Lecture 3 - Political Communications and PR

Our most recent lecture was on Political Communications and Public Relations. In it we discussed issues in political communications such as media management, image management and information management done by political parties. The lecture was really engaging and what I really found interesting was the discussion around how campaign public relations can make or break a political party's chance at winning an election.

The lecture reminded me of an incident that happened back home in the 2005-2006 national elections.

At the outset the Liberals were the expected winners, with very few expecting the Conservatives to win the election. However a lack of a cohesive campaign plan on the Liberal's part and a well-thought out campaign and communications strategy on the Conservative's part led to a defeat for the Liberals. That's just some context though and not my main point. One the crucial blows to the Liberals came in the form of a PR faux pas which badly hurt their image and gave the Conservatives plenty of ammunition to paint the Liberals in a negative light in the media.

Ironically the mistake was made by the Liberal Director of Communications, Scott Reid. When discussing a Conservative initiative to give Canadian parents money for daycare, Scott Reid said that the money would go towards "beer and popcorn".

The quote was in the papers, all over the news next day and taken to mean that the Liberals thought parents were irresponsible and would misuse daycare money. it was a blow to the party's image. The mistake followed the Liberals all the way through the election and because of it they perceived to be elitist and insulting. It was even thought to be one of the main reasons they lost the election.

What struck me about this whole incident was the power of image or of a mistake in regards to image management in deciding a whole election and even a whole country's fate. I think its cause for reflection on how important our roles as PR professionals, especially in the political sphere, has become.

Here is a link to a story about the incident;

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2005/12/11/daycare051211.html