save your deposit, why you failed; why nobody listened, heard the message or voted for you. Or indeed, why you succeeded and how to build on that next time rather than face political death and have to go back to sneering in the wilderness.
We doctors have a technical term for this whole process. We call it 'public relations'. 'PR' for short.
Until well-meaning souls like the Libertarian Party (hearts in the right place and all that) accept the realities of communicating with voters and use appropriate tools and language to do so, they will remain a bunch of unelected complainers and the world remain unenlightened by their gospel.
Do us a favour, Libertarians -- and I say this with our shared best interests at heart -- stop wasting your time bitching enviously about your opponents' PR skills just because (sic) they are vastly superior to your own. Apart from the fact that it's actually a sideways compliment to the victor, it is graceless and deeply unattractive and makes you sound like Roy Hattersley.
Start reading PR manuals yourselves. Maybe then you'll learn how to get people listening to you. With any luck someone may hear what you say (which is not the same thing, by the way) and maybe they'll like it enough to vote for you.
In other words, grow up. Dumbo is a cartoon character. He's not real.
Oh, and best of luck. We Conservatives need you.
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