Maneuvering in major political campaigns is all about public relations. This campaign for President has yielded some fascinating PR strategies that have worked at times and more often backfired.
Rudy Giuliani’s strategy to fashion a stump speech that characterized the people of New York as slovenly, out-of-control, criminal liberals bore him the intense animosity of the New York media and the people of this city. Bad move.
Barack Obama has run a brilliant campaign that is patterned after John Kennedy’s run for the White House. Obama, like Kennedy, does not have a slew of concrete accomplishments to promote. He does have a message of hope, change and reconciliation, and a Kennedy-like way of delivering it.
Hillary has her daughter Chelsea.  Those of us who watched the sometimes gawky over-protected little girl in the White House blossom into this shy but poised beautiful young woman feel an instant connection to the candidate that goes beyond her husband.
When Chelsea, in her sweet, soft, authentic voice, speaks about why “my Mom” should be President how do we say no? Chelsea has been an effective campaigner. She is swaying the youth vote in the states where she has been deployed and she is now on the campaign trail full-time. Could she make the difference in this election? Â
 
Valentine’s Day. Apparently this is a real problem – at least a study reveals that finding.
never heard of the band or the club but I had been sweating to find the right place to take my sweetie on the special day. Bizz&Buzz only has 362 subscribers. If it is confined to two neighborhoods by nature it will not grow too big. But it is the arrow in the bullseyes when it comes to hyper local marketing combining traditional (newspaper) and 2.0 (web and email marketing).
With Obama handily defeating Clinton in three primaries yesterday (Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington state), the two Democratic party front runners have nearly identical delegate counts. That means that late-stage primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, May 20, Montana and South Dakota, June 3, take on huge importance. The front-loaded Super Tuesday did not anoint the candidate.
 Comments are turned off for this post in case anybody has an opinion that may be contrary. Picking on publicists, especially when they pitch journalists with legitimate story ideas, is bush league, nasty and speaks more about the complainer. Did Sterling ever snatch a good idea for a story from a PR pitch, or find a source to flesh out a story?
Thomas Jefferson is believed to be the first to coin the term “public relations.” It was 1807 during the seventh annual address to the joint session of the U.S. Congress. Jefferson faced rising aggressions with the British that would eventually lead to war and he was dealing with a “huge” budget of $16 million (that will buy you a decent apartment in New York City these days, considered “cheap” on the world market).
