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Friday, October 25, 2002
209 Buck Up, Suck Up is political advice
Anyone thinking of running for political office should buy the book Buck Up, Suck Up . . . and come back when you foul up.
Although the book is written by the two leading Democratic political operatives in the country, James Carville and Paul Begala, the lessons inside it apply to all political candidates.
There are a few sobering things that a beginning politician will read early on.
For example, these guys say you must “work hard.” They pretty well establish by the 224th page, that they have rarely seen a lazy politician who ended up winning.
This year’s Wyoming’s governor race saw lots of hard work by candidates. And yet, I really think the two hardest-working ones were Republican Eli Bebout and Democrat Dave Fruedenthal – and they won their respective primaries.
Bebout seems to have been running for governor for more than five years! And Fruedenthal started full-time on the job more than a year ago.
I ran into him stumping traditional Republican counties like Park and Weston early in the campaign. When I teased him about “what the heck are you doing up here?” – he would always say that he would need their votes in the general election and he hoped they would remember him.
In a busy State Supt. of School campaign, I believe, again, that Trent Blankenship worked harder than his GOP opponents did, as did Kathy Emmons over her Democrat opponents.
Obviously, ability, name recognition, money and a good organization can win elections, but according to these guys, the candidate who works his or her butt off the most, will probably prevail in the end.
Shaking everybody’s hand can get real tiresome during a campaign, and yet, if you do it right – it is magical. If you do it wrong, well, it can be disastrous.
One of our candidates this year had a tendency to shake your hand and be looking over your shoulder for the next person. Man, does that make people mad. I heard about this over and over during the campaign. In those instances, I think that candidate lost more than he gained.
During my campaigning in the Republican Governor primary, I know that I often did that, occasionally, too. But not so after hearing about it again and again.
I will never forget two presidents, both of whom were considered great campaigners. I shook Ronald Reagan’s hand at a White House reception and he made me feel like the only person I the room. I shook Bill Clinton’s hand after a speech he gave in Jackson Hole. He looked me in the eye and made me feel like something special.
Both of these guys had reputations as master communicators and based on my limited experience with both, I would agree with that assessment.
In Wyoming, I would give former Governors Cliff Hansen and Mike Sullivan, as the two best at this skill, although just about everybody else is great, too. You have to be in a small state like Wyoming.
Cliff’s long-time aide Paul Holtz used to brag about how many names Cliff could list when he worked a room. It was amazing. There is another former U. S. Senator who would refer to his “3,000 closest friends” around Wyoming. And that remark was true – or maybe it was 30,000.
Getting back to the book, these guys talked a lot about the difference between strategy and tactics.
You must stay on message as an overall strategy and the tactics you use – are to carry you to that goal. They point out that tactics are easy and strategy is hard.
If you don’t know the difference, you are going to lose.
They say that the public really only cares about four things during a campaign: scandals, gaffes, polls and attacks. They are big fans of negative campaigning, which we are starting to see a lot of in the final weeks of the campaigns.
They list the three most important attributes in a political candidate as perseverance, toughness and tenacity.
Not contrite – In last week’s column, I mis-used the word “contrite” to describe how State Auditor Max Maxfield looked and acted during a debate. After looking up the definition of that word, I can definitely say that Max was NOT being contrite. Sorry about that, Max.
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