CAMPAIGN JOURNAL : Consultants Gather to Swap Secrets of Success

Displaying a chart that tracked opinion poll figures on the cutting issues of the day, research expert Chuck Rund told a roomful of the nation’s most influential political consultants that the health care issue “may turn out to be one of the real smoking guns of 1992.”

Drugs and crime are out. Lifestyle issues drove the 1990 campaigns but are as passe as Nancy Reagan’s faded red dresses. The economy and health care are in.

The consultants know. And if the candidates are smart, they will listen carefully.

Gathering by San Francisco Bay this weekend for their annual winter meeting, members of the American Assn. of Political Consultants talked about the coming campaigns in the lowest-common-denominator manner of television pitchmen. It’s a dog-eat-dog, competitive game and the consultants, using their own lingo and shorthand, often seemed to reduce the sacred democratic process to slogans akin to that of Prof. Harold Hill in “The Music Man.”

As Hill put it: “You gotta know the territory.”

Indeed, political consulting and campaign management are constant struggles in knowing the territory and selling the product. In this case, the territory is the American electorate. The product is the candidate.

By the bleary hungover morning after the Nov. 3 election, when the tons of computer printouts and voter lists have become mulch-to-be, there will be far more losing candidates than winning ones.

But, if they are smart, all the political consultants will be winners. If any of the 350 or so consultants who gathered here over the weekend doubted the potential of that, it was dispelled when they were shuttled from their Nob Hill hotel to the multimillion-dollar cliff-side home of San Francisco consultant Clint Reilly.

With a stereoscopic living room view of the Golden Gate, Reilly’s three-level home is decorated throughout with the contemporary work of Bay Area artists. The house, artwork, and tasteful, understated furnishings came courtesy of millions of dollars in tribute from political clients to Reilly’s mastery of election campaigns--primarily from the 1988 initiative battle on behalf of the insurance industry.

Reilly is, after all, the consultant who had the audacity to fire his own candidate, telling former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein he no longer could run her 1990 campaign for governor because he did not really think she had her heart in it.

This year, the consultants will be raking in cash despite the recession: by convincing candidates they can win with economic recovery programs that will appeal to voters.

There are no signs of recession within the political consulting industry. This is a growth industry and 1992 will be a big year, with a record number of critical races at risk. In particular, candidates running for the first time--for the new U.S. House seats in California, for instance--will need and seek the expertise of the consultants.

Business will be “very, very active” in California, said Dick Woodward, a partner in the Woodward & McDowell firm in San Francisco, one of the host companies for the conference.

Even so, money for many campaigns will be tight because there will be so much competition for contributions, especially with a presidential campaign, contests for two U.S. Senate seats and seven new House seats in California.

Campaign consulting has become an increasingly technical business in this age of fractured political loyalties, voter apathy or whimsy, and candidate messages that frequently are reduced to eight-second sound bites on the evening television news.

Thus, the members of the consultants’ association attended seminars on such specialties as political law, the impact of direct-mail campaign literature and how to target it for the right voter, gathering signatures for initiative campaigns, polling and--yes, even today--the traditional concept of organizing the political grass-roots.

And at Saturday’s luncheon, the conventioneers heard one of the industry’s pioneering gurus, Matt Reese, give them some secrets to success.

“You’re selling magic,” said Reese, who helped John F. Kennedy win the presidency in 1960 by convincing skeptical West Virginia voters, in a key primary election that spring, that this young Roman Catholic fellow from Massachusetts would make a good national leader.

What Reese meant was that the consultants were selling magic to their prospective employers, the candidates. “They demand it,” he added.

Another of Reese’s tenets is: “You got to make them pay . . . till it hurts, or they won’t listen to you.”

The audience, seemingly from sorry experience, applauded when Reese said: “You need to collect up front.” Candidates can be deadbeats, too.

And if it all sounded like a crass way to talk of the nation’s aspiring leaders and those who choose them, Reese urged the consultants to “believe in quality. You must if you are to last.”

Another of the industry’s pioneers, Joe Napolitan, lamented the quick-hit, negative tone of modern election campaigns and the poor image of consultants.

“It’s no fun anymore,” said Napolitan, a founder of the association who has run campaigns in such diverse places as France and the Sudan.

Consultants must keep the candidate in the forefront, he added.

In fact, during a panel discussion, several consultants blamed the media for some of the shortcomings that often are heaped on the campaign management industry, such as lack of attention to issues and too much doting on poll data and personal spats between candidates.

George Gorton, a consultant to Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, said he and his fellow craftsmen have been forced to compress a candidate’s message into the oft-criticized eight-second sound bite because that is what television wants.

During most of the presentations, the consultants emphasized the technical aspects of their jobs, acknowledged that what really moves voters to vote is the message they get from the candidate, and whether it connects.

During a detailed discussion of direct mail tactics, which have become honed with the use of computers and sophisticated voter surveys, San Francisco consultant Richard Ross said old-time tactics can still work, if they communicate the message.

“It’s very important to remember that you still can win elections in certain places with a potholder,” Ross said.

Possibly recollecting Walter F. Mondale’s ‘Where’s the beef?’ demand of Gary Hart in the 1984 presidential campaign, Ross added: “Always remember, it’s not the motion. It’s the meat.”