Welcome to the blog of Dr. Lisa Burns' Political Communication: Election 2016 course at Quinnipiac University. If you are looking for insights on political campaign communication and the 2016 U.S. presidential election, you've come to the right place!
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Consultants, Pundits & Polls – Tuesday, October 25th
What role are consultants, pundits,
special interests, and polls playing in this election? Offer an example of the
impact each group has had on the 2016 presidential campaign.
Although the election appears to be all about the candidate, outside forces that influence and shape the dynamic of the campaigns have as much, if not more credit in the running of a campaign. Consultants, polling, donors and special interests, and political pundits all bring something of importance to a campaign. For example, “political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and utilizing direct mail, preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate, mounting a fund-raising campaign, and establishing and utilizing an Internet website” (Trent, 285). The way that consultants help their campaigns and clients is extremely pivotal to a campaign. Take the Donald Trump campaign, for example; they have tossed several advisors and consultants out of the back door, but according to “Kellyanne Conway’s Political Machinations” by Ryan Lizza, Conway has practically kept the campaign afloat. Conway had “brought the race to a near-tie” just four days before the first debate. It appeared that during a speech, “Trump, reading from a teleprompter, sounded almost like a conventional politician as he spoke about ‘breaking up the special-interest monopoly’ and described America as ‘a nation of strivers, dreamers, and believers.’ Conway was being lauded as the ‘Trump whisperer’—the only person who could persuade him to prepare for his crucial showdown with Clinton.” Therefore, Conway’s role has completely reshaped the Trump campaign in a way that no other consultant before her could.
Polls also have the ability to shape and influence elections as “the accuracy of polls will also play a role in the 2016 presidential elections. With a crowded Republican field for the nomination, sponsors of the early Republican debates announced that the criteria for being invited to participate in the debates would include standing in public opinion polls. Both Fox News and CNN, sponsors of the first two debates, planned to limit participation to only the top ten candidates in an average of national public opinion polls.” (Campaigns, 70) Therefore, polls influence the ability for politicians to even have a voice, or show the people some form of approval rating. Without a certain percentage of public approval, candidates can’t even vocalize their campaign goals on the debate stage, making it harder to be heard or seen by the population. For example, in this election season, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson gained a significant following for a third party candidate, and many wished to watch him take the debate stage next to Clinton and Trump. However, he did not gain enough points in the polls to see himself pushed into the limelight. Therefore, he has remained a mystery to a majority of America, and hasn’t been able to gain more of a following since the debates.
Donors certainly have a large hand in the running of a campaign. Although candidates and their team do not show it, but the more money they get from a wealthy donor, the more likely that candidate will push for the issues of that donor once they are in office. According to “Meet the wealthy donors who are pouring millions into the 2016 election” by Anu Narayanswamy, “Many of the biggest super PAC donors have spread around their money, financing multiple super PACs that back presidential hopefuls and congressional candidates. They hail from various sectors, fueled by fortunes made in the energy industry, on Wall Street and in health care.” Therefore, it is fairly easy to assume that the candidates will give more time to focusing on the issues that affect those donors rather than the middle class Americans. One of the top donors, for example, is Tom Steyer, who is a Democrat funneling his money into a climate change focused Super PAC, which is likely what has shaped Clinton’s rhetoric surrounding climate change; on her website, she states that climate change “is an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time. It threatens our economy, our national security, and our children’s health and futures. We can tackle it by making America the world’s clean energy superpower and creating millions of good-paying jobs, taking bold steps to slash carbon pollution at home and around the world, and ensuring no Americans are left out or left behind as we rapidly build a clean energy economy.”
Pundits also have a hand in how campaigns’ election bids run. However, our current pundit situation doesn’t accurately reflect the demographic of America. According to “Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked,” by Robin Lally, “women make up more than half of the population, comprise 53 percent of the electorate, and for the first time in history a woman is at the top of a major political party’s presidential ticket, you might think that the female political perspective would be a large part of this season’s nonstop cable news coverage. But you’d be wrong. Men outnumber women significantly in cable news political punditry, according to research being conducted by TheEagleton Institute’s Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers.” Therefore, the voices and opinions are heard the most, whereas the voices and opinions of women are dulled out. This can be seen in the current polls, as broken down by gender; according to Nate Silver of Five Thirty Eight, Trump would win 350 electoral votes to Clinton’s 188 if women did not vote. Could this be the result of a majority of male pundits voicing their opinions to the population? Lally writes that Gina Glantz, the co-founder of Gender Avenger, believes that women and their opinions are excluded and underrepresented in the election on television shows and during the post-election analysis. She beieves that “it was a stunning omission especially four years after Americans elected the first black president and four years after Hillary Clinton spoke about making cracks in the glass ceiling.” Therefore, outside political forces have just as much ability to hurt or help a campaign, but without them, the election would not be as dynamic and interesting as it is.
Trent, Judith, S, et al. Political Campaign Communication. 8th ed., New York, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
Silver, Nate. "Election Update: Women Are Defeating Donald Trump." Five Thirty Eight, Word Press, 11 Oct. 2016, fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-women-are-defeating-donald-trump/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2016.
Lizza, Ryan. "Kellyanne Conway's Political Machinations." The New Yorker, Conde Nast, 17 Oct. 2016, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/kellyanne-conways-political-machinations. Accessed 23 Oct. 2016.
Nelson, Candice contributor. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge. 3rd ed., Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publications, 2016.
Narayanswamy, Anu Narayanswamy. "Meet the wealthy donors who are pouring millions into the 2016 elections." The Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/ superpac-donors-2016/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2016.
"Join the official campaign—and help stop Donald Trump!" Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America, www.hillaryclinton.com/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2016.
Almost everything about this election has been out of the ordinary, even the use of consultants, pundits, special interests and polls by both campaigns. To get a candidate elected has created a special job market based around these four concepts for qualified people. In this election we’ve seen just how vital or adverse things like low polling and unqualified consulting can be. When you put all four together they contribute to a campaign “getting out the vote.” Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, mentions that “The conversion of big data, social media, and traditional get-out-the–vote efforts has reinvigorated the role of turnout operations by parties and campaigns to the most significant level in more than fifty years (Semiatin 88).” In this election pundits have not only been incredibly visible for both Trump and Clinton throughout mass media, but they’ve also developed social media followings. Not only are they in round table discussions throughout the day but they can also send out tweets. Kayleigh McEnany, a Trump supporter and pundit has 56,900 followers on twitter. The Daily Mail even wrote a news article on her entitled, “The election star even more divisive than Trump! Meet 28-year-old analyst Kayleigh McEnany who is driving the internet berserk with her pro-Donald election views.” Kayleigh is an example of a visible Trump supporter who defends Trump on a daily basis and has a following but isn’t affiliated with the Trump campaign. Polling can be used to gage just how effective a candidate’s campaigning is but can also give a campaign information on voters and how to tailor their GOTV strategies. Campaign surveys can tell a candidate a lot about their voter base. “Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics,” states that “any campaign with sufficient money uses polls these days. The level of the office being sought doesn’t matter.” It’s clear that the Clinton campaign uses pollsters when it comes to ad targeting and demographics. Whereas the Trump campaign seems to only use/favor polls when they favor the Trump campaign. According to the text Political Campaign Communication, the role of political consultants is to “provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate etc. (Trent et al. 285).” The Trump campaign has used some high profile untraditional names; they’ve also not kept many around for very long. For instance, for the debates Trump turned to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Governor Chris Christie and former Fox news CEO Roger Ailes. The Clinton campaign consultants are less high profile and more a part of her inner circle. People she’s worked with for years that she trusts. Special interest groups are formed around and convey specific ideologies and policies. Special interests have been a hot topic in this election. The donors help to fund each candidate’s “war chest” of money so to speak. Clinton has vowed to take on gun lobbyists if she becomes President. Clinton has been backed by numerous special interest groups in the past, something that her opponent back in the primary’s Bernie Sanders never failed to bring up. Consultants, pundits, special interests and polls come together to aid campaigns. They’re valuable entities that by way of strategic communication help to build a candidate’s “brand.”
WORKS CITED Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
External influences always affect campaigns. Polls, pundits, consultants, and special interests are all outside factors that have a way of influencing a campaign in one way or another. Some significantly, and some not so much.
Consultants are one group of experts who can offer helpful strategy, report on trends, and buy media space. Donald Trump, at least in the early days of his campaign, got by without consultants. Indeed, The New York Times reported in December that Trump was ranked ninth in the GOP race in terms of consulting spending, yet amassed 39% of poll support. This is unprecedented in presidential elections. By contrast, Jeb Bush spent $52 million in the same time period, and as we know ultimately dropped out. As the article put it, “Mr. Bush’s difficulties show that giving voters a steady diet of television ads is great for the consulting industry, but it offers diminishing returns for the candidate and turns off some voters in the process. Political consultants are not entirely to blame for this state of affairs, but they do benefit from a flawed system that they helped create.” It’s apparent that consultants have been able to help propel certain candidates to the next level, but fail to navigate through uncharted waters like the arrival of Trump to the party spotlight.
Polls are another external factor that greatly affects the atmosphere and morale of a campaign. Polls were figures Trump was boastful about during the primaries. He did indeed lead by substantial margins through the primary process, and was a major component of the stump speeches he would give, and was a common line in his interviews. When polls are good, it can be an indication for a campaign to focus energy or attention to other areas, like down-ballot races. Hillary is focusing on down-ballot elections in North Carolina this week as a result of her favorable poll numbers there. Aside from serving as an indicator of voters’ attitudes, polls also give the media something to talk about. They are a great conversation starter and are useful in demonstrating reaction to scandal like Trump’s leaked Access Hollywood tapes. His numbers dropped nearly four points since the release, according to the RealClearPolitics national aggregate. In other singular polls, his numbers plunged even further. Some polls are better than others however. FiveThirtyEight.com has been instrumental in rating the best pollsters from around the country. Our own Quinnipiac poll (which I worked at for a year) boasts a rating of A-, with good data collection tactics and very good predictability accuracy.
Both campaigns have been plagued by special interest groups. Although Trump used to brag about taking money from no one and financing his own campaign, that fairytale has long been put to bed. He has certainly been accepting money from PACs and special interests, and this was bound to happen to him, especially because he quit “self funding.” Clinton is guiltier of accepting special interest money, and has amassed over $100 million from corporations alone this election cycle. This troubles many Americans, and skepticism exists about what kind of favors Clinton (or God forbid Trump) might owe these entities, or what kind of favors or exemptions would exist in return if they get to the White House. The Washington Post reports that Donald Sussman has contributed over $23 million dollars to the Clinton campaign. This is why many people would like to see the Supreme Court ruling of Citizens United overruled.
Pundits are the wildest and most easily observable group this election cycle. They are “experts” who will promote their party or candidate ‘til their last dying breath. All pundits receive handsome sums from media networks to deliver their unabashed perspectives, but Trump’s pundits really stand out as absurd in their own right. Corey Lewandowski was ousted from the Trump campaign many months ago, over what was believed to be fierce internal conflict. He is now making over $500k this year from CNN to appear on their panels daily. It is remarkable to me how he can still throw his support to a candidate who he probably had a multitude of disagreements, but I guess as the old saying goes: money talks. GOP pundits do exist this election cycle, but I’ve been noticing that they have been finding it increasingly difficult to back Trump during this election, which is demonstrative of the impending implosion of the GOP that I predict to take place.
"RealClearPolitics - Election 2016 - General Election: Trump vs. Clinton." RealClearPolitics - Election 2016 - General Election: Trump vs. Clinton. N.p., 24 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." The New York Times, 30 Dec. 2015. Web.
Williams, Aaron. "Meet the Wealthy Donors Who Are Pouring Millions into the 2016 Elections." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
It’s obvious that consultants, pundits, special interest groups, and polls have played a vital role in this election for both of the candidates. Without all of these individuals/groups, the candidates would have a very difficult time getting elected, but, at the same time, these individuals/groups would not have a purpose without the candidates. This election, the role of these individuals/groups has been to make sure that the American people “get out the vote”. “Get out the vote” is a phrase that’s been thrown around a lot this election because more and more people, especially millennials have decided not to vote. One way campaigns are doing this is by making voting more accessible for voters. Semiatin, the author of Campaigns on the Cutting Edge states that, “While new digital technologies have been criticized as being impersonal in other modes of life, in campaigns they have actually been used to increase personal contact. As former baseball catcher Yogi Berra once said: ‘It’s déjà vu all over again.’ A déjà vu that is helping to reinvigorate voter participation” (Semiatin 88). I think that this statement really shows what affect consultants can have on the election. Additionally, pundits have been recognized as being very important for both the Clinton and Trump campaign’s this year. One avenue that pundits have use to have a major impact on the election and be a voice for their political parties would be through the use of Twitter. For example, Sean Hannity, a huge pundit for Donald Trump is always tweeting negatively about Hillary Clinton in the hope that voters will see these posts and be more willing to change who they are voting for. One tweet that Hannity made on October 21st had to do with the Hillary Clinton email wiki leaks, https://twitter.com/politico/status/789648235795247105. With the election coming to an end soon, we can expect there to be a lot of polls coming out, which could affect voting behavior and help voters make up their mind, especially this election. According to Neil Malhotra of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and David Rothschild of Microsoft Research, “greater numbers of voters are searching for the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ when they evaluate poll results, and that the opinion of experts matters more to them than that of their peers” (Snyder et al). I also think that not only can polls help voters decide who to vote for, but they can also help candidates learn about their voters, if they have the money. I think it’s pretty obvious that the Clinton campaign has spent money on polls to help curate their advertisements so that they have the biggest impact on voters.
Next we have political consultants, which are there to do anything to ensure a candidates victory in an election. In Political Campaign Communication, a full service political consulting firm “can provide clients with virtually all of these services (speech writing, commercials, debate preparation, etc.), thought it may well specialize in a more limited number” (Trent et al. 285). When comparing Donald Trump’s use of political consultants to Hillary’s, it’s obvious that Trump has relied on people well known by the public such as Chris Christie, while Hillary has relied on people that have been extremely involved in her political career. Lastly, special interest groups are there to help raise money for the campaigns to be used to achieve victory in the election. In this years election, Donald Trump said he was funding his entire campaign, but that’s not true at all considering the amount of money that’s been donated to him and Hillary has also been donated a lot of money from various special interest groups.
WORKS CITED
Politico. "WikiLeaks Emails Show Clinton and Advisers Calling Liberal Heroes “puritanical,” “pompous,” “naive” and “dumb” Https://t.co/M9xo31jE8m." Twitter. Twitter, 22 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Snyder, Bill. "How Polls Influence Behavior." Stanford Graduate School of Business. Stanford University, 30 Oct. 2012. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
If you had asked me this very question to at the beginning of the year, I definitely would have told you that I had no idea. I would have had no idea what the roles of these various parties were, and in some cases pundit I wouldn’t have even known what you were talking about. That being said, with my newfound knowledge on some of these groups I can see each has played a large and impactful role on this election in particular.
Starting with consultants, it is very easy to see in this election, maybe more than others how consultants have played an important role in this election. In chapter 10 of the Trent et al. book Political Campaign Communications it is said that “Virtually every political candidate from George Washington’s day forward, has turned to a group of advisors for advice on getting elected and often advice for governing” (Trent et al. 282). So it seems reasonable that candidates can have consultants, however it can also go wrong for them. Particularly with Trumps campaign he has been switching consultants constantly, firing them and hiring new ones which is leading to some mixed signals from his campaign.
Secondly, pundits have played an important year in this election cycle. I had especially no idea what a pundit was before this class, however I am now very aware that it is the person who is an expert in their field and is often called to give their opinion on matters related to their field, so for the case of this election, political pundits are very important or at least ubiquitous. By that I mean you can’t go onto the YouTube trending page without seeing Pundit so-and-so gets into an argument with Insert a major news networks journalists name here. I can’t say this always means their helping a candidate (and I don’t mean that in the sense of the pundits working for a campaign). However, pundit commentary in the 24hr news cycle can be effective to sway voter’s opinions.
Next there are special interest groups. Special interest groups can be extremely beneficial to a campaign when they help out appropriately. Especially when they help with advertisements. For instance Trumps NRA campaign has over 2 million views, debatably a good number of views for a political ad.
Lastly, polls have also played a large part in this election, where it be used by the media or referenced by candidates. Polls though are not always trust worthy, especially online polls. With online polls anyone can vote as many times as they want. What is significantly more trustworthy is phone polling. Personally, I have worked for a political poll (The Quinnipiac Poll) so when reading the chapter on polling in chapter 5 of the Campaigns on the Cutting Edge written by Candice J. Nelson about polling a lot of what she was saying seemed familiar to me. It was stated in that chapter that, “[With Phone surveys a typical] response rate of between 8 and 12 percent, estimates are that pollsters need to call ten times the number of phone needed to get a sufficient sample” (Nelson 62). This rung really true to me with how many phone calls I must have made when working at the polling center. Phone polls are very hard to carry out and I will always have a respect for them because of it. However, in relation to the campaign polls can be very helpful for candidates to see where they can improve their campaign strategies.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016. Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
The 2016 election has been chaotic and unorthodox as a whole, but still contains many of the classic aspects of a political campaign. Both sides still require political consultants to help guide the candidates through the grind of the election process. The political consultant has a plethora of jobs that include, managing television ads, social media and speech coaching. Even though these consultants work behind the scenes, “there is no denying the significant impact that these consultants have on the political advertising process” (Trent et al 288). However the political consultant can only guide the candidate, a dilemma that can be clearly seen within the Trump campaign. Looking at Trump’s speeches in particular we can see the working of a political consultant. The beginnings of Trump’s debate speeches seem calm and collective, often staying to a very well planned theme. However Trump’s character and fiery temper seem to take the workings of his speech-writing consultants and flush them down the drain. Look no further than his “bad hombre” line from the most recent debate. This was Trump going off course from the speech-writing specialist’s plan and it led to disastrous results. Pundits are always a factor in the political campaign process due to the “horse race” mentality that campaigns often take. The big question is “who is winning” and after debates “who won”. Insight from the pundits helps the public form a general sense of who is winning at certain points in the campaign. The pundits this year have often been in favor of Clinton’s rhetoric, due to its less self-destructive nature as opposed to Trump. Even supporters of Trump like Bill O’Reilly have created some problematic scenarios for him. Trump struggled mightily in an interview with O’Reilly after O’Reilly refused to let Trump shy away from questions. Both candidates have received support from certain groups that align with there views. Trump has been proud of his endorsement from the NRA and some of the nation’s police forces. However Hillary has amassed a much more vocal following of special interest groups. She has often gained groups by turning Trumps words against him. Trump’s hateful words have driven groups like The Human Rights Campaign into the arms of Hillary. She can now mobilize the individuals of a group like this to vote for her. She has also seen surrogate speakers from this special interest group like Lena Dunham, who has been trying to influence the LGBT community to support Hillary. When interest groups endorse a candidate, the ideas of the group are also linked to the candidate. This creates larger reach ability for a candidate as they try to sweep up undecided voters. Finally in the data driven age of the modern world, polls have become an obsession amongst many people. They provide the data that fuels the “horse race” of a campaign. The polls currently have Clinton ahead, but polls released by CNN/ORC show a slight tightening of the race again. Polls provide optimism and doom as they can help enhance the mood of a campaign. The recent tightening of the race may give Trump supporters more optimism. However FiveThrityEight shows that Clinton is still far ahead. The challenge of polls is that often the most effective method is telephone, but with the increasing growth of cell phone us creates many issues. For example “Cell phones don’t have area codes and the landline codes represent specific geographic area”(Nelson 63). This would skew data when trying to map out demographics and locations that support a candidate. Polls will continue to adapt as many are trying to go online, however their influence on the political process is still important.
Work Cited
Nelson, Candice., Semiatin,R. J., Graf, J. “Campaign Press Coverage-Changed Forever.” In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge. 3d. ed., Richard J. Semiatin, ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 2016.
Trent, J. S., Friedenberg, R. V., Denton Jr., R. E. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Consultants, pundits, special interest and polls all play an interesting and important role in elections. They help influence voters to vote for a certain candidate. Consultants can offer a lot to a candidate such as targeting voters, using radio and television commercials, writing speeches, preparing for debates, running a fund raising campaigning and utilizing the internet (Trent et all 285). Donald Trumps consultants definitely have their plates full this election. In Adam Sheingate article The Political Consultant Racket gives big insight on the world of political consulting and it all revolves around money. In December 2015 Hillary Clinton had spent about $13 million on media consultants. (Sheingate 2015). Hillary Clinton’s media consultants have definitely showcased great commercials that are powerful, viral and have a lasting impact. Polling is a very confusing concept this election season; every major media outlet is posting their own polls and well as the candidates are posting polls. It gets very confusing to understand which polls are truly accurate. Polls definitely influence people and help them understand where their candidate sits in the polls. Polling can also help 3rd party candidates get their voice heard. “The accuracy of polls will also paly a role in the 2016 presidential election” because there is a strict criteria for getting into presidential debates, the candidate has to be polling at a certain percentage in order to appear in the debate. During the primary there were a large amount of republican candidates but only so many could be on the stage for the election so Fox News and CNN limited it to the top 10 candidate “in an average of national public opinion polls”. (Semitatin 77) Pundits have a big influence in this campaign. A huge issue right now that I hear about almost every time CNN is on is that the media has too much influence on the voter. The media seems to have united against Trump. People who are suppose to be experts in politics are voicing their opinions and sometimes in a bias way to almost influence the voter. I can’t help but agree that pundits in the media play a huge role in voter decisions. Every media source covering the election has a negative opinion on Trump, which is going to influence people to not vote for him this election. I wouldn’t got as far to agree with Trump that they are rigging the election, but I do believe they have a strong influence.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." New York Times 30 Dec. 2015. Web. Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015. Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
In any campaign, consultants, special interests, pundits and polls play a vital role in the outcome of an election. This year, the external forces have been especially hard at work. Political consultants are a driving factor in each campaign. According to Political Campaign Communication, “the consulting profession has grown rapidly in the past 3 decades because it has provided candidates with highly desired services,” (Trent 284). Some these services according to Trent include “help in targeting voters, establishing a prescient organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and using radio and television commercials, etc.,” (285). Preparing and using radio/tv commercials is significant because a large amount of campaign’s budget is put towards advertising. Adam Sheingate from the New York Times writes, “Political consultants earn fees and commissions by turning the billions of dollars given to candidates, political parties and “super PACs” — like Mr. Bush’s Right to Rise — into the products and services of contemporary campaigns, especially TV (and Internet) ads,” (Sheingate 1). The oversaturation of advertising from each candidate indicates that this election is absolutely outspending previous ones in terms of political consultants.
The use of special interest groups is related to campaign spending on advertising because are the main benefactors for it. The Center for Responsive Politics reports, “The big money is in super PACs and other outside groups devoted to boosting a single candidate, which can solicit unlimited donations and later use the funds to pummel rivals – and, as seems to be happening this cycle, take on some of the duties traditionally handled by a campaign,” (1). Throughout the campaign, one of Trump’s main criticisms is of Hillary Clinton’s donors. According to Jonathon Swan from the Hill, “Clinton’s campaign and her top allied super-PAC, Priorities USA, raised more than $618 million from the time she entered the race last April through to the end of September, according to The Hill's analysis of FEC reports,” (Swan 1). When special interest groups funds the candidate’s campaign, they are anticipating influencing public policy. By buying advertisements and even running their own, interest groups are influencing voter decisions as well.
Pundits are also particularly useful in media to contribute to the political conversation. So called ‘experts’ are brought onto TV programming and share their views and commentary on whatever issue is relevant. In my opinion, I think that the use of pundits is important this year because more people than usual are paying attention to the election based on its nontraditional nature. These people aren’t politically sophisticated therefore they look to pundits to explain the on goings in a way that’s understandable of them. There is an inherent bias from the pundit, therefore viewers can be influenced from this discussion and form their own judgments on the candidates.
Lastly, polls are important in the campaign both the candidate, voters and the donors. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge suggests in regards to Mitt Romney’s loss in the 2014 elections, “uncertainties about how to conduct accurate polls likely played a role,” ( Semiatin 70). The candidates utilize the polling data to demonstrate the levels of support or favorability towards them. It also gives voters the satisfaction of knowing who’s winning or losing, like a horse race. Lastly, it restores confidence or fear in donors to support their candidate. It acts as if it’s a predictability factor on whether or not they’ll get their moneys worth. With two weeks of the election left, FiveThirtyEight reports, “It’s tempting to say that voters have made up their minds and that the presidential vote is set. Hillary Clinton has a 6.6-percentage-point lead in the popular vote and an 87 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, according to our polls-only forecast. A week ago, those numbers were about the same: a 6.4-point lead and an 85 percent chance. In our polls-plus forecast, Clinton’s chances are 84 percent, up only slightly from 82 percent a week ago,” (Silver 1). This shows that attitudes towards the candidates for the most part are becoming stagnant. Because the Clinton campaign has more money to spend, they are able to create and run the best commercials specially targeted at a demographic she wants to reach. Overall, the 2016 election has been out of the ordinary, yet campaigns are still utilizing typical strategies in the final days to secure their candidate a win.
Consultants on both sides of the election are helping their candidate get elected. The candidates need to have other people they can rely on for a multitude of things like getting the vote out, developing a message and getting their message across. Political Campaign Communication talks about how prevalent the team of advisors is, “Virtually every political candidate, from George Washington’s day forward, has turned to a group of advisors for advice on getting elected and often for advice on governing” (282). This is why even after the election whoever wins the presidency has advisors called “The Cabinet” to help with decision-making. This is too big of a job for just one person to run that’s why the candidate needs a team to help shape their message.
The Trump campaign has had trouble with their consultants a few times. Trump is different than the usual candidate because it seems that he wants to be able to do it all himself, which is why he has had so many different Campaign Managers. There has been Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort, and currently Kellyanne Conway. Each of them have left for different reasons that all seem like it has been how much they should let Trump be Trump.
Also helping to shape a candidate’s message are the special interest groups. One special interest group playing a role in 2016, and in most years, is the NRA. The NRA is putting out attack ads against Hillary Clinton because they are threatened by her stance on guns. They also endorsed Trump because they want to help change his platform on it and give life to their cause.
Doing surveys and research are one way the campaign consultants can figure out who to target to get them to vote. The Trump campaign uses online surveys distributed to people on their email list. According to Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, there are quite a few problems with doing surveys this way, “One, online surveys are not random, and two, the size of online panels for anything other than national surveys is too small,” (65). Trump’s campaign has asked his supports who won the debate, what to talk about in future debates, and even how he should talk about Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. These are flawed numbers because the people most likely to respond to these surveys are going to favor Trump as a candidate.
Polls done by national organizations though do not have these same flaws. They are conducted using science and math to try to predict the outcome in the General Election. Now not all polls should be taken at their face value. They each have different methods to predict the finale of the election, which means they will get slightly different results. The best way to figure out is to take an average of the polling numbers. State polling is much more valuable than the National polls because the national polls are too broad. State polls can figure out much more accurately figure out what the state is going to decide. In the primary, pundits said that polls were way off, but reality they were pretty spot on. A pundit’s job is to give their input based on their experience in politics.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
The commitment and degree in which these individuals affect the campaigns on such a deep level cannot be ignored. The (typically less informed) general-public may even begin to simple equate a certain celebrity with a particular campaign that he or she promotes/belongs to. This, granted, may come off as a positive or a negative. The Trump campaign, for example, seemingly has been having difficulties with their surrogates for some time now. Rudy Giuliani for example may be seen as both a positive and a negative for the Trump campaign. His expertise and reputation as being responsible for cleaning up the streets of NYC both lead to positives being drawn. Yet, his hot-headedness draw negative comparisons to the Donald himself. The Trump campaign does have some positive/notable surrogates fighting for him, including, but not limited to: Rupert Murdoch and Wayne LaPierre. Rupert Murdoch is worth almost 12 billion and is the owner and CEO of News Corp. – whom owns Fox News. Many upper-middleclass and wealthy individuals look to him with respect. Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Rifle Association, is looked upon for 2nd Amendment guidance from 4.5-5 million gun NRA members. The impact of having a high majority of gun owners vote for one candidate is incredible; an impact very equitable to that of the entire U.S. Jewish population. Of course, it was not seen as a positive when David Duke, former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, supported Trump.
Similarly, the Hillary Clinton camp has its own share of both positive and negative surrogates. Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama are both valiantly fighting for the sake of Clinton camp. Barack is trying to use his appeal to black voters and minorities, meanwhile Bernie is attempting to move his group from his own camp, to that of Hillary’s. Barack campaigning for Clinton may be originally seen as a great idea, to have the incumbent supporting you – sadly, this is definitely not the case with Obama’s approval ratings barley hovering above 50% as of late. Mark Cuban, initially a huge positive, is lately coming off as hot headed and engulfed by the liberal media and pop culture [I also believe Amy Schumer is the definition of horrible].
Through the use of surrogates, campaigns are extending themselves to reach voters that maybe would have otherwise been unmoved or uninformed.
Consultants, pundits, special interests and polls all play their vital role in the presidential election process and especially in this year’s election. These all play a secondary roles in the election process where they aren’t necessarily the candidates themselves speaking or making decisions, but they affect the candidate's campaign process tremendously by providing various means of support and give a specific analysis on the election. In Political Campaign Communication, it’s stated of consultants, “Whether it is a consultant who specializes in setting up phone banks, coaching political debaters, or producing television advertisements, consultants provide the campaign with a better run on its dollars.” (Trent et al. 288) These advisers of sorts have a broad range of specialities where they can contribute to the campaign and help the candidate to progress. This year’s candidates have had numerous consultants whether that be Trump’s various campaign managers he’s gone through or Clinton’s own husband Bill Clinton. A large portion of their campaign funds have gone into employment as noted by the Associated Press, “Clinton’s payroll topped 800 people, coming in as her second-highest expense of the month, about $5.5 million. Trump paid roughly 350 employees and consultants.”
Pundits play a different role where their expertise is more to educate the audience and with the amount of media coverage we’ve seen in this election, we’ve heard a lot from various pundits. What they do is to help the public form an opinion on where each candidate is at in the overall campaign race as well as give their opinion as to who is “winning”. For instance, many political pundits have taken to Twitter to live tweet their reactions throughout and give their various thoughts on the debates overall. An example being political analyst Lisa Boothe tweeting, “@realDonaldTrump won the debate tonight. This election just keeps getting crazier. #debates2016.”
Special interest groups usually contribute in two ways, one being in a promotional aspect and the other a financial one. For example, while Trump has received large support over his campaign from the NRA. They’ve provided him with numerous financial aids through helping to fund advertisements and even create their own in support and in opposition of Hillary Clinton. Clinton has mainly received a lot of negative criticism (mainly from Trump himself) as to her funding where she’s received millions in donations towards Super PAC’s from various wealthy business ventures. As reported by the Washington Post, “Nearly half of the financial sector donations made to support Hillary Clinton’s current presidential run have come from just two wealthy financiers: billionaire investor George Soros, who gave $7 million last year to the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA Action, and hedge-fund manager S. Donald Sussman, who gave the group $2.5 million.”
Polls provide a certain satisfaction to voters and media outlets because they give them statistical data that allows them to see where their candidate is at in the overall race.Not only this but it gives something for the candidate themselves to promote largely when giving stump speeches or posting on social media. Now polls themselves may not always simply predict the winner, but they give a good idea depending on the poll. As Nate Silver states, “polls that employ more expensive methodologies, and abide by higher levels of disclosure and transparency, tend to be more accurate than those that don’t. It may be that the best polls are roughly as accurate as ever but that the worst polls are increasingly far off the mark.” The polls in this year’s election have seemingly been all over the place and rather close at points throughout this election. However, following the presidential debates, many news outlets focused their reports on Trump’s large drop in the polls.
Trent, J. S., Friedenberg, R. V., Denton Jr., R. E. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Author Unknown. “Trump, Clinton campaigns spent more than $150 million on campaigns in September”. Associated Press. 10.06.16. Web.
Lisa Boothe. “Who Won? Pundits Weigh In On The Second Clinton-Trump Debate”. Fox News Insider. 10.09.16. Web.
Gold, Matea. Hamburger, Tom. Narayanswamy, Anu. “Clinton blasts Wall Street, but still draws millions in contributions”. The Washington Post. 02.04.16. Web.
Silver, Nate. “The State of the Polls, 2016.” FiveThirtyEight.com. 06.02.16. Web.
Pundits, Consultants, Special Interest groups and Polls have a vital role in this year’s 2016 Election. They are all key assets to winning because without each select group success is not possible. Political Pundits provide a broad political view to certain demographics to mass audiences. Consultants are in my opinion the most vital area to a candidate’s Presidential push, mainly because of how they present their candidate on stage or in speeches and in other public ways. Special Interest groups have been very outspoken in this year’s election and that is very important because they can help swing undecided voters toward voting. The polls have been very tricky and are truly in my mind the most corrupt false thing out there. They put a number in the voters heads that if they don’t like it almost makes it seem as though their vote wont change anything and that is not what candidates want.
Donald Trump has had a tough time with political pundits, even his own conservative buddy Bill O’ Reilly. It seems as though Trump just cant shut up, every chance he gets to go on air and apologize he avoids it or makes it seem as though what he has done isn’t so bad and political talk shows blast him for it. This allows them to talk negatively about him and ruin his reputation worse then he does. Pundits target certain demographics that could potentially help candidates and gain them voters, so this component is very important for candidates to keep on their good side. Hillary Clinton has done a better job on talk shows despite some tough questions that she had been asked about her crazy history.
Consultants can ultimately make a candidate and date back to our first president George Washington. According to Judith S. Trent, in Political Campaign Communication, “Virtually every political candidate, from George Washington’s day forward, has turned to a group of advisors for advice on getting elected and often for advice on governing.” Consultants are a huge deal and if you’re Hillary Clintons you have to love what she is doing. Hillary has played by her script and listens to her advisors very well; she is always prepared and does what is needed to make Trump look like a buffoon. If you are Trump’s advisors, you must be pulling your hair out. The guy cannot focus on a question for the life of him. Trump did a very poor job during the debates at performing the task at hand, which was to mainly answer questions. He failed to listen to his advisors by preparing for the debates so that he had some knowledge on how to properly debate. A lack of preparation has shown that Trump had not listened to his advisors where as Hillary focused on the task at hand.
Special Interest groups have been very important especially for Trump mainly because his big one happens to be the NRA. The NRA stands for “National Rifle Association,” they don’t really like Hillary too much so blast her with ads. The support from large groups like that help Trump gain certain voters that may be interested in him or interested in voting at all; News Corps owner and CEO Rupert Murdoch has also backed Trump. Hillary has more of surrogates then special interest groups such as President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama speaking on her campaign trail. Large groups have supported her but nothing along the lines of Trump and the NRA. However, this does not mean that Hillary will not gain a better demographic by having her Surrogates out and about talking her up. Special Interest groups and surrogates play a huge role for both Hillary and Donald Trump as they both struggle to gain undecided voters.
The polls to me mean nothing. They are a lousy excuse for media to gain interest and attention where it shouldn’t be. Polls play a small role in this years election and I say they have a role only because of how much Trump has talked about the polls, from how much he loves them to how rigged they are. In the end of the day polls are useless and have media attention written all over them.
All of these components have had vital roles in the selection of the next president and we shall only see more of them in the next few weeks as we get closer and closer to Election Day.
Works Cited
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
The presidential elections always keep their focus around each candidate themselves, however there is more behind the process than just that. A lot of what helps get one candidate ahead of the other is the political reviews and endorsements from outside figures and/or organizations. Another factor is when people see the poll numbers on which candidate is doing better than the other. This would be considered a horse race affect. Finally, another component to a presidential campaign is its consultants. These are the people who are helping in directing what kind of message wants to be sent out to the audience through advertisement. “Whether it is a consultant who specializes in setting up phone banks, coaching political debaters, or producing television advertisements, consultants provide the campaign with a better run on its dollars.” (Trent et al. 288) These are the people who help determine what kind of campaign will be run for their candidate. In this year’s election, we’ve seen quite a bit of the behind-the-scenes of the campaign strategies. For example, the Trump campaign has put its top political strategist in front of the cameras. Kellyanne Conway has been the real backbone of the Trump campaign in making sure he does what he is told to make himself as presentable as possible. Consultants like Conway also handle how the money raised for or given to the campaign is spent. A lot of people tend to think that the candidate with more money wins the election altogether. However, “[c]andidates can’t simply buy your vote, but they can spend unlimited amounts hiring consultants to persuade you to vote for them” (Sheingate). In other words, a candidate can improve their campaign by hiring the right people to get their face, name, and word out there. Political pundits have made their mark on political campaigns as well. These experts are usually trustworthy resources in helping people decide the vote. In a recent ongoing study produced by The Eagleton Institute’s Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, there is significant gender imbalance of these political pundits. “While Anderson Cooper on CNN and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC have broken the 50 percent mark when it comes to featuring female pundits, the rest are well below with FOX News Network’s The Kelly File and Fox and Friends scoring the lowest with only 15 percent of women panelists for The Kelly File and 19 percent for Fox and Friends” (Lally). This could have a certain kind of impact on voters because it creates an imbalance in perspective of how the political campaign is unfolding. In another light, polling has become a large part in presidential campaigns. People like to read specific statistics of what the popular vote is either nationally, or state-by-state. However, polling is not always the best news source. Pollers need to gain random participants’ opinions and views to complete the poll. It’s not always the easiest because not everyone they call, send mail to, or approach face-to-face is willing to answer their questions. Although polling has become an outlet of campaigning Americans look to for clean-cut numbers, it’s not always an accurate representation of the entirety of the nation. The presidential campaigns in 2016 are incorporating all of these factors into their strategies to win the race. It will have been a real effort for both sides by the end of this. However, neither candidate would be in the place they are now without their campaigning teams, sources of media, and high numbers of supporters to get them to the top.
When looking at the Presidential campaigns of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the impact and influence consultants, pundits, special interests and polls have had becomes quite clear. In “Political Campaign Communication”, Trent notes that political consultants have been around for centuries but it was not until later that they served such an important role. (Trent, 282) Today, both Clinton and Trump have a staff of advisors and political consultants that have become invaluable to their campaign’s success. Trump might have begun his campaign with a very small number of consultants but as the campaign went on and on, he added more and more consultants by the week. These consultants though, they are not there just for the candidate. As Trent notes on 283, “getting elected has become a perpetual job. Thus, helping candidates has become a perpetual job.” In addition, thanks to “the increased opportunities for employment of those with the skills of political consultants, political consulting itself has now become a full-time job for many consultants.” (Trent, 283) For many of the people in consulting roles, this is a major opportunity and is one that could serve as a catapult to increase one’s own political stock in Washington. Pundits are another thing we have seen in abundance this election season. Every single day, cable news networks bring together a panel of “experts” from all over the political spectrum and let them rant about their candidate. One thing I will say is that, this election is like no other election this nation has ever seen. It is because of this that I believe the pundits have served such a major role. People who have never cared about an election in their lives are voting in this one and because of that, pundits are needed to break down the heavy, dense material we receive from the candidates each week. Whether it be responses in a debate, answers in an interview or a tweet, pundits can help break information down for the people not used to being fed this much in a short period of time.
When discussing special interest groups, this election is filled with them. While Trump likes to brag about self-funding the first few months of his campaign, he would be nowhere were it not for some of the special interest groups on his side. They provide more exposure to constituents as they help advertise and more importantly, provide a financial backbone to a campaign that is constantly using funds. A group that has taken particular significant stance this election season is the National Rifle Association. They are petrified of Clinton’s ideas of gun control and see it as a direct attack on their constitutional rights. Because of this, they have released boat loads of anti-Clinton ads and hope they scare the semi-conservatives that have flip flopped candidates this election. Finally, we have polls. Polls are important because they impact the candidate as well as the constituents in a similar manner. No candidate wants to see themselves losing in the polls and because of this, a candidate’s morale or momentum can often times rely on their place in national polls. After the 2005 tape of Trump’s horrible comments were released, he dropped in the polls as expected. That being said, while CNN tries to make it sound devastating, Business Insider had a totally different take and said that the fact Trump is only down 5 points after those comments are one of his biggest victories of the whole campaign. These conflicting headlines of the same exact polling data are exactly why polling is so important in the first place. During the primaries, Trump’s team LOVED to show polls because he was winning by margins not seen in forever. Once he got through the primaries and into the general election though, his sharing of polling data has gone way down. In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, the author notes that “campaign polling provides useful information to candidates, media and public officials whether obtained by phone interviews, Internet surveys or focus groups.” That being said, just because polls can help a candidate, doesn’t mean it cannot hurt them either. They “also have the potential to undermine the campaign process by creating a false persona for a candidate, an untrue stand on issues, or an inaccurate portrayal of one’s opponent.” (Semiatin, 218) For Clinton, I think we see this through her attitude and the polls she shares. She thinks it’s over. She thinks she has won the nomination and although others may believe that too, no one likes a cocky candidate as seen with Gore. With Trump, he often shares polls that show him winning but if he were to do that right now, he would come off as even more delusional than he already is. Then again, that might help him which is the crazy part. In the end, pundits, special interest groups, polls and political consultants have all played a major role in this campaign season and with just two weeks to go, I would expect that trend to continue right up until the election is decided.
Overall, the 2016 presidential campaign is unlike the other campaigns in the past and is simply bizarre. Consultants, pundits, special interests and polls have been playing a crucial role in this election. All of the above have played an essential role in the overall campaign and have influenced the American people and have shaped their opinions on each candidate. Each group has contributed to guiding the American people one step closer to reaching their ultimate decision for Election Day, which is shortly approaching. I believe that polls are extremely influential and contribute to shaping individual’s opinions. There is always a recent poll that gets buzz and attracts a lot of attention. Ever since this summer, I have been paying attention to the recent polls from each news network. Polls are released so frequently, it is hard for people not to be influenced or surrounded by it. This debate is interesting with polls. When the polls showed that Trump and Clinton were not very far off, it motivated the candidates and their surrogates and consultants to try even harder to target specific voters. However, as the election is approaching, the recent polls have not changed much since the last debate and they show Clinton up 6 points (Silver). Although advertising is important, Trump has managed to do it all through Twitter and has not done as many commercials as Hillary has. Consultants and special interest groups are influential in each campaign and have always been prevalent. Consultants provide an enormous amount of support and services to each candidate, such as assistance in targeting particular voters and preparing for debates and television and radio appearances. In essence, “most of those services are advertising and media related” (Trent 282). Advertising and media are essential in the campaign as a whole, but are used frequently by consultants as well. Consultants help the candidates communicate through advertising by providing writers, speech coaches, and direct mail and television specialists (Trent 285-286). Overall, communication is essential and is a main part of the consultant’s job. In addition, I believe that pundits are one of the most influential groups involved in the campaign. Pundits express their opinions publically and typically have a large following, especially during this election. Many of the pundits speak their mind and do not hold back. For instance The Daily Show with Trevor Noah could sway viewers and has an impact on the 2016 campaign. On one episode, Noah talked about the third debate and he made fun of Hillary’s outfit, but then said how much he loved it and believes that she looks good. For Trump, he did not say one positive thing after roasting him. This proves that he made fun of Trump more and I believe he favors Hillary more, especially due to his comment. Overall, the media and advertising has made an enormous impact on the 2016 campaign. It is unusual and unlike previous campaigns. I believe that the use of social media is only going to increase as campaigns go on in the future, which is an interesting turning point for campaigns. Consultants, special interest groups, pundits and polls have impacted this election and influenced the majority of the American people on who the “lesser of the two evils” is.
Works Cited:
Silver, Nate. “Election Update: There Are 4 Ways This Election Can End — And 3 Involve Clinton Winning.” FiveThirtyEight. 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Silver, Nate. “The State Of The Polls 2016.” FiveThirtyEight. 2 June 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Sheingate, Adam. “The Political Consultant Racket.” New York Times 30 Dec. 2015. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. 8th edition. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016. Print.
Nelson, Candice. “Survey Research and Campaigns- Getting to the Future.” Campaigns on the Cutting Edge. 3rd ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ, 2016 Print.
We are now just two weeks away from the 2016 presidential elections and have seen the various roles consultants, pundits, special interests and polls have played in this long and dragged out election. It’s clear that money talks in American politics and the political consulting industry is the main beneficiary, despite which candidate eventually wins (Sheingate). The political consultants earn fees and commissions by transforming money given to candidates into products of the campaign, particularly like television advertisements (Sheingate). The role of the political consultant is crucial because they provide candidates with various services in the campaign which help in targeting voters, polling the electorate, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate and more (Trent et al, 285). The Political Campaign Communication textbook made note of Republican Roger Ailes who has worked as a political consultant particularly in the form of speech coach for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush for addresses and debates (Trent et al, 285). This year, Ailes advised Donald Trump for the first presidential debate that took place. This was not the best idea and we saw the result of having Ailes as a consultant. Trump did not do very well in the first debate which shows Ailes’ advisement had negative impact on Trump’s performance.
Political pundits are the “true influencers” of elections whether they are television personalities, straight-reporters, opinion journalists or activists (Dougherty and MacNicol). Many people watch the news without focusing on who is providing the analysis which leads to people consuming information uncritically and so they accept what is being said by the “experts” (Lally). As more people pay attention to this election, pundits can have a greater influence in allowing people to understand and make sense of the election. After each debate, party convention, or other major political event, the pundits go on air, ready to debate and argue with one another. With the rise of social media, the role of pundits has become more and more visible. One noteworthy pundit we have seen in this election is Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager. He is now a paid political commentator for CNN and still gets paid from Trump’s campaign.
Special interest groups like super PACs have a massive influence on American presidential elections. “The big money is in super PACs and other outside groups devoted to boosting a single candidate…super PACs have been formed for the sole purpose of bashing a single candidate” (Open Secrets Staff). While Trump and Clinton’s campaigns have fundraised hundreds of millions of dollars superPACs have also raised incredible amounts of money for the candidates. For example, the Priorities USA Action superPAC has raised over $130 million for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. This superPAC has also created powerful television advertisements against Donald Trump and his temperament. Special interest group’s like the NRA political fund have paid for advertisements for Trump, such as the one titled “Don’t Let Hilary Clinton Leave You Defenseless.”
During my time at the Democratic National Convention, I learned that polls aren’t actually as important as we think they are until right before the election. However, they give something for pundits to talk about and journalists to write stories about. Most campaigns for high-profile offices employ professional pollsters and polling is advisable whenever an office involves policy (DeLaney). According to Nate Silver, the 2016 presidential primaries polls have had a good track record of calling winners, with the polling front-runner winning the vast majority of the time (Silver). On Twitter and during his rallies Trump has consistently referred to polls that show him ahead of Clinton. He even tweeted about the results of a Quinnipiac poll a few months ago.
DeLaney, Ann. "Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics." Politics for Dummies. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Lally, By Robin. "Hillary Clinton's Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked." Media Relations. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Open Secrets Staff. "Behind the Candidates: Campaign Committees and Outside Groups." OpenSecrets. N.p., 19 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." The New York Times. N.p., 30 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Silver, Nate. "The State Of The Polls, 2016." FiveThirtyEight. N.p., 02 June 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Trent, Judith S., and Robert V. Friedenberg. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. New York: Praeger, 2016. Print.
Consultants, pundits, special interests, and polls are playing a big part in the presidential election this year. Focusing on polling, it’s not surprising that it still has a big impact on the public’s opinion. “The 2008, 2010, and 2012 election cycles had all featured fairly accurate polling,” writes Nate Silver in an article on FiveThirtyEight.com. Silver writes that these polls are so accurate, that in 85 percent of them, the leading candidate in the poll was the candidate who won the election. Often times, we talk about varying our media consumption to avoid consuming news from one source that might be heavily biased. Polls have shown that, overall, they don’t have much bias when looked at from a large perspective. This accuracy and little bias will play a roll in the 2016 presidential elections, according to Richard Sematin. We can see the polls have already played a role most notably in Gary Johnson’s case, with people keeping an eye on his numbers to see if he will ever get the percentage to enter a presidential debate.
Pundits play a large roll in the election, but it’s more due to what they have to say, rather than who is saying it. Debbie Walsh, Director of Rutgers’s The Eagleton Institute’s Center for American Women in Politics is quoted with saying “Many people watch the news without focusing on who is providing the analysis.” (Lally) Men outnumber women in cable news punditry. “Since women make up more than half of the population, comprise 53 percent of the electorate, and for the first time in history a woman is at the top of a major political party’s presidential ticket, you might think that the female political perspective would be a large part of this season’s nonstop cable news coverage,” writes Robin Lally in Rutgers Today. The key is “you might think,” as that is not true. As far as pundits role in this current election, just by looking at any pundit’s social media account you can see the level of impact they have had on shaping the viewpoint in people’s minds of this election.
Consultants are important, you need to have a team of people that can advise you on how you should make decisions for the entire United States population. If Donald Trump read that sentence prior, he would be laughing, as “Mr. Trump has succeeded, so far, without much help from the professionals on whom the other candidates rely.” (Sheingate) Being a consultant involves being on the receiving end of a large amount of money, considering in the 2012 election more than $3.6 billion dollars was billed to the federal candidates by consulting firms. Hillary Clinton is taking advantage of consultants, paying about $13 million to four main firms, one of them being the polling firm Benenson Strategy group, whose principal is also Clinton’s campaign chief strategist.
Special interest groups can either help or hurt a candidate, in my opinion, depending on what the special interest is. Clinton has run in to some choppy waters regarding the “huge foreign donations that poured into the Clinton Foundation.” (Isikoff) These special interest groups come with massive pockets of cash, all dedicated to that single candidate, and even more money can come from donations to them.
This year’s presidential candidates can be described as feisty, bold, and have a mind of their own. With that being said, they need they need a support system of people who support them to help they stay focused, get their message across, and promote their positive attributes. That is why consultants, pundits, special interests, and polls are critical to the candidate’s success.
Political consultants have a special mixed bag job when it comes to the campaign. They participate in general activities and can specialize in one area. For example, “political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and utilizing direct mail, preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate, mounting a fund-raising campaign, and establishing and utilizing an Internet website” (Trent, 285). Some examples of Donald Trump consultants are Kellyanne Conway, Trumps Campaign Manager who is a veteran GOP pollster, Mayor Rudy Giuliani who is Trumps attack dog and he is a law and order mayor, Governor Chris Christie who may be apart of his administration, Senator Jeff Sessions, and Trumps Political Advisor, Newt Gingrich. During the whole election Conway has become a constant figure on television. She does her job well and stays focused as to what her role is in this campaign. You can see her “laying out his agenda, talking points, and often trying to sooth over Trump controversies” (Bash). For Hillary Clinton some of her consultants are LaDavia Drane, Maya Harris, Joel Benenson, John Podesta, Huma Adedin, Jake Sullivan, and Robby Mook. In my opinion John Podesta is Hillary’s big shot consultant. He has given his advice to Clinton regarding the email leaks. His advice sums up how shady her campaign really is. “ His response: The Clinton campaign should get cracking and ramp up its own outside super-PAC operation. Among “the things we have to do,” he wrote, is “Get Priorities functional…” (Isikoff). That reference refers to Priorities USA Action, the pro-Clinton super-PAC that would soon start collecting seven-figure donations from Democratic-leaning billionaires. They are supposed to be independent from the official campaign.
Pundits are experts in a particular subject or field who frequently are called to give opinions about a number of things to the public. According to the article,” Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked” by Robin Lally, “Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN are the only two top-rated cable news shows that have had an equal number of men and women as political pundits this election season, according to Rutgers research”( Lally). This year 53 percent of the electorate are females, but the female political perspective isn’t as popular on cable news coverage as some might have expected. The men still out weigh the number of woman on cable news political punditry. Some examples for Trump are Sean Hannity from Fox, Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Karl Rove, Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, Newt Ginrich, Laura Ingranham, Howard Kurtz, and David Gergen. For Clinton, Chris Matthews from CMBC, David Brooks from PBS News Hour, Mark Halperin CMBC, Eugene Robinson, Joe Trippi Fox, and Juan Williams Fox.
Special Interest groups also play an important role because they are often associated with money and support. For Trump, according to Time Magazine, the NRA recently dropped a 6.5 million dollar ad backing Donald Trump. The ad features a millennial woman who used a pistol to fend off an attacker (Reilly). Other groups include Howard Lorber President and CEO of Vector Group and Steven Mnuchin. For Hillary Clinton Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Time Warner have announced support and given money to name a few.
Polls during an election can be very deceiving. While one candidate can be leading in a national poll, things can change quickly. That is why it is very important to not count the other candidate out. As I am writing this, I just got a notification for The New York Times on my phone. It says that Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 7 percentage points in North Carolina, a state that Mitt Romney won, in our new poll (Cohn). While this statistic sounds like Hillary Clinton will win that state (which she probably will) that doesn’t mean Trump doesn’t have a fighting chance at winning the election overall.
Reilly, Katie. "NRA Makes Biggest Ad Buy Yet in Support of Donald Trump." Time. Time, 5 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. /.latest_citation_text
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Lally, Robin. "Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked."Rutgers Today 17 Oct. 2016. Web.
Bash, Dana and Crutchfield, Abigail CNN. "How the GOP's First Female Presidential Campaign Manager Manages Donald Trump." - Azfamily.com 3TV. CNN, 24 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Cohn, Nate. "Clinton Leads by 7 Points in North Carolina Poll." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Isikoff, Michael. "'Take the Money!!' and Other Highlights from the Podesta Email Leak." 'Take the Money!!' and Other Highlights from the Podesta Email Leak. Yahoo, 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
This has been the longest most dragged out election, or at least that's how it feels. Through the last year or so we've seen the importance of consultants, pundits, special interests, and polls. Consultants in particular have played a large role in this years election, "Political consultants earn fees and commissions by turning the billions of dollars given to candidates, political parties and “super PACs” into the products and services of contemporary campaigns, especially TV (and Internet) ads" (Sheingate). We've seen and discussed ads from each candidate and the importance they have. So it seems like consultants have a direct correlation to the ads.
Political consultants are basically there to "provide the candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign" (Trent et al 285). Consultants are there to help the candidates get their messages across via writing, speech coaches, direct mail specialists, and ad specialists. These four categories are vital in a candidates campaign. For example, most candidates aren't experts in giving a speech or handle a debate so a speech coach is brought in to prepare them for their event so they sound put together and their speaking flows nicely (Trent et al 285).
In this years race, we've seen both candidates mention the polls (some more than others). From discussions we've had in class, it's clear that some people are skeptical of the polls. It's hard to survey so many people to get an accurate reading on where each candidate stands with the public, "Most polls showing a statistical bias toward Democrats. As a result, there were a handful of major upsets by Republican candidates" (Silver). Polls are scientifically planned out to pick random voters, "Randomness is the factor that permits a few hundred people to speak for all the voters within a statistical margin of error" (DeLaney). Randomness allows for less bias, though they're still might be some and ensures that one party isn't being favored over the other. In my opinion however, polls, are just something the candidates will talk about to make themselves look better (assuming the poll is in their favor).
In this election, we've seen people like opinion journalists and television personalities become important pundits of the race. They've become the influencers (Dougherty and MacNicol). People like Bill Maher and Jon Stewart have played a role in swaying the public, even if the people watching don't realize.
In my opinion I think political consultants play the largest role in a candidates race because they make the candidate come across as more presidential than they might actually be. At the end of the day, winning an election comes down to how well a candidate represents themselves in their debates, speeches, and ads.
Works Cited:
Trent, Judith S., and Robert V. Friedenberg. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. New York: Praeger, 2016. Print.
Silver, Nate. "The State Of The Polls, 2016." FiveThirtyEight. N.p., 02 June 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
DeLaney, Ann. "Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics." Politics for Dummies. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." The New York Times. N.p., 30 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Michael Brendan Dougherty and Glynnis MacNicol. "THE POLITIX 50: Here Are The Only Pundits You Need To Pay Attention To Between Now And The Election." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 30 Nov. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
This outrageous election is definitely not about traditional campaigning anymore. Although Secretary Clinton continues to persevere through the absurd obstacles throughout her campaign making her consultants probably very on edge. A statement made in Campaigns on the Cutting Edge now seems almost comical, “media consultants use their experience in campaigns to anticipate likely lines of attack and to react quickly to changing circumstances. After many years and many campaigns, situations that have occurred previously inevitably reemerge” (Semiatin 30). There have been no situations like the ones in this election that have happened in the past. There is a non-politician running and it is a real game changer in the political world. Donald Trump is a nightmare for consultants with his random outburst of racism, sexism and bullying. Clinton on the other hand has been through this many times and is going to do whatever her experts tell her. Which is why she is spending so much money on polling. Polling can be very expensive but very useful when campaigning. Through polls Clinton is able to figure out who to target with ads and what issues she needs to discuss more. Clintons group is very close to her and are doing the best they can in this unorthodox election. Trump on the other hand wants the election to be unorthodox because it suits his campaign. Even his campaign team is unusual with more well-known people like Roger Ailes. Kellyanne Conway has been the star of Trump’s campaign and is very good at her job. Through everything that Trump has done or said Conway has been able to speak on behalf of Trump and convince people that he is still the right guy for the job. It is crazy to see how much consultants of the Republican party failed so immensely in the early months of this election. Jeb Bush is a consultants dream because he spent 52.5 million dollars on his campaign and he was only polling at 3%. He spent so much money on media and advertising but unfortunately it didn’t help him. The leader and eventually primary winner, Trump, only spent 1.2 million on his campaign and 0% of it was for media or advertising. It safe to say that the campaigning process is changing and the traditional methods aren’t necessarily the best way to gain supporters. Trump simply used the media by saying outrageous things and overshadowed every other possible candidate. He didn’t need to pay for consultants or polls he just controlled the media with his words instead of his money. It will be interesting to see what Trump will do for the “get out the vote” on election eve. Ordinarily the candidate will spend those final hours encouraging people to go and vote. We haven’t seen much of that influence from Trump so it will be interesting to see what his final campaign hours consist of.
The annoying polling phone calls make most of us crazy but we know some people must do them. When we turn on the news or open twitter we hear and read about who’s leading in the polls by whatever percent or margin. This would lead us to potentially doubt the credibility of these polls. Nate Silver, in a FiveThirtyEight article about the State of the Polls said, “Although there were lots of reasons to be worried about the reliability of polling — in particular, the ever-declining response rates for telephone surveys — there wasn’t much evidence of a crisis in the results pollsters were obtaining. Instead, the 2008, 2010 and 2012 election cycles had all featured fairly accurate polling” (Silver). With polls still pulling in fairly accurate results politicians and campaigns can use them to their advantage. Things like microtargeting would be helpful during this election and have been in previous elections. In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, it explains that, “microtargeting involves using consumer data, appended to voter files, to more precisely target individual voters. As the amount of information in these databases has increased, researchers have been able to use sophisticated algorithms to model the behavior of individuals” (Semiatin). Someone like Hillary Clinton probably uses this to work on securing her lead. According to another FiveThirtyEight article also by Silver, “Hillary Clinton has a 6.6-percentage-point lead in the popular vote and an 87 percent chance of winning the Electoral College…” (Silver). Another thing Silver talks about in the same article is how there still is a small chance Hillary could lose despite her lead in the polls. Trump has a 1-in-7 chance to win so you’d expect a candidate with those odds to win an election every 28 years (Silver). Using techniques like mircotargeting would help Clinton in the last few days into Election Day. She could figure out which voters she needs to focus on the get them out to vote. Polls this year are playing a large part as always, but they’re proving that anything can happen. Watching the polls change so much so quickly has the candidates making moves they never would in a normal election. (We can all agree this election is fairly less than normal, fairly being an understatement.) For example, watching the polls change from a close tie to a lead for Hillary, especially in states you wouldn’t expect has lead Hillary to go to states democrats wouldn’t normally campaign in. A state like Arizona, which normally leans right, is showing Hillary close or ahead of Trump. To try and secure that state she’s traveled there to speak and gain support. A headline from CBS News reads, “Hillary Clinton takes 2016 fight to Arizona.” The article states, “there is palpable momentum for Democrat Hillary Clinton in Arizona, a state so traditionally Republican that her party’s nominee for president has carried it just once in the past 64 years” (CBSNews). Polls have showed that any election, anything can change. Clinton could be the first Democratic candidate in 64 years to win a red state. Polls always play a large role in the election because they show us who is winning and who isn’t. It makes us wonder if our vote is counting or not. This year, they’ve played a larger role as the election is unlike any recent elections. The annoying phone calls may bother us but the candidates love them and can’t live without them… unless you’re Donald Trump then you might just think they’re rigged.
"Hillary Clinton Takes 2016 Fight to Arizona." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 24 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016. Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016. Silver, Nate. "There Are 4 Ways This Election Can End — and 3 Involve Clinton Winning." FiveThirtyEight.com 21 Oct. 2016. Web.
Consultants, Pundits, special interest groups each dictate the actions of a candidate running for the presidency. Though they may each go about this in their own way it is nonetheless the case. This election in particular has seen some of the roles of each of these influencers vary from their traditional relevance to a campaign. Of these positions, this is most prominent with consultants. A consultant is essentially somebody who advises a candidate as to what actions they should take to reach the voters they need, and to keep the candidate on good terms with the electorate. The role of a consultant has been evolving since the presidency existed, and consultants have seen a growing importance to elections since Calvin Coolidge’s bid for the presidency (Trent Et. Al. 282). This particular election may be the most publicly involved a consultant has been with the election, however, as John Podesta’s name has become infamous this election, and his email leaks continue to plague the Clinton Camp. From consultants we move on to special interests and their role in elections. For better or for worse special interests are crucial to campaigns now as they supply a large amount of revenue needed for all of campaigns’ expenses. Throughout this election special interests have accounted for over a billion dollars in revenue raked in. According to the Washington Post, “By the end of August, super PACs had raised $1.1 billion and had spent $454.3 million on ads and other forms of voter outreach. Including expenditures through Oct. 4, super PACs had spent a total of $674 million.” (Narayanswamy Et. Al.) Another crucial aspect to a winning campaign is polling. Polling allows a candidate to collect data on what advertisements work, what demographics they need to do a better job reaching, and how they may be doing nationally. According to Ann Delaney the few hundred people polled, “have a significant impact on the message and strategy for the campaign. Their answers help decide which programs a candidate supports or opposes during the campaign. They tell a candidate whether her message is getting through or needs to be refined. No campaign will spend money finding out what you think if you are not a registered voter.” (Delaney) The final place that a candidate may look for support in her efforts to reach the presidency comes from the media, and political pundits. Pundits are influencers of thought. They give a voice within the media to the average person viewing the election. When a pundit either endorses or condemns a candidate or their actions it may not change any polls, but minds could be changed and the candidates should still be weary of this. One pundit who may be a particularly powerful force this election is Nate Silver. He is known for his use of data and statistics to predict the election. He provides the opinion that goes with a poll, and people will listen because it’s hard to argue against statistics (Dougherty and MacNicol). Each of these influencers has the capability to shape public opinion. Whether its through millions od dollars of ads that come from special interest groups or just a pundit’s humble opinion the election is influenced and a candidate is well aware of this.
Work Cited Dougherty, Michael. MacNicol, Glynnis. “THE POLITIX 50: Here Are The Only Pundits You Need To Pay Attention To Between Now And The Election.” Business Insider 11 Nov. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2016
Delaney, Ann. “Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics.” Politics For Dummies, 2nd Edition. N.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016
Narayanswamy, Ana Aaron Williams and Matea Gold, "Meet the Wealthy Donors Who Are Pouring Millions Into the 2016 Elections." Washington Post 5 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016
Trent, Judith S. et al. Political Campaign Communication: Principles & Practices. 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
The roles of consultants, pundits, special interests and polls play a huge role in this years election. Consultants are important, because they advise the production and mass media portrayed of their candidate. Campaign consultants advise candidates on strategies, and efforts to attract their target audiences. Trent states that: ““Political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and utilizing direct mail, preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate, mounting a fund-raising campaign, and establishing and utilizing an Internet website” (Trent, 285). With his insults to many people such as veterans, women, Mexicans, Muslims, etc; The NY Times says “Trump’s campaign is a nightmare for the political consulting industry”( Sheingate, Adam). Kellyanne Conway, Trumps’ campaign manager must defend his actions and words almost every day. Unlike traditional candidates, Trump has not relied on much help from professional consultants to further his campaign. Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, has been with the Clinton’s since her campaign in 2008. Pundits have also played a huge role in this year election, for their opinion’s and commentary on both Clinton and Trump. Pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter are two people who definitely express their opinion and analyze both candidates. Pundits commentary and knowledge of politics assist with helping the general public in deciphering what is going on in front of them.
Interest groups are vital for campaigns, because they involve individuals and organizations that have the same concerns, and attempt to influence public policy in favor of their organization. A lot of these special interest groups contribute large amounts of money towards campaigns, whether it be for commercials and advertisements or to further the candidates campaign. For example, Trump’s loyal special interest group happens to be the NRA (National rifle Association). Groups like the NRA attract and target specific audiences that Trump is hoping to attract to vote for him in the upcoming weeks. Clinton on the other hand, one of her biggest donors is the special interest group called “EMILY’s List”, an organization that seeks to help elect pro-choice Democratic candidates to any appointed office. Donors and groups like these are vital for campaigns. Election polling is fundamental for a democracy. Poll’s such as Gallup and the Quinnipiac Poll have repeatedly been favored for their fair and accurate polling. I learned in my statistics class that fair and accurate polling must be conducted by sampling a large number of people, in order to get an accurate representation of the American people. Many polls offer different questions towards voters. The Pew Research Center focuses on “people’s issue preferences, engagement in the election, and opinions about the candidates”( Suh, Michael). In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge Semiatin states that “To raise the response rate, pollsters are experimenting with using social media as a way to do a survey sample” (Semiatin, 6). Polling is fundamental in elections as a way to get a grasp of what our country is thinking about for this particular election.
The roll of special interest groups in American politics has been important to the 2016 United States presidential election, especially when attacking Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
During the Democratic primaries Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders repeatedly attacked Mrs. Clinton acknowledging the fact that some of her biggest donors are hedge fund managers, financially powerful individuals who he insinuated were only donating to her campaign because they expected favorable treatment for their industry in return (Narayanswamy et al).
Republican nominee Donald Trump has employed the same attacks on Mrs. Clinton and has even gone as far as insinuating that the Clinton Foundation, a charitable organization run by the Clinton family that has made great strides in HIV prevention in Africa, was taking money from special interest groups in return for preferable treatment by the State Department during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.
Mrs. Clinton has attacked Mr. Trump regarding special interest groups that contributed to his campaign as well, in particular, the National Rifle Association. The NRA tends to back most Republican nominees as they almost always promise the protection of the Second Amendment as part of their major platform, and Democratic nominees like Mrs. Clinton almost always portray their opponent as being in the NRA’s pocket.
Political pundits have had a profound influence on the election; most of them display some level of bias towards Mrs. Clinton which has been aiding in reassuring Clinton supporters of their stances and has also been aiding in reaffirming Mr. Trump’s claims that the mainstream media is conspiring against him.
Among the few political pundits who support Mr. Trump Fox News’s Sean Hannity has surely been the most active advocate, for a good period Mr. Trump would not talk to any pundit but Hannity. Hannity tries his best to spin the Trump campaign to be attractive beyond its base, but the platform is so polarizing a lot of the effort has not produced favorable results.
Mrs. Clinton very rarely speaks to political pundits, though despite her lack of appearances she is constantly spoken of highly. Liberal pundits have generally based their arguments more on outrage over Mr. Trump’s actions than praising of Mrs. Clinton’s; CNN political commentator Angela Rye for example is effectively used to express outrage against Mr. Trump and his supporters and inspire voters that a vote for Trump is a for vote racism and sexism.
Political consultants have played an important role in both major campaigns of the 2016 presidential election, mainly by making television appearances pleading their candidate’s case. One major reason they are important is because, especially in this election, consultants are vital to doing damage control in the wake of controversies.
Polling data has not had a great impact on the election itself, but has helped keep the 24-hour news narrative focused on associating the election with a sports game. Mr. Trump has been behind in national polls for the majority of the election, but with his claims that the mainstream media is conspiring against him he has discredited the polls amongst many of his supporters (Noland).
Overall pundits, special interest, campaign consultants, and polling have not had a very strong influence on the 2016 election, but they have been crucial to the 24-hour news cycle.
Works Cited
Narayanswamy, Ana Aaron Williams and Matea Gold, "Meet the Wealthy Donors Who Are Pouring Millions Into the 2016 Elections." Washington Post 5 Oct. 2016. Web.
This election cycle has had a massive focus on the personalities and character of the two candidates, however there are countless actors working behind the scenes, each of them with their own agendas. The powerful Democratic National Committee has been a driving force for the Clinton campaign, and their political consultants have undoubtedly been a major factor in her success. The DNC employs a huge amount of people across the nation whose sole goal is to ensure that their candidate wins, Trent writes that political consultants can “provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and utilizing direct mail, preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate, mounting a fund-raising campaign, and establishing and utilizing an Internet website” (Trent, 285). They are the campaign team that does all of the behind the scenes work, as well as a good chunk of the field work. While Trump also has a good deal of political consultants, his team appears much weaker. In fact, the RNC, Trump’s biggest national organization of political consultants, recently halted funding on some their pro Trump programs (Isenstadt). Trump is also struggling to attract the support of pundits, with even traditional conservative pundits speaking out against him. When looking through Business Insider’s list of the top 50 pundits, the vast majority of them are not supporters of Trump. Even those who try to stay neutral have sharply criticized him over his reckless and inappropriate actions (Dougherty, MacNicol). Special interest groups, and individuals with political agendas, have poured millions of dollars into ensuring their candidate wins this campaign. The top 10 so called “mega donors” have already helped to pour at least 1.1 billion dollars into campaign related PACs. The donations are split between democrats and republicans, but there is no denying that most donors have a good financial reason to invest millions of dollars into an election (Narayanswamy). The polls have had a nonstop presence in this election ever since the first candidates declared their candidacy in the primaries. Both candidates have been pegged by the polls since the beginning as being popular among voters in contrast to their opponents. These polls can serve to motivate voters that their candidate is doing well. They are also a valuable resource for campaigns to see where to focus their resources. The closer the polls are, the more a campaign needs to work in a swing state. While Trump is quick to tweet about and talk about any polls that have him winning, he has dismissed recent polls showing him losing as rigged. It is true that polls can sometimes have a statistical bias, but according to Nate Silver, the bias has the potential to go both ways. Writing on polls he said “Importantly, the polls (and even more so, the polling averages) had a good track record of calling winners, with the polling front-runner winning the vast majority of the time” (Silver). Silver uses polling data to formulate his election forecast, which currently has Clinton at a 86% chance of winning.
Michael Brendan Dougherty and Glynnis MacNicol. "THE POLITIX 50: Here Are The Only Pundits You Need To Pay Attention To Between Now And The Election." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 30 Nov. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Isenstadt, Alex, "RNC Halts Victory Project Work for Trump." POLITICO. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Narayanswamy, Anu Narayanswamy. "Meet the wealthy donors who are pouring millions into the 2016 elections." The Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/superpac-donors-2016/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2016.
Silver, Nate. "Election Update: Women Are Defeating Donald Trump." Five Thirty Eight, Word Press, 11 Oct. 2016, fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-women-are-defeating-donald-trump/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2016.
Trent, Judith, S, et al. Political Campaign Communication. 8th ed., New York, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
There are always many factors at play in a political campaign, but with the candidate being the one directly under the microscope, many forget the important role of consultants and pundits, polls and special interest groups. These rolls play an important factor in getting a candidate elected.
“Political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing, a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate… preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate… fund-raising… and utilizing an internet website,” (Trent 285). As seen in the TV show Scandal, or just looking more closely at a campaign, you can see the large role consultants and advising teams play in a candidate’s campaign. Normally we see very little of a campaign’s consultant, however in this campaign, we have seen and heard a decent amount from Trump’s current consultant Kellyanne Conway. She has gone on shows to talk about Trump’s actions and certain aspects on his campaign most likely to try and explain all of Trump’s outlandish behavior.
Pundits play a big role in communicating with voters through mass media. Pundits speak their opinions on political issues and are not necessarily affiliated with specific campaigns, but more with a party based on their views. For example, Bill O’Reilly is a popular pundit on Fox News. Many times he appears on the news or talk shows to give his opinion on certain issues. He has been seen many times throughout this election trying to defend certain actions and plans of Trump. Pundits have also taken largely to social media. For example, Tomi Lahren is a television and online video host and talks a lot about a lot of political issues from a republican standpoint. She posts a lot to Facebook and has over 3 million likes on her page.
Polling is very important in a campaign. It can give a candidate and their team feedback on how their campaign is going and whether its working well. It can also give them feeback on certain issues they plan to tackle and how they want to tackle them. This election season, we have seen Trump uses a lot of polls that favor him to win to show voters that he is ahead. He has been posting results to social media potentially as a way to try and show voters that he is not really behind Clinton.
Special interest groups are a group of people interested in advancing or changing ideologies and policies. They are also large donors to certain campaigns. Their donations are a show of their support to candidates. This election season, Trump has been backed by the NRA and some police groups. Clinton has been supported by many groups as well.
Consultants, pundits, polls and special interest groups are glue that help to hold a campaign together. Their importance in evident and are valuable in molding the campaign into what it has to be in order to win.
The role of consultants, pundits, special interests, and polls seem to be often overshadowed by the polarity of the current candidates. However, this election, similar to ones in the past also has a place for these groups as they serve to influence a campaign in different ways. In terms of political consultants, Adam Sheingate’s article on racket of political consulting does well to look at Trump’s style. Sheingate notes “Trump is a nightmare for the political consulting industry…[whereas] Jeb Bush, by contrast, is a political consultant’s dream—mostly because his campaign has deep pockets” (Sheingate). Money is a driving force for most campaigns, but also for the role that consultants play. Sheingate goes on to say “consultants are like the microscopic bugs in our gut that help us metabolize food: Consultants help candidates and campaigns metabolize money, but their work leaves the body politic hungry for more” (Sheingate). Furthermore, “the result it a system of big money donors, expensive campaigns and incessant political ads” (Sheingate). With enough money it would seem that “political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks” among many other services (Trent 285).
Similar to using consulting firms “most campaigns for high-profile offices employ professional pollsters” (DeLaney). A relationship between the pollsters and consultants thus develops because the pollsters “are hired to perform polls that the handler (that is, the campaign consultant) and the candidate need and for which they can afford to pay” (DeLaney). Polling seems to have become a large part of campaigns, as each candidate looks for the target demographic to appeal to. Wealthy donors also play into this equation because they provide necessary funding to continue paying for the expenses associated with polling and consulting fees. In relation to this election cycle “wealthy donors are giving record sums to super PACs, which can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations” (Gold). While “these groups are not allowed to coordinate their advertising with candidates or political parties” they still work alongside the campaigns (Gold). These donors “hail from various sectors, fueled by fortunes made in the energy industry, on Wall Street and in health care” (Gold). And yet the more concerning factor are those with unidentified backers known as “ghost corporations.” It is a bit concerning to think that there are donors that cannot be identified, which calls into question why they would choose to remain anonymous.
Finally, political pundits are also quite interesting to look at, especially in relation to this year’s election. Despite having a woman running for office, “men outnumber women significantly in cable news political punditry” (Lally). CAWP Director Debbie Walsh has said, “at this point, there is no excuse for not including women, but it’s happening…we have heard this too many times. They want women but they just can’t find them” (Lally). This issue comes to light at a pretty opportune time as this election comes to an end. Many feel that women, who make up half of the population, need to be represented within the sphere of political punditry.
Works Cited:
DeLaney, Ann. "Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics." Politics For Dummies. Wiley, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.
Lally, Robin. "Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked." Rutgers Today 17 Oct. 2016. Web.
Narayanswamy, Ana Aaron Williams and Matea Gold, "Meet the Wealthy Donors Who Are Pouring Millions Into the 2016 Elections." Washington Post 5 Oct. 2016. Web.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." New York Times 30 Dec. 2015. Web.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
This year’s elections undoubtedly included many aspects that no other election did before. With the two candidates being the most disliked ones in American history, it was up to the campaigns to especially get people to vote for their candidates. Political consultants and super PACs have strategized ways to reach out to more voters and sway them in their candidates’ direction through utilizing all tools available to them. Throughout the history, political consultants weren’t always taken as seriously as they are now, and their vitality to how an election turns out wasn’t clearly recognized until the last half of the twentieth century. Today, political consultants get paid very big figures for the job that they do, and unlike before, they work uninterruptedly today. Since “getting elected has become a perpetual job, helping candidates has become a perpetual job.” (Trent et al. 283) Their work is oriented on the goal of getting the most efficiency out of the resources invested in their candidate’s campaigns. This includes working with other groups like pundits and super PACs, and being able to respond in the right way at the right time to opinion polls. Sometimes depending on the direction that the campaign is going, consultants and campaign managers can also act as open surrogates for their candidates. We have seen Kellyann Conway go on different TV shows and speak in support of her candidate Donald Trump, even though that isn’t officially her job description. These consultants’ responsibilities are extremely flexible and depend on the nature of the elections. Polls are probably the most useful source for campaigns, consultants and special interest groups because they provide them with the information they need to attract more voters. Polls specify the demographics in specific areas that qualify as strengths and weaknesses and consultants use this as a map to shape the campaign strategy. Campaigns invest a considerable amount of their resources in polling because it works. Granted, each way of polling has its downsides - like phone surveys being cumbersome as most people don’t answer poll calls, or online polls’ lack of randomness – but generally, polls succeed in giving campaign consultants a clear idea on what they should be working hard on. And they also display the success of campaigns if that is the case, as we’ve seen Trump mentioning polls in his rallies as a sign of how badly he is beating Clinton in the polls. Today’s customer-driven campaigns also act as extremely helpful tools in maximizing the number of votes from specific groups of people. The customer-driven campaigns employ customer relations management (CRM), which includes “micro-targeting, multiple points of contact with voters and multiple methods to get voters to the polls.” (Semiatin, 79) This helps consultants easily locate and contact voters and get them to support their candidate. Super PACs also have a big effect on elections, as can be seen from this year. Clinton’s super PAC Priorities USA has continuously put out ads that support Clinton and condemn Trump, a recent one being an attack ad showing Trump’s comments about women and it clearly aims to show him in a negative light. These special interest groups have had a tremendous impact throughout elections that has definitely swayed voters in certain directions. Pundits who come out in favor of candidates also have a powerful impact in supporting their candidates on big platforms. Throughout these elections, we’ve watched CNN bring in various pundits from both sides, such as Jeffrey Lord for Trump and Sally Kohn for Clinton. These pundits appear to be independent in terms of employment, which helps them appear as more transparent; but they still have a very big influence on creating impressions of candidates in voters, and determining who they will vote for.
This presidential election has, once again, proven to be a different than other election cycles. The recent WikiLeaks of the DNC and Hilary Clintons campaign have set the stage of what goes on behind the scenes in political campaigns. Polling centers have worked hard since the primaries to determine opinion polling every week during this election. Political pundits are taking every opportunity to take part in the campaign commentary. There are pundits on radio, podcasts, television, Twitter and, traditionally, blogs. Lastly, we learned from this year that big money does not necessarily determine a win, and, as we’ve seen from Donald Trump, political consultants may not be as important to a campaign than previous years. Polls are the best way to quantify the election through public opinion polls. Yet, recently Donald Trump has turned to criticize the legitimacy of the polls being released. This year, polling centers have become more accurate, using the “gold standard” methodologies (Silver). They have also become increasingly transparent through the American association for public opinion research (AAPOR) (Silver). Political consultants are key to a political campaign, and this election has shaken things up on how candidates use them. Consultants are important to campaigns as it turns “billions of dollars given to candidates, political parties and “super PACs” [..] into the products and services of contemporary campaigns, especially TV (and Internet) ads.” (Sheingate. Not only that, but they can also act as a candidates surrogate as seen from KellyAnne Conway. Additionally, Donald trump’s ability to not ‘follow the script’, his use twitter, and the sudden shift campaign managers right after the republican national convention are changing the ability of how political consultants can work with candidates. In contrast, Hillary Clinton’s campaign management and consultants have remained quiet, doing their jobs, turning big money donations to the emotional adverts we have been recently seeing and with no campaign shake up (at least publicly). Political pundits initially had a tough run on taking Donald Trump seriously as a candidate for the republican nominee. Now that he is, it may change how pundits consider potential presidential candidates early in the campaign. Another change this election are the pundits increasing and integrated use of social media. However while there is a woman running for the most powerful office in United States of America, Robin Lally of Rutgers Today indicates that there aren’t that many women on the pundit table. Only Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and Anderson Cooper 360’s pundit tables have kept a 50:50 gender ratio. Will there be more political pundits on the table after this election? Maybe, depending on the results of the election, we may see more female pundits on television. Special Interest groups have increasingly donated more money to political candidates this year. However the more money does not guarantee a win. Jeb Bush spent $52.5 million on media and yet he didn’t receive the Republican Party nomination (Sheingate). Donald Trump had spent $1.2 million and received the party nomination (Sheingate). Will special interest groups be more cautious after this election? Maybe but it may also be dependent on the candidate and the polling.
Lally, Robin. "Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked." Rutgers Today 17 Oct. 2016. Web. Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." New York Times 30 Dec. 2015. Web. Silver, Nate. "The State Of The Polls 2016." FiveThirtyEight.com. 2 June 2016. Web.
Some of the key people in every election have been the personnel behind a candidate’s campaign, otherwise known as political consultants. Political consultants, essentially, are people who support and plan a presidential candidate’s campaign. According to Trent and her colleges, “political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and utilizing direct mail, preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate, mounting a fund-raising campaign, and establishing and utilizing an Internet website” (Trent, 285). Consultants are used by both the Clinton and Trump campaigns to develop ways to gain more voters. They are usually responsible for the candidate’s public appearances, such as when Trump appeared on Jimmy Fallon or when Clinton appeared on “Between two Ferns”. In addition to consultants, polls also have a powerful effect on this election. According to Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, “the accuracy of polls will also play a role in the 2016 presidential elections. With a crowded Republican field for the nomination, sponsors of the early Republican debates announced that the criteria for being invited to participate in the debates would include standing in public opinion polls. Both Fox News and CNN, sponsors of the first two debates, planned to limit participation to only the top ten candidates in an average of national public opinion polls.” (Semiatin, 70) Now that the debates are over, we can see clearly what the effects the polls have had on the candidates, especially Trump. As of late, Trump is trying very hard to avoid the grim truth now facing his campaign, which is that polls have put him solidly behind Hillary Clinton and the electoral map is tipping toward a Democratic Landslide (Stokols). Trump’s reaction to these polls have put him in the forefront of the media once again, as he claimed that the polls – one of which puts Clinton up 11 points nationally – and the media are biased against him, and that he is actually winning (Stokols). Generally, this is being perceived as negative by large and may continue to hinder his chances at becoming president.
Another extremely influential force in this election are special interest groups. Special interests groups are groups of people who share similar ideas and try to work together to persuade politicians to legislate in your group’s best interests usually through a hired third party known as a lobbyist (Clark). Special interest groups can be either helpful or detrimental to a candidate’s campaign. Some helpful special interest groups, such as labor unions, coordinate with campaigns and provide them with volunteers. On the other hand, however, special interest groups can also be responsible for nasty smear campaigns, such as when the special interest group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth challenged John Kerry’s Vietnam service record in the 2004 election (Clark). In this election, special interests groups have mostly been affecting the Clinton campaign. Records show Clinton has ranked in $3.2 million from registered lobbyists, who bundle money from their rich clients such as Marathon oil, MasterCard, Corning Inc., Prudential Financial, Exxon Mobil, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Delta Air Lines, Ernest & Young and General Electric (Shultz). These accepted donations have caused her to be criticized not only by Trump, but also by other democrats such as Bernie Sanders. They’ve argued that Clinton can’t be a trustworthy president because she will have to show loyalty to her donors, rather than the citizens that support her. While Clinton is seemingly in the lead, the money she received from her donors are often a talking point from her opposition. Works Cited Clark, Josh. "Do Special Interest Groups Hurt Candidates?" HowStuffWorks. N.p., 07 Feb. 2008. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Schultz, Marisa. "Hillary Will Take on Wealthy Special Interests -- but Not before Taking Their Cash." New York Post. N.p., 17 Nov. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Stolokos, Eli. "Trump’s Love Affair with the Polls Is over." POLITICO. N.p., 24 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Trent, Judith, S, et al. Political Campaign Communication. 8th ed., New York, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
The biggest importance when it comes to this election is the role that consultants and pundits play. Through the last 2 years we have been watching this election unfold we have seen many pundits poke fun at both candidates. Donald Trump has also made it extremely difficult for consultants to even want to help him as he has insulted so many people of all different nationalities and religions. According to Adam Sheingate, “More money means more ads, and more ads means more money. However, media saturation makes it more difficult to grab our attention, requiring more ads, and more money and contributions, to reach the electorate” (Sheingate). This whole campaign has been another political event that SuperPACS and other donors have continued to throw money at. Trump hasn’t been one of the candidates to spend a significant amount of money on his marketing and ads. Clinton has been one of the candidates to spend the most on her campaign and continues to spend incredible amounts. According to Jack Noland, “In September, the Democrat collected more than $73.8 million in total contributions, exceeding Trump’s haul of $54.7 million – a sum that included more than $2 million of the Republican’s own money, bringing his self-funding to about $56.1 million, or a quarter of his total haul for the race” (Noland). That is a considerable difference in campaign money spent. With Hillary spending a considerable amount more than Trump she may have a lead over him and an advantage and so we might see Clinton win this election. If you think of the differences between money spent there is a significant issue as many ads, I have seen have only been endorsed by Clinton. The only Trump ads I’ve seen have been minimal and directed solely at Clinton and for the purpose of attack. According to the article written by Nate Silver, there are only four ways this election can go and three involve Clinton winning. Silver says,
“A narrow Clinton win, wherein she wins the Electoral College, but wins the popular vote by 3 percentage points or less. (Or wins the Electoral College and loses the popular vote.), A Clinton win in the ‘Obama zone,’ wherein she wins the popular vote by 4 to 7 percentage points — the margins by which President Obama won the elections in 2012 and 2008, respectively. Clinton is all but certain to win the Electoral College if she wins the popular vote by this amount, and Finally, a Clinton blowout, wherein she wins the popular vote by 8 points or more, which would almost certainly also yield a dominant performance in the Electoral College” (Silver).
Basically all the consultants Clinton has used and the pundits who terrorized her in the media in these scenarios have no effect over her winning. The pundits maintained their focus more on Trump and his media presence then Clinton and her failed wardrobe and daily public attire.
Works Cited Noland, Jack. "Outpolled, Outraised and Outspent: Clinton Leads Trump in September and Overall, but Numbers Not as High as Obama's." Opensecrets RSS. 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 30 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. Silver, Nate. "Election Update: There Are 4 Ways This Election Can End — And 3 Involve Clinton Winning." FiveThirtyEight. 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the election appears to be all about the candidate, outside forces that influence and shape the dynamic of the campaigns have as much, if not more credit in the running of a campaign. Consultants, polling, donors and special interests, and political pundits all bring something of importance to a campaign. For example, “political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and utilizing direct mail, preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate, mounting a fund-raising campaign, and establishing and utilizing an Internet website” (Trent, 285). The way that consultants help their campaigns and clients is extremely pivotal to a campaign. Take the Donald Trump campaign, for example; they have tossed several advisors and consultants out of the back door, but according to “Kellyanne Conway’s Political Machinations” by Ryan Lizza, Conway has practically kept the campaign afloat. Conway had “brought the race to a near-tie” just four days before the first debate. It appeared that during a speech, “Trump, reading from a teleprompter, sounded almost like a conventional politician as he spoke about ‘breaking up the special-interest monopoly’ and described America as ‘a nation of strivers, dreamers, and believers.’ Conway was being lauded as the ‘Trump whisperer’—the only person who could persuade him to prepare for his crucial showdown with Clinton.” Therefore, Conway’s role has completely reshaped the Trump campaign in a way that no other consultant before her could.
Polls also have the ability to shape and influence elections as “the accuracy of polls will also play a role in the 2016 presidential elections. With a crowded Republican field for the nomination, sponsors of the early Republican debates announced that the criteria for being invited to participate in the debates would include standing in public opinion polls. Both Fox News and CNN, sponsors of the first two debates, planned to limit participation to only the top ten candidates in an average of national public opinion polls.” (Campaigns, 70) Therefore, polls influence the ability for politicians to even have a voice, or show the people some form of approval rating. Without a certain percentage of public approval, candidates can’t even vocalize their campaign goals on the debate stage, making it harder to be heard or seen by the population. For example, in this election season, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson gained a significant following for a third party candidate, and many wished to watch him take the debate stage next to Clinton and Trump. However, he did not gain enough points in the polls to see himself pushed into the limelight. Therefore, he has remained a mystery to a majority of America, and hasn’t been able to gain more of a following since the debates.
Donors certainly have a large hand in the running of a campaign. Although candidates and their team do not show it, but the more money they get from a wealthy donor, the more likely that candidate will push for the issues of that donor once they are in office. According to “Meet the wealthy donors who are pouring millions into the 2016 election” by Anu Narayanswamy, “Many of the biggest super PAC donors have spread around their money, financing multiple super PACs that back presidential hopefuls and congressional candidates. They hail from various sectors, fueled by fortunes made in the energy industry, on Wall Street and in health care.” Therefore, it is fairly easy to assume that the candidates will give more time to focusing on the issues that affect those donors rather than the middle class Americans. One of the top donors, for example, is Tom Steyer, who is a Democrat funneling his money into a climate change focused Super PAC, which is likely what has shaped Clinton’s rhetoric surrounding climate change; on her website, she states that climate change “is an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time. It threatens our economy, our national security, and our children’s health and futures. We can tackle it by making America the world’s clean energy superpower and creating millions of good-paying jobs, taking bold steps to slash carbon pollution at home and around the world, and ensuring no Americans are left out or left behind as we rapidly build a clean energy economy.”
ReplyDeletePundits also have a hand in how campaigns’ election bids run. However, our current pundit situation doesn’t accurately reflect the demographic of America. According to “Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked,” by Robin Lally, “women make up more than half of the population, comprise 53 percent of the electorate, and for the first time in history a woman is at the top of a major political party’s presidential ticket, you might think that the female political perspective would be a large part of this season’s nonstop cable news coverage. But you’d be wrong. Men outnumber women significantly in cable news political punditry, according to research being conducted by TheEagleton Institute’s Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers.” Therefore, the voices and opinions are heard the most, whereas the voices and opinions of women are dulled out. This can be seen in the current polls, as broken down by gender; according to Nate Silver of Five Thirty Eight, Trump would win 350 electoral votes to Clinton’s 188 if women did not vote. Could this be the result of a majority of male pundits voicing their opinions to the population? Lally writes that Gina Glantz, the co-founder of Gender Avenger, believes that women and their opinions are excluded and underrepresented in the election on television shows and during the post-election analysis. She beieves that “it was a stunning omission especially four years after Americans elected the first black president and four years after Hillary Clinton spoke about making cracks in the glass ceiling.”
Therefore, outside political forces have just as much ability to hurt or help a campaign, but without them, the election would not be as dynamic and interesting as it is.
Trent, Judith, S, et al. Political Campaign Communication. 8th ed., New York, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
DeleteSilver, Nate. "Election Update: Women Are Defeating Donald Trump." Five Thirty Eight, Word Press, 11
Oct. 2016, fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-women-are-defeating-donald-trump/.
Accessed 23 Oct. 2016.
Lizza, Ryan. "Kellyanne Conway's Political Machinations." The New Yorker, Conde Nast, 17 Oct. 2016,
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/17/kellyanne-conways-political-machinations. Accessed 23
Oct. 2016.
Nelson, Candice contributor. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge. 3rd ed., Thousand Oaks, SAGE
Publications, 2016.
Narayanswamy, Anu Narayanswamy. "Meet the wealthy donors who are pouring millions into the 2016
elections." The Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/
superpac-donors-2016/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2016.
"Join the official campaign—and help stop Donald Trump!" Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America,
www.hillaryclinton.com/. Accessed 20 Oct. 2016.
Source:
DeleteLally, Robin. "Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked." Rutgers Today 17 Oct. 2016. Web.
ReplyDeleteAlmost everything about this election has been out of the ordinary, even the use of consultants, pundits, special interests and polls by both campaigns. To get a candidate elected has created a special job market based around these four concepts for qualified people. In this election we’ve seen just how vital or adverse things like low polling and unqualified consulting can be. When you put all four together they contribute to a campaign “getting out the vote.”
Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, mentions that “The conversion of big data, social media, and traditional get-out-the–vote efforts has reinvigorated the role of turnout operations by parties and campaigns to the most significant level in more than fifty years (Semiatin 88).” In this election pundits have not only been incredibly visible for both Trump and Clinton throughout mass media, but they’ve also developed social media followings. Not only are they in round table discussions throughout the day but they can also send out tweets. Kayleigh McEnany, a Trump supporter and pundit has 56,900 followers on twitter. The Daily Mail even wrote a news article on her entitled, “The election star even more divisive than Trump! Meet 28-year-old analyst Kayleigh McEnany who is driving the internet berserk with her pro-Donald election views.” Kayleigh is an example of a visible Trump supporter who defends Trump on a daily basis and has a following but isn’t affiliated with the Trump campaign.
Polling can be used to gage just how effective a candidate’s campaigning is but can also give a campaign information on voters and how to tailor their GOTV strategies. Campaign surveys can tell a candidate a lot about their voter base. “Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics,” states that “any campaign with sufficient money uses polls these days. The level of the office being sought doesn’t matter.” It’s clear that the Clinton campaign uses pollsters when it comes to ad targeting and demographics. Whereas the Trump campaign seems to only use/favor polls when they favor the Trump campaign.
According to the text Political Campaign Communication, the role of political consultants is to “provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate etc. (Trent et al. 285).” The Trump campaign has used some high profile untraditional names; they’ve also not kept many around for very long. For instance, for the debates Trump turned to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Governor Chris Christie and former Fox news CEO Roger Ailes. The Clinton campaign consultants are less high profile and more a part of her inner circle. People she’s worked with for years that she trusts.
Special interest groups are formed around and convey specific ideologies and policies. Special interests have been a hot topic in this election. The donors help to fund each candidate’s “war chest” of money so to speak. Clinton has vowed to take on gun lobbyists if she becomes President. Clinton has been backed by numerous special interest groups in the past, something that her opponent back in the primary’s Bernie Sanders never failed to bring up.
Consultants, pundits, special interests and polls come together to aid campaigns. They’re valuable entities that by way of strategic communication help to build a candidate’s “brand.”
WORKS CITED
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
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ReplyDeleteExternal influences always affect campaigns. Polls, pundits, consultants, and special interests are all outside factors that have a way of influencing a campaign in one way or another. Some significantly, and some not so much.
ReplyDeleteConsultants are one group of experts who can offer helpful strategy, report on trends, and buy media space. Donald Trump, at least in the early days of his campaign, got by without consultants. Indeed, The New York Times reported in December that Trump was ranked ninth in the GOP race in terms of consulting spending, yet amassed 39% of poll support. This is unprecedented in presidential elections. By contrast, Jeb Bush spent $52 million in the same time period, and as we know ultimately dropped out. As the article put it, “Mr. Bush’s difficulties show that giving voters a steady diet of television ads is great for the consulting industry, but it offers diminishing returns for the candidate and turns off some voters in the process. Political consultants are not entirely to blame for this state of affairs, but they do benefit from a flawed system that they helped create.” It’s apparent that consultants have been able to help propel certain candidates to the next level, but fail to navigate through uncharted waters like the arrival of Trump to the party spotlight.
Polls are another external factor that greatly affects the atmosphere and morale of a campaign. Polls were figures Trump was boastful about during the primaries. He did indeed lead by substantial margins through the primary process, and was a major component of the stump speeches he would give, and was a common line in his interviews. When polls are good, it can be an indication for a campaign to focus energy or attention to other areas, like down-ballot races. Hillary is focusing on down-ballot elections in North Carolina this week as a result of her favorable poll numbers there. Aside from serving as an indicator of voters’ attitudes, polls also give the media something to talk about. They are a great conversation starter and are useful in demonstrating reaction to scandal like Trump’s leaked Access Hollywood tapes. His numbers dropped nearly four points since the release, according to the RealClearPolitics national aggregate. In other singular polls, his numbers plunged even further. Some polls are better than others however. FiveThirtyEight.com has been instrumental in rating the best pollsters from around the country. Our own Quinnipiac poll (which I worked at for a year) boasts a rating of A-, with good data collection tactics and very good predictability accuracy.
Both campaigns have been plagued by special interest groups. Although Trump used to brag about taking money from no one and financing his own campaign, that fairytale has long been put to bed. He has certainly been accepting money from PACs and special interests, and this was bound to happen to him, especially because he quit “self funding.” Clinton is guiltier of accepting special interest money, and has amassed over $100 million from corporations alone this election cycle. This troubles many Americans, and skepticism exists about what kind of favors Clinton (or God forbid Trump) might owe these entities, or what kind of favors or exemptions would exist in return if they get to the White House. The Washington Post reports that Donald Sussman has contributed over $23 million dollars to the Clinton campaign. This is why many people would like to see the Supreme Court ruling of Citizens United overruled.
Pundits are the wildest and most easily observable group this election cycle. They are “experts” who will promote their party or candidate ‘til their last dying breath. All pundits receive handsome sums from media networks to deliver their unabashed perspectives, but Trump’s pundits really stand out as absurd in their own right. Corey Lewandowski was ousted from the Trump campaign many months ago, over what was believed to be fierce internal conflict. He is now making over $500k this year from CNN to appear on their panels daily. It is remarkable to me how he can still throw his support to a candidate who he probably had a multitude of disagreements, but I guess as the old saying goes: money talks. GOP pundits do exist this election cycle, but I’ve been noticing that they have been finding it increasingly difficult to back Trump during this election, which is demonstrative of the impending implosion of the GOP that I predict to take place.
DeleteWorks Cited
Deletefivethirtyeight.com/contributors/nate-silver/. "FiveThirtyEight's Pollster Ratings." FiveThirtyEight. N.p., 02 June 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
"RealClearPolitics - Election 2016 - General Election: Trump vs. Clinton." RealClearPolitics - Election 2016 - General Election: Trump vs. Clinton. N.p., 24 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." The New York Times, 30 Dec. 2015. Web.
Williams, Aaron. "Meet the Wealthy Donors Who Are Pouring Millions into the 2016 Elections." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
It’s obvious that consultants, pundits, special interest groups, and polls have played a vital role in this election for both of the candidates. Without all of these individuals/groups, the candidates would have a very difficult time getting elected, but, at the same time, these individuals/groups would not have a purpose without the candidates. This election, the role of these individuals/groups has been to make sure that the American people “get out the vote”. “Get out the vote” is a phrase that’s been thrown around a lot this election because more and more people, especially millennials have decided not to vote. One way campaigns are doing this is by making voting more accessible for voters. Semiatin, the author of Campaigns on the Cutting Edge states that, “While new digital technologies have been criticized as being impersonal in other modes of life, in campaigns they have actually been used to increase personal contact. As former baseball catcher Yogi Berra once said: ‘It’s déjà vu all over again.’ A déjà vu that is helping to reinvigorate voter participation” (Semiatin 88). I think that this statement really shows what affect consultants can have on the election.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, pundits have been recognized as being very important for both the Clinton and Trump campaign’s this year. One avenue that pundits have use to have a major impact on the election and be a voice for their political parties would be through the use of Twitter. For example, Sean Hannity, a huge pundit for Donald Trump is always tweeting negatively about Hillary Clinton in the hope that voters will see these posts and be more willing to change who they are voting for. One tweet that Hannity made on October 21st had to do with the Hillary Clinton email wiki leaks, https://twitter.com/politico/status/789648235795247105.
With the election coming to an end soon, we can expect there to be a lot of polls coming out, which could affect voting behavior and help voters make up their mind, especially this election. According to Neil Malhotra of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and David Rothschild of Microsoft Research, “greater numbers of voters are searching for the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ when they evaluate poll results, and that the opinion of experts matters more to them than that of their peers” (Snyder et al). I also think that not only can polls help voters decide who to vote for, but they can also help candidates learn about their voters, if they have the money. I think it’s pretty obvious that the Clinton campaign has spent money on polls to help curate their advertisements so that they have the biggest impact on voters.
Next we have political consultants, which are there to do anything to ensure a candidates victory in an election. In Political Campaign Communication, a full service political consulting firm “can provide clients with virtually all of these services (speech writing, commercials, debate preparation, etc.), thought it may well specialize in a more limited number” (Trent et al. 285). When comparing Donald Trump’s use of political consultants to Hillary’s, it’s obvious that Trump has relied on people well known by the public such as Chris Christie, while Hillary has relied on people that have been extremely involved in her political career.
ReplyDeleteLastly, special interest groups are there to help raise money for the campaigns to be used to achieve victory in the election. In this years election, Donald Trump said he was funding his entire campaign, but that’s not true at all considering the amount of money that’s been donated to him and Hillary has also been donated a lot of money from various special interest groups.
WORKS CITED
Politico. "WikiLeaks Emails Show Clinton and Advisers Calling Liberal Heroes “puritanical,” “pompous,” “naive” and “dumb” Https://t.co/M9xo31jE8m." Twitter. Twitter, 22 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Snyder, Bill. "How Polls Influence Behavior." Stanford Graduate School of Business. Stanford University, 30 Oct. 2012. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
If you had asked me this very question to at the beginning of the year, I definitely would have told you that I had no idea. I would have had no idea what the roles of these various parties were, and in some cases pundit I wouldn’t have even known what you were talking about. That being said, with my newfound knowledge on some of these groups I can see each has played a large and impactful role on this election in particular.
ReplyDeleteStarting with consultants, it is very easy to see in this election, maybe more than others how consultants have played an important role in this election. In chapter 10 of the Trent et al. book Political Campaign Communications it is said that “Virtually every political candidate from George Washington’s day forward, has turned to a group of advisors for advice on getting elected and often advice for governing” (Trent et al. 282). So it seems reasonable that candidates can have consultants, however it can also go wrong for them. Particularly with Trumps campaign he has been switching consultants constantly, firing them and hiring new ones which is leading to some mixed signals from his campaign.
Secondly, pundits have played an important year in this election cycle. I had especially no idea what a pundit was before this class, however I am now very aware that it is the person who is an expert in their field and is often called to give their opinion on matters related to their field, so for the case of this election, political pundits are very important or at least ubiquitous. By that I mean you can’t go onto the YouTube trending page without seeing Pundit so-and-so gets into an argument with Insert a major news networks journalists name here. I can’t say this always means their helping a candidate (and I don’t mean that in the sense of the pundits working for a campaign). However, pundit commentary in the 24hr news cycle can be effective to sway voter’s opinions.
Next there are special interest groups. Special interest groups can be extremely beneficial to a campaign when they help out appropriately. Especially when they help with advertisements. For instance Trumps NRA campaign has over 2 million views, debatably a good number of views for a political ad.
Lastly, polls have also played a large part in this election, where it be used by the media or referenced by candidates. Polls though are not always trust worthy, especially online polls. With online polls anyone can vote as many times as they want. What is significantly more trustworthy is phone polling. Personally, I have worked for a political poll (The Quinnipiac Poll) so when reading the chapter on polling in chapter 5 of the Campaigns on the Cutting Edge written by Candice J. Nelson about polling a lot of what she was saying seemed familiar to me. It was stated in that chapter that, “[With Phone surveys a typical] response rate of between 8 and 12 percent, estimates are that pollsters need to call ten times the number of phone needed to get a sufficient sample” (Nelson 62). This rung really true to me with how many phone calls I must have made when working at the polling center. Phone polls are very hard to carry out and I will always have a respect for them because of it. However, in relation to the campaign polls can be very helpful for candidates to see where they can improve their campaign strategies.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
The 2016 election has been chaotic and unorthodox as a whole, but still contains many of the classic aspects of a political campaign. Both sides still require political consultants to help guide the candidates through the grind of the election process. The political consultant has a plethora of jobs that include, managing television ads, social media and speech coaching. Even though these consultants work behind the scenes, “there is no denying the significant impact that these consultants have on the political advertising process” (Trent et al 288). However the political consultant can only guide the candidate, a dilemma that can be clearly seen within the Trump campaign. Looking at Trump’s speeches in particular we can see the working of a political consultant. The beginnings of Trump’s debate speeches seem calm and collective, often staying to a very well planned theme. However Trump’s character and fiery temper seem to take the workings of his speech-writing consultants and flush them down the drain. Look no further than his “bad hombre” line from the most recent debate. This was Trump going off course from the speech-writing specialist’s plan and it led to disastrous results. Pundits are always a factor in the political campaign process due to the “horse race” mentality that campaigns often take. The big question is “who is winning” and after debates “who won”. Insight from the pundits helps the public form a general sense of who is winning at certain points in the campaign. The pundits this year have often been in favor of Clinton’s rhetoric, due to its less self-destructive nature as opposed to Trump. Even supporters of Trump like Bill O’Reilly have created some problematic scenarios for him. Trump struggled mightily in an interview with O’Reilly after O’Reilly refused to let Trump shy away from questions.
ReplyDeleteBoth candidates have received support from certain groups that align with there views. Trump has been proud of his endorsement from the NRA and some of the nation’s police forces. However Hillary has amassed a much more vocal following of special interest groups. She has often gained groups by turning Trumps words against him. Trump’s hateful words have driven groups like The Human Rights Campaign into the arms of Hillary. She can now mobilize the individuals of a group like this to vote for her. She has also seen surrogate speakers from this special interest group like Lena Dunham, who has been trying to influence the LGBT community to support Hillary. When interest groups endorse a candidate, the ideas of the group are also linked to the candidate. This creates larger reach ability for a candidate as they try to sweep up undecided voters. Finally in the data driven age of the modern world, polls have become an obsession amongst many people. They provide the data that fuels the “horse race” of a campaign. The polls currently have Clinton ahead, but polls released by CNN/ORC show a slight tightening of the race again. Polls provide optimism and doom as they can help enhance the mood of a campaign. The recent tightening of the race may give Trump supporters more optimism. However FiveThrityEight shows that Clinton is still far ahead.
The challenge of polls is that often the most effective method is telephone, but with the increasing growth of cell phone us creates many issues. For example “Cell phones don’t have area codes and the landline codes represent specific geographic area”(Nelson 63). This would skew data when trying to map out demographics and locations that support a candidate. Polls will continue to adapt as many are trying to go online, however their influence on the political process is still important.
Work Cited
Nelson, Candice., Semiatin,R. J., Graf, J. “Campaign Press Coverage-Changed Forever.” In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge. 3d. ed., Richard J. Semiatin, ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 2016.
Trent, J. S., Friedenberg, R. V., Denton Jr., R. E. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
ReplyDeleteConsultants, pundits, special interest and polls all play an interesting and important role in elections. They help influence voters to vote for a certain candidate. Consultants can offer a lot to a candidate such as targeting voters, using radio and television commercials, writing speeches, preparing for debates, running a fund raising campaigning and utilizing the internet (Trent et all 285). Donald Trumps consultants definitely have their plates full this election. In Adam Sheingate article The Political Consultant Racket gives big insight on the world of political consulting and it all revolves around money. In December 2015 Hillary Clinton had spent about $13 million on media consultants. (Sheingate 2015). Hillary Clinton’s media consultants have definitely showcased great commercials that are powerful, viral and have a lasting impact.
Polling is a very confusing concept this election season; every major media outlet is posting their own polls and well as the candidates are posting polls. It gets very confusing to understand which polls are truly accurate. Polls definitely influence people and help them understand where their candidate sits in the polls. Polling can also help 3rd party candidates get their voice heard. “The accuracy of polls will also paly a role in the 2016 presidential election” because there is a strict criteria for getting into presidential debates, the candidate has to be polling at a certain percentage in order to appear in the debate. During the primary there were a large amount of republican candidates but only so many could be on the stage for the election so Fox News and CNN limited it to the top 10 candidate “in an average of national public opinion polls”. (Semitatin 77)
Pundits have a big influence in this campaign. A huge issue right now that I hear about almost every time CNN is on is that the media has too much influence on the voter. The media seems to have united against Trump. People who are suppose to be experts in politics are voicing their opinions and sometimes in a bias way to almost influence the voter. I can’t help but agree that pundits in the media play a huge role in voter decisions. Every media source covering the election has a negative opinion on Trump, which is going to influence people to not vote for him this election. I wouldn’t got as far to agree with Trump that they are rigging the election, but I do believe they have a strong influence.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." New York Times 30 Dec. 2015. Web.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
In any campaign, consultants, special interests, pundits and polls play a vital role in the outcome of an election. This year, the external forces have been especially hard at work. Political consultants are a driving factor in each campaign. According to Political Campaign Communication, “the consulting profession has grown rapidly in the past 3 decades because it has provided candidates with highly desired services,” (Trent 284). Some these services according to Trent include “help in targeting voters, establishing a prescient organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and using radio and television commercials, etc.,” (285). Preparing and using radio/tv commercials is significant because a large amount of campaign’s budget is put towards advertising. Adam Sheingate from the New York Times writes, “Political consultants earn fees and commissions by turning the billions of dollars given to candidates, political parties and “super PACs” — like Mr. Bush’s Right to Rise — into the products and services of contemporary campaigns, especially TV (and Internet) ads,” (Sheingate 1). The oversaturation of advertising from each candidate indicates that this election is absolutely outspending previous ones in terms of political consultants.
ReplyDeleteThe use of special interest groups is related to campaign spending on advertising because are the main benefactors for it. The Center for Responsive Politics reports, “The big money is in super PACs and other outside groups devoted to boosting a single candidate, which can solicit unlimited donations and later use the funds to pummel rivals – and, as seems to be happening this cycle, take on some of the duties traditionally handled by a campaign,” (1). Throughout the campaign, one of Trump’s main criticisms is of Hillary Clinton’s donors. According to Jonathon Swan from the Hill, “Clinton’s campaign and her top allied super-PAC, Priorities USA, raised more than $618 million from the time she entered the race last April through to the end of September, according to The Hill's analysis of FEC reports,” (Swan 1). When special interest groups funds the candidate’s campaign, they are anticipating influencing public policy. By buying advertisements and even running their own, interest groups are influencing voter decisions as well.
Pundits are also particularly useful in media to contribute to the political conversation. So called ‘experts’ are brought onto TV programming and share their views and commentary on whatever issue is relevant. In my opinion, I think that the use of pundits is important this year because more people than usual are paying attention to the election based on its nontraditional nature. These people aren’t politically sophisticated therefore they look to pundits to explain the on goings in a way that’s understandable of them. There is an inherent bias from the pundit, therefore viewers can be influenced from this discussion and form their own judgments on the candidates.
DeleteLastly, polls are important in the campaign both the candidate, voters and the donors. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge suggests in regards to Mitt Romney’s loss in the 2014 elections, “uncertainties about how to conduct accurate polls likely played a role,” ( Semiatin 70). The candidates utilize the polling data to demonstrate the levels of support or favorability towards them. It also gives voters the satisfaction of knowing who’s winning or losing, like a horse race. Lastly, it restores confidence or fear in donors to support their candidate. It acts as if it’s a predictability factor on whether or not they’ll get their moneys worth. With two weeks of the election left, FiveThirtyEight reports, “It’s tempting to say that voters have made up their minds and that the presidential vote is set. Hillary Clinton has a 6.6-percentage-point lead in the popular vote and an 87 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, according to our polls-only forecast. A week ago, those numbers were about the same: a 6.4-point lead and an 85 percent chance. In our polls-plus forecast, Clinton’s chances are 84 percent, up only slightly from 82 percent a week ago,” (Silver 1). This shows that attitudes towards the candidates for the most part are becoming stagnant. Because the Clinton campaign has more money to spend, they are able to create and run the best commercials specially targeted at a demographic she wants to reach. Overall, the 2016 election has been out of the ordinary, yet campaigns are still utilizing typical strategies in the final days to secure their candidate a win.
Works Cited
Delete"Behind the Candidates: Campaign Committees and Outside Groups." OpenSecrets.org 19 Oct. 2016.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." New York Times 30 Dec. 2015. Web.
Swan, Jonathan. "Five Takeaways from Money Race." The Hill 21 Oct. 2016. Web.
Trent, J. S., Friedenberg, R. V., Denton Jr., R. E. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Consultants on both sides of the election are helping their candidate get elected. The candidates need to have other people they can rely on for a multitude of things like getting the vote out, developing a message and getting their message across. Political Campaign Communication talks about how prevalent the team of advisors is, “Virtually every political candidate, from George Washington’s day forward, has turned to a group of advisors for advice on getting elected and often for advice on governing” (282). This is why even after the election whoever wins the presidency has advisors called “The Cabinet” to help with decision-making. This is too big of a job for just one person to run that’s why the candidate needs a team to help shape their message.
ReplyDeleteThe Trump campaign has had trouble with their consultants a few times. Trump is different than the usual candidate because it seems that he wants to be able to do it all himself, which is why he has had so many different Campaign Managers. There has been Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort, and currently Kellyanne Conway. Each of them have left for different reasons that all seem like it has been how much they should let Trump be Trump.
Also helping to shape a candidate’s message are the special interest groups. One special interest group playing a role in 2016, and in most years, is the NRA. The NRA is putting out attack ads against Hillary Clinton because they are threatened by her stance on guns. They also endorsed Trump because they want to help change his platform on it and give life to their cause.
Doing surveys and research are one way the campaign consultants can figure out who to target to get them to vote. The Trump campaign uses online surveys distributed to people on their email list. According to Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, there are quite a few problems with doing surveys this way, “One, online surveys are not random, and two, the size of online panels for anything other than national surveys is too small,” (65). Trump’s campaign has asked his supports who won the debate, what to talk about in future debates, and even how he should talk about Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail. These are flawed numbers because the people most likely to respond to these surveys are going to favor Trump as a candidate.
Polls done by national organizations though do not have these same flaws. They are conducted using science and math to try to predict the outcome in the General Election. Now not all polls should be taken at their face value. They each have different methods to predict the finale of the election, which means they will get slightly different results. The best way to figure out is to take an average of the polling numbers. State polling is much more valuable than the National polls because the national polls are too broad. State polls can figure out much more accurately figure out what the state is going to decide. In the primary, pundits said that polls were way off, but reality they were pretty spot on. A pundit’s job is to give their input based on their experience in politics.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
The commitment and degree in which these individuals affect the campaigns on such a deep level cannot be ignored. The (typically less informed) general-public may even begin to simple equate a certain celebrity with a particular campaign that he or she promotes/belongs to. This, granted, may come off as a positive or a negative. The Trump campaign, for example, seemingly has been having difficulties with their surrogates for some time now. Rudy Giuliani for example may be seen as both a positive and a negative for the Trump campaign. His expertise and reputation as being responsible for cleaning up the streets of NYC both lead to positives being drawn. Yet, his hot-headedness draw negative comparisons to the Donald himself. The Trump campaign does have some positive/notable surrogates fighting for him, including, but not limited to: Rupert Murdoch and Wayne LaPierre. Rupert Murdoch is worth almost 12 billion and is the owner and CEO of News Corp. – whom owns Fox News. Many upper-middleclass and wealthy individuals look to him with respect. Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Rifle Association, is looked upon for 2nd Amendment guidance from 4.5-5 million gun NRA members. The impact of having a high majority of gun owners vote for one candidate is incredible; an impact very equitable to that of the entire U.S. Jewish population. Of course, it was not seen as a positive when David Duke, former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, supported Trump.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, the Hillary Clinton camp has its own share of both positive and negative surrogates. Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama are both valiantly fighting for the sake of Clinton camp. Barack is trying to use his appeal to black voters and minorities, meanwhile Bernie is attempting to move his group from his own camp, to that of Hillary’s. Barack campaigning for Clinton may be originally seen as a great idea, to have the incumbent supporting you – sadly, this is definitely not the case with Obama’s approval ratings barley hovering above 50% as of late. Mark Cuban, initially a huge positive, is lately coming off as hot headed and engulfed by the liberal media and pop culture [I also believe Amy Schumer is the definition of horrible].
Through the use of surrogates, campaigns are extending themselves to reach voters that maybe would have otherwise been unmoved or uninformed.
Works Cited
ReplyDelete"Behind the Candidates: Campaign Committees and Outside Groups." OpenSecrets.org 19 Oct. 2016.
DeLaney, Ann. "Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics." Politics For Dummies. Wiley, n.d. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Swan, Jonathan. "Five Takeaways from Money Race." The Hill 21 Oct. 2016. Web.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Consultants, pundits, special interests and polls all play their vital role in the presidential election process and especially in this year’s election. These all play a secondary roles in the election process where they aren’t necessarily the candidates themselves speaking or making decisions, but they affect the candidate's campaign process tremendously by providing various means of support and give a specific analysis on the election. In Political Campaign Communication, it’s stated of consultants, “Whether it is a consultant who specializes in setting up phone banks, coaching political debaters, or producing television advertisements, consultants provide the campaign with a better run on its dollars.” (Trent et al. 288) These advisers of sorts have a broad range of specialities where they can contribute to the campaign and help the candidate to progress. This year’s candidates have had numerous consultants whether that be Trump’s various campaign managers he’s gone through or Clinton’s own husband Bill Clinton. A large portion of their campaign funds have gone into employment as noted by the Associated Press, “Clinton’s payroll topped 800 people, coming in as her second-highest expense of the month, about $5.5 million. Trump paid roughly 350 employees and consultants.”
ReplyDeletePundits play a different role where their expertise is more to educate the audience and with the amount of media coverage we’ve seen in this election, we’ve heard a lot from various pundits. What they do is to help the public form an opinion on where each candidate is at in the overall campaign race as well as give their opinion as to who is “winning”. For instance, many political pundits have taken to Twitter to live tweet their reactions throughout and give their various thoughts on the debates overall. An example being political analyst Lisa Boothe tweeting, “@realDonaldTrump won the debate tonight. This election just keeps getting crazier. #debates2016.”
Special interest groups usually contribute in two ways, one being in a promotional aspect and the other a financial one. For example, while Trump has received large support over his campaign from the NRA. They’ve provided him with numerous financial aids through helping to fund advertisements and even create their own in support and in opposition of Hillary Clinton. Clinton has mainly received a lot of negative criticism (mainly from Trump himself) as to her funding where she’s received millions in donations towards Super PAC’s from various wealthy business ventures. As reported by the Washington Post, “Nearly half of the financial sector donations made to support Hillary Clinton’s current presidential run have come from just two wealthy financiers: billionaire investor George Soros, who gave $7 million last year to the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA Action, and hedge-fund manager S. Donald Sussman, who gave the group $2.5 million.”
Polls provide a certain satisfaction to voters and media outlets because they give them statistical data that allows them to see where their candidate is at in the overall race.Not only this but it gives something for the candidate themselves to promote largely when giving stump speeches or posting on social media. Now polls themselves may not always simply predict the winner, but they give a good idea depending on the poll. As Nate Silver states, “polls that employ more expensive methodologies, and abide by higher levels of disclosure and transparency, tend to be more accurate than those that don’t. It may be that the best polls are roughly as accurate as ever but that the worst polls are increasingly far off the mark.” The polls in this year’s election have seemingly been all over the place and rather close at points throughout this election. However, following the presidential debates, many news outlets focused their reports on Trump’s large drop in the polls.
Works Cited
DeleteTrent, J. S., Friedenberg, R. V., Denton Jr., R. E. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Author Unknown. “Trump, Clinton campaigns spent more than $150 million on campaigns in September”. Associated Press. 10.06.16. Web.
Lisa Boothe. “Who Won? Pundits Weigh In On The Second Clinton-Trump Debate”. Fox News Insider. 10.09.16. Web.
Gold, Matea. Hamburger, Tom. Narayanswamy, Anu. “Clinton blasts Wall Street, but still draws millions in contributions”. The Washington Post. 02.04.16. Web.
Silver, Nate. “The State of the Polls, 2016.” FiveThirtyEight.com. 06.02.16. Web.
Pundits, Consultants, Special Interest groups and Polls have a vital role in this year’s 2016 Election. They are all key assets to winning because without each select group success is not possible. Political Pundits provide a broad political view to certain demographics to mass audiences. Consultants are in my opinion the most vital area to a candidate’s Presidential push, mainly because of how they present their candidate on stage or in speeches and in other public ways. Special Interest groups have been very outspoken in this year’s election and that is very important because they can help swing undecided voters toward voting. The polls have been very tricky and are truly in my mind the most corrupt false thing out there. They put a number in the voters heads that if they don’t like it almost makes it seem as though their vote wont change anything and that is not what candidates want.
ReplyDeleteDonald Trump has had a tough time with political pundits, even his own conservative buddy Bill O’ Reilly. It seems as though Trump just cant shut up, every chance he gets to go on air and apologize he avoids it or makes it seem as though what he has done isn’t so bad and political talk shows blast him for it. This allows them to talk negatively about him and ruin his reputation worse then he does. Pundits target certain demographics that could potentially help candidates and gain them voters, so this component is very important for candidates to keep on their good side. Hillary Clinton has done a better job on talk shows despite some tough questions that she had been asked about her crazy history.
Consultants can ultimately make a candidate and date back to our first president George Washington. According to Judith S. Trent, in Political Campaign Communication, “Virtually every political candidate, from George Washington’s day forward, has turned to a group of advisors for advice on getting elected and often for advice on governing.” Consultants are a huge deal and if you’re Hillary Clintons you have to love what she is doing. Hillary has played by her script and listens to her advisors very well; she is always prepared and does what is needed to make Trump look like a buffoon. If you are Trump’s advisors, you must be pulling your hair out. The guy cannot focus on a question for the life of him. Trump did a very poor job during the debates at performing the task at hand, which was to mainly answer questions. He failed to listen to his advisors by preparing for the debates so that he had some knowledge on how to properly debate. A lack of preparation has shown that Trump had not listened to his advisors where as Hillary focused on the task at hand.
Special Interest groups have been very important especially for Trump mainly because his big one happens to be the NRA. The NRA stands for “National Rifle Association,” they don’t really like Hillary too much so blast her with ads. The support from large groups like that help Trump gain certain voters that may be interested in him or interested in voting at all; News Corps owner and CEO Rupert Murdoch has also backed Trump. Hillary has more of surrogates then special interest groups such as President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama speaking on her campaign trail. Large groups have supported her but nothing along the lines of Trump and the NRA. However, this does not mean that Hillary will not gain a better demographic by having her Surrogates out and about talking her up. Special Interest groups and surrogates play a huge role for both Hillary and Donald Trump as they both struggle to gain undecided voters.
DeleteThe polls to me mean nothing. They are a lousy excuse for media to gain interest and attention where it shouldn’t be. Polls play a small role in this years election and I say they have a role only because of how much Trump has talked about the polls, from how much he loves them to how rigged they are. In the end of the day polls are useless and have media attention written all over them.
All of these components have had vital roles in the selection of the next president and we shall only see more of them in the next few weeks as we get closer and closer to Election Day.
Works Cited
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
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ReplyDeleteThe presidential elections always keep their focus around each candidate themselves, however there is more behind the process than just that. A lot of what helps get one candidate ahead of the other is the political reviews and endorsements from outside figures and/or organizations. Another factor is when people see the poll numbers on which candidate is doing better than the other. This would be considered a horse race affect. Finally, another component to a presidential campaign is its consultants. These are the people who are helping in directing what kind of message wants to be sent out to the audience through advertisement. “Whether it is a consultant who specializes in setting up phone banks, coaching political debaters, or producing television advertisements, consultants provide the campaign with a better run on its dollars.” (Trent et al. 288) These are the people who help determine what kind of campaign will be run for their candidate.
ReplyDeleteIn this year’s election, we’ve seen quite a bit of the behind-the-scenes of the campaign strategies. For example, the Trump campaign has put its top political strategist in front of the cameras. Kellyanne Conway has been the real backbone of the Trump campaign in making sure he does what he is told to make himself as presentable as possible. Consultants like Conway also handle how the money raised for or given to the campaign is spent. A lot of people tend to think that the candidate with more money wins the election altogether. However, “[c]andidates can’t simply buy your vote, but they can spend unlimited amounts hiring consultants to persuade you to vote for them” (Sheingate). In other words, a candidate can improve their campaign by hiring the right people to get their face, name, and word out there.
Political pundits have made their mark on political campaigns as well. These experts are usually trustworthy resources in helping people decide the vote. In a recent ongoing study produced by The Eagleton Institute’s Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, there is significant gender imbalance of these political pundits. “While Anderson Cooper on CNN and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC have broken the 50 percent mark when it comes to featuring female pundits, the rest are well below with FOX News Network’s The Kelly File and Fox and Friends scoring the lowest with only 15 percent of women panelists for The Kelly File and 19 percent for Fox and Friends” (Lally). This could have a certain kind of impact on voters because it creates an imbalance in perspective of how the political campaign is unfolding.
In another light, polling has become a large part in presidential campaigns. People like to read specific statistics of what the popular vote is either nationally, or state-by-state. However, polling is not always the best news source. Pollers need to gain random participants’ opinions and views to complete the poll. It’s not always the easiest because not everyone they call, send mail to, or approach face-to-face is willing to answer their questions. Although polling has become an outlet of campaigning Americans look to for clean-cut numbers, it’s not always an accurate representation of the entirety of the nation.
The presidential campaigns in 2016 are incorporating all of these factors into their strategies to win the race. It will have been a real effort for both sides by the end of this. However, neither candidate would be in the place they are now without their campaigning teams, sources of media, and high numbers of supporters to get them to the top.
Works Cited
DeleteLally, Robin. "Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked."Rutgers Today 17 Oct. 2016. Web.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." New York Times 30 Dec. 2015. Web.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
James Conway
ReplyDeleteP0348 Blog
10/24/2016
When looking at the Presidential campaigns of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the impact and influence consultants, pundits, special interests and polls have had becomes quite clear. In “Political Campaign Communication”, Trent notes that political consultants have been around for centuries but it was not until later that they served such an important role. (Trent, 282) Today, both Clinton and Trump have a staff of advisors and political consultants that have become invaluable to their campaign’s success. Trump might have begun his campaign with a very small number of consultants but as the campaign went on and on, he added more and more consultants by the week. These consultants though, they are not there just for the candidate. As Trent notes on 283, “getting elected has become a perpetual job. Thus, helping candidates has become a perpetual job.” In addition, thanks to “the increased opportunities for employment of those with the skills of political consultants, political consulting itself has now become a full-time job for many consultants.” (Trent, 283) For many of the people in consulting roles, this is a major opportunity and is one that could serve as a catapult to increase one’s own political stock in Washington.
Pundits are another thing we have seen in abundance this election season. Every single day, cable news networks bring together a panel of “experts” from all over the political spectrum and let them rant about their candidate. One thing I will say is that, this election is like no other election this nation has ever seen. It is because of this that I believe the pundits have served such a major role. People who have never cared about an election in their lives are voting in this one and because of that, pundits are needed to break down the heavy, dense material we receive from the candidates each week. Whether it be responses in a debate, answers in an interview or a tweet, pundits can help break information down for the people not used to being fed this much in a short period of time.
When discussing special interest groups, this election is filled with them. While Trump likes to brag about self-funding the first few months of his campaign, he would be nowhere were it not for some of the special interest groups on his side. They provide more exposure to constituents as they help advertise and more importantly, provide a financial backbone to a campaign that is constantly using funds. A group that has taken particular significant stance this election season is the National Rifle Association. They are petrified of Clinton’s ideas of gun control and see it as a direct attack on their constitutional rights. Because of this, they have released boat loads of anti-Clinton ads and hope they scare the semi-conservatives that have flip flopped candidates this election.
DeleteFinally, we have polls. Polls are important because they impact the candidate as well as the constituents in a similar manner. No candidate wants to see themselves losing in the polls and because of this, a candidate’s morale or momentum can often times rely on their place in national polls. After the 2005 tape of Trump’s horrible comments were released, he dropped in the polls as expected. That being said, while CNN tries to make it sound devastating, Business Insider had a totally different take and said that the fact Trump is only down 5 points after those comments are one of his biggest victories of the whole campaign. These conflicting headlines of the same exact polling data are exactly why polling is so important in the first place. During the primaries, Trump’s team LOVED to show polls because he was winning by margins not seen in forever. Once he got through the primaries and into the general election though, his sharing of polling data has gone way down. In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, the author notes that “campaign polling provides useful information to candidates, media and public officials whether obtained by phone interviews, Internet surveys or focus groups.” That being said, just because polls can help a candidate, doesn’t mean it cannot hurt them either. They “also have the potential to undermine the campaign process by creating a false persona for a candidate, an untrue stand on issues, or an inaccurate portrayal of one’s opponent.” (Semiatin, 218) For Clinton, I think we see this through her attitude and the polls she shares. She thinks it’s over. She thinks she has won the nomination and although others may believe that too, no one likes a cocky candidate as seen with Gore. With Trump, he often shares polls that show him winning but if he were to do that right now, he would come off as even more delusional than he already is. Then again, that might help him which is the crazy part.
In the end, pundits, special interest groups, polls and political consultants have all played a major role in this campaign season and with just two weeks to go, I would expect that trend to continue right up until the election is decided.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
DeleteTrent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Overall, the 2016 presidential campaign is unlike the other campaigns in the past and is simply bizarre. Consultants, pundits, special interests and polls have been playing a crucial role in this election. All of the above have played an essential role in the overall campaign and have influenced the American people and have shaped their opinions on each candidate. Each group has contributed to guiding the American people one step closer to reaching their ultimate decision for Election Day, which is shortly approaching.
ReplyDeleteI believe that polls are extremely influential and contribute to shaping individual’s opinions. There is always a recent poll that gets buzz and attracts a lot of attention. Ever since this summer, I have been paying attention to the recent polls from each news network. Polls are released so frequently, it is hard for people not to be influenced or surrounded by it. This debate is interesting with polls. When the polls showed that Trump and Clinton were not very far off, it motivated the candidates and their surrogates and consultants to try even harder to target specific voters. However, as the election is approaching, the recent polls have not changed much since the last debate and they show Clinton up 6 points (Silver). Although advertising is important, Trump has managed to do it all through Twitter and has not done as many commercials as Hillary has.
Consultants and special interest groups are influential in each campaign and have always been prevalent. Consultants provide an enormous amount of support and services to each candidate, such as assistance in targeting particular voters and preparing for debates and television and radio appearances. In essence, “most of those services are advertising and media related” (Trent 282). Advertising and media are essential in the campaign as a whole, but are used frequently by consultants as well. Consultants help the candidates communicate through advertising by providing writers, speech coaches, and direct mail and television specialists (Trent 285-286). Overall, communication is essential and is a main part of the consultant’s job.
In addition, I believe that pundits are one of the most influential groups involved in the campaign. Pundits express their opinions publically and typically have a large following, especially during this election. Many of the pundits speak their mind and do not hold back. For instance The Daily Show with Trevor Noah could sway viewers and has an impact on the 2016 campaign. On one episode, Noah talked about the third debate and he made fun of Hillary’s outfit, but then said how much he loved it and believes that she looks good. For Trump, he did not say one positive thing after roasting him. This proves that he made fun of Trump more and I believe he favors Hillary more, especially due to his comment.
Overall, the media and advertising has made an enormous impact on the 2016 campaign. It is unusual and unlike previous campaigns. I believe that the use of social media is only going to increase as campaigns go on in the future, which is an interesting turning point for campaigns. Consultants, special interest groups, pundits and polls have impacted this election and influenced the majority of the American people on who the “lesser of the two evils” is.
Works Cited:
Silver, Nate. “Election Update: There Are 4 Ways This Election Can End — And 3 Involve Clinton Winning.” FiveThirtyEight. 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Silver, Nate. “The State Of The Polls 2016.” FiveThirtyEight. 2 June 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Sheingate, Adam. “The Political Consultant Racket.” New York Times 30 Dec. 2015. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. 8th edition. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016. Print.
Nelson, Candice. “Survey Research and Campaigns- Getting to the Future.” Campaigns on the Cutting Edge. 3rd ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ, 2016 Print.
We are now just two weeks away from the 2016 presidential elections and have seen the various roles consultants, pundits, special interests and polls have played in this long and dragged out election. It’s clear that money talks in American politics and the political consulting industry is the main beneficiary, despite which candidate eventually wins (Sheingate). The political consultants earn fees and commissions by transforming money given to candidates into products of the campaign, particularly like television advertisements (Sheingate). The role of the political consultant is crucial because they provide candidates with various services in the campaign which help in targeting voters, polling the electorate, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate and more (Trent et al, 285). The Political Campaign Communication textbook made note of Republican Roger Ailes who has worked as a political consultant particularly in the form of speech coach for Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush for addresses and debates (Trent et al, 285). This year, Ailes advised Donald Trump for the first presidential debate that took place. This was not the best idea and we saw the result of having Ailes as a consultant. Trump did not do very well in the first debate which shows Ailes’ advisement had negative impact on Trump’s performance.
ReplyDeletePolitical pundits are the “true influencers” of elections whether they are television personalities, straight-reporters, opinion journalists or activists (Dougherty and MacNicol). Many people watch the news without focusing on who is providing the analysis which leads to people consuming information uncritically and so they accept what is being said by the “experts” (Lally). As more people pay attention to this election, pundits can have a greater influence in allowing people to understand and make sense of the election. After each debate, party convention, or other major political event, the pundits go on air, ready to debate and argue with one another. With the rise of social media, the role of pundits has become more and more visible. One noteworthy pundit we have seen in this election is Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager. He is now a paid political commentator for CNN and still gets paid from Trump’s campaign.
Special interest groups like super PACs have a massive influence on American presidential elections. “The big money is in super PACs and other outside groups devoted to boosting a single candidate…super PACs have been formed for the sole purpose of bashing a single candidate” (Open Secrets Staff). While Trump and Clinton’s campaigns have fundraised hundreds of millions of dollars superPACs have also raised incredible amounts of money for the candidates. For example, the Priorities USA Action superPAC has raised over $130 million for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. This superPAC has also created powerful television advertisements against Donald Trump and his temperament. Special interest group’s like the NRA political fund have paid for advertisements for Trump, such as the one titled “Don’t Let Hilary Clinton Leave You Defenseless.”
During my time at the Democratic National Convention, I learned that polls aren’t actually as important as we think they are until right before the election. However, they give something for pundits to talk about and journalists to write stories about. Most campaigns for high-profile offices employ professional pollsters and polling is advisable whenever an office involves policy (DeLaney). According to Nate Silver, the 2016 presidential primaries polls have had a good track record of calling winners, with the polling front-runner winning the vast majority of the time (Silver). On Twitter and during his rallies Trump has consistently referred to polls that show him ahead of Clinton. He even tweeted about the results of a Quinnipiac poll a few months ago.
Works Cited:
DeleteDeLaney, Ann. "Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics." Politics for Dummies. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Lally, By Robin. "Hillary Clinton's Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked." Media Relations. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Open Secrets Staff. "Behind the Candidates: Campaign Committees and Outside Groups." OpenSecrets. N.p., 19 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." The New York Times. N.p., 30 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Silver, Nate. "The State Of The Polls, 2016." FiveThirtyEight. N.p., 02 June 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Trent, Judith S., and Robert V. Friedenberg. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. New York: Praeger, 2016. Print.
Consultants, pundits, special interests, and polls are playing a big part in the presidential election this year. Focusing on polling, it’s not surprising that it still has a big impact on the public’s opinion. “The 2008, 2010, and 2012 election cycles had all featured fairly accurate polling,” writes Nate Silver in an article on FiveThirtyEight.com. Silver writes that these polls are so accurate, that in 85 percent of them, the leading candidate in the poll was the candidate who won the election. Often times, we talk about varying our media consumption to avoid consuming news from one source that might be heavily biased. Polls have shown that, overall, they don’t have much bias when looked at from a large perspective. This accuracy and little bias will play a roll in the 2016 presidential elections, according to Richard Sematin. We can see the polls have already played a role most notably in Gary Johnson’s case, with people keeping an eye on his numbers to see if he will ever get the percentage to enter a presidential debate.
ReplyDeletePundits play a large roll in the election, but it’s more due to what they have to say, rather than who is saying it. Debbie Walsh, Director of Rutgers’s The Eagleton Institute’s Center for American Women in Politics is quoted with saying “Many people watch the news without focusing on who is providing the analysis.” (Lally) Men outnumber women in cable news punditry. “Since women make up more than half of the population, comprise 53 percent of the electorate, and for the first time in history a woman is at the top of a major political party’s presidential ticket, you might think that the female political perspective would be a large part of this season’s nonstop cable news coverage,” writes Robin Lally in Rutgers Today. The key is “you might think,” as that is not true. As far as pundits role in this current election, just by looking at any pundit’s social media account you can see the level of impact they have had on shaping the viewpoint in people’s minds of this election.
Consultants are important, you need to have a team of people that can advise you on how you should make decisions for the entire United States population. If Donald Trump read that sentence prior, he would be laughing, as “Mr. Trump has succeeded, so far, without much help from the professionals on whom the other candidates rely.” (Sheingate) Being a consultant involves being on the receiving end of a large amount of money, considering in the 2012 election more than $3.6 billion dollars was billed to the federal candidates by consulting firms. Hillary Clinton is taking advantage of consultants, paying about $13 million to four main firms, one of them being the polling firm Benenson Strategy group, whose principal is also Clinton’s campaign chief strategist.
Special interest groups can either help or hurt a candidate, in my opinion, depending on what the special interest is. Clinton has run in to some choppy waters regarding the “huge foreign donations that poured into the Clinton Foundation.” (Isikoff) These special interest groups come with massive pockets of cash, all dedicated to that single candidate, and even more money can come from donations to them.
Isikoff, Michael. “‘Take the Money!!’ and Other Highlights from the Podesta Email Leak.” Yahoo! News. 21 Oct. 2016. 25 Oct. 2016.
DeleteLally, Robin. “Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked” Rutgers Today. 17 Oct. 2016. 25 Oct. 2016.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Sheingate, Adam. “The Political Consultant Racket.” New York Times. 30 Dec. 2015. 25 Oct. 2016.
Silver, Nate. "The State Of The Polls, 2016 | FiveThirtyEight." Fivethirtyeight. 2 June 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
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ReplyDeleteThis year’s presidential candidates can be described as feisty, bold, and have a mind of their own. With that being said, they need they need a support system of people who support them to help they stay focused, get their message across, and promote their positive attributes. That is why consultants, pundits, special interests, and polls are critical to the candidate’s success.
ReplyDeletePolitical consultants have a special mixed bag job when it comes to the campaign. They participate in general activities and can specialize in one area. For example, “political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and utilizing direct mail, preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate, mounting a fund-raising campaign, and establishing and utilizing an Internet website” (Trent, 285). Some examples of Donald Trump consultants are Kellyanne Conway, Trumps Campaign Manager who is a veteran GOP pollster, Mayor Rudy Giuliani who is Trumps attack dog and he is a law and order mayor, Governor Chris Christie who may be apart of his administration, Senator Jeff Sessions, and Trumps Political Advisor, Newt Gingrich. During the whole election Conway has become a constant figure on television. She does her job well and stays focused as to what her role is in this campaign. You can see her “laying out his agenda, talking points, and often trying to sooth over Trump controversies” (Bash). For Hillary Clinton some of her consultants are LaDavia Drane, Maya Harris, Joel Benenson, John Podesta, Huma Adedin, Jake Sullivan, and Robby Mook. In my opinion John Podesta is Hillary’s big shot consultant. He has given his advice to Clinton regarding the email leaks. His advice sums up how shady her campaign really is. “ His response: The Clinton campaign should get cracking and ramp up its own outside super-PAC operation. Among “the things we have to do,” he wrote, is “Get Priorities functional…” (Isikoff). That reference refers to Priorities USA Action, the pro-Clinton super-PAC that would soon start collecting seven-figure donations from Democratic-leaning billionaires. They are supposed to be independent from the official campaign.
Pundits are experts in a particular subject or field who frequently are called to give opinions about a number of things to the public. According to the article,” Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked” by Robin Lally, “Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN are the only two top-rated cable news shows that have had an equal number of men and women as political pundits this election season, according to Rutgers research”( Lally). This year 53 percent of the electorate are females, but the female political perspective isn’t as popular on cable news coverage as some might have expected. The men still out weigh the number of woman on cable news political punditry. Some examples for Trump are Sean Hannity from Fox, Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, Karl Rove, Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, Newt Ginrich, Laura Ingranham, Howard Kurtz, and David Gergen. For Clinton, Chris Matthews from CMBC, David Brooks from PBS News Hour, Mark Halperin CMBC, Eugene Robinson, Joe Trippi Fox, and Juan Williams Fox.
Special Interest groups also play an important role because they are often associated with money and support. For Trump, according to Time Magazine, the NRA recently dropped a 6.5 million dollar ad backing Donald Trump. The ad features a millennial woman who used a pistol to fend off an attacker (Reilly). Other groups include Howard Lorber President and CEO of Vector Group and Steven Mnuchin. For Hillary Clinton Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Time Warner have announced support and given money to name a few.
DeletePolls during an election can be very deceiving. While one candidate can be leading in a national poll, things can change quickly. That is why it is very important to not count the other candidate out. As I am writing this, I just got a notification for The New York Times on my phone. It says that Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 7 percentage points in North Carolina, a state that Mitt Romney won, in our new poll (Cohn). While this statistic sounds like Hillary Clinton will win that state (which she probably will) that doesn’t mean Trump doesn’t have a fighting chance at winning the election overall.
Reilly, Katie. "NRA Makes Biggest Ad Buy Yet in Support of Donald Trump." Time. Time, 5 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Delete/.latest_citation_text
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Lally, Robin. "Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked."Rutgers Today 17 Oct. 2016. Web.
Bash, Dana and Crutchfield, Abigail CNN. "How the GOP's First Female Presidential Campaign Manager Manages Donald Trump." - Azfamily.com 3TV. CNN, 24 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Cohn, Nate. "Clinton Leads by 7 Points in North Carolina Poll." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Isikoff, Michael. "'Take the Money!!' and Other Highlights from the Podesta Email Leak." 'Take the Money!!' and Other Highlights from the Podesta Email Leak. Yahoo, 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
This has been the longest most dragged out election, or at least that's how it feels. Through the last year or so we've seen the importance of consultants, pundits, special interests, and polls. Consultants in particular have played a large role in this years election, "Political consultants earn fees and commissions by turning the billions of dollars given to candidates, political parties and “super PACs” into the products and services of contemporary campaigns, especially TV (and Internet) ads" (Sheingate). We've seen and discussed ads from each candidate and the importance they have. So it seems like consultants have a direct correlation to the ads.
ReplyDeletePolitical consultants are basically there to "provide the candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign" (Trent et al 285). Consultants are there to help the candidates get their messages across via writing, speech coaches, direct mail specialists, and ad specialists. These four categories are vital in a candidates campaign. For example, most candidates aren't experts in giving a speech or handle a debate so a speech coach is brought in to prepare them for their event so they sound put together and their speaking flows nicely (Trent et al 285).
In this years race, we've seen both candidates mention the polls (some more than others). From discussions we've had in class, it's clear that some people are skeptical of the polls. It's hard to survey so many people to get an accurate reading on where each candidate stands with the public, "Most polls showing a statistical bias toward Democrats. As a result, there were a handful of major upsets by Republican candidates" (Silver). Polls are scientifically planned out to pick random voters, "Randomness is the factor that permits a few hundred people to speak for all the voters within a statistical margin of error" (DeLaney). Randomness allows for less bias, though they're still might be some and ensures that one party isn't being favored over the other. In my opinion however, polls, are just something the candidates will talk about to make themselves look better (assuming the poll is in their favor).
In this election, we've seen people like opinion journalists and television personalities become important pundits of the race. They've become the influencers (Dougherty and MacNicol). People like Bill Maher and Jon Stewart have played a role in swaying the public, even if the people watching don't realize.
In my opinion I think political consultants play the largest role in a candidates race because they make the candidate come across as more presidential than they might actually be. At the end of the day, winning an election comes down to how well a candidate represents themselves in their debates, speeches, and ads.
Works Cited:
Trent, Judith S., and Robert V. Friedenberg. Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices. New York: Praeger, 2016. Print.
Silver, Nate. "The State Of The Polls, 2016." FiveThirtyEight. N.p., 02 June 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
DeLaney, Ann. "Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics." Politics for Dummies. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." The New York Times. N.p., 30 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016. .
Michael Brendan Dougherty and Glynnis MacNicol. "THE POLITIX 50: Here Are The Only Pundits You Need To Pay Attention To Between Now And The Election." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 30 Nov. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
This outrageous election is definitely not about traditional campaigning anymore. Although Secretary Clinton continues to persevere through the absurd obstacles throughout her campaign making her consultants probably very on edge. A statement made in Campaigns on the Cutting Edge now seems almost comical, “media consultants use their experience in campaigns to anticipate likely lines of attack and to react quickly to changing circumstances. After many years and many campaigns, situations that have occurred previously inevitably reemerge” (Semiatin 30). There have been no situations like the ones in this election that have happened in the past. There is a non-politician running and it is a real game changer in the political world. Donald Trump is a nightmare for consultants with his random outburst of racism, sexism and bullying. Clinton on the other hand has been through this many times and is going to do whatever her experts tell her. Which is why she is spending so much money on polling. Polling can be very expensive but very useful when campaigning. Through polls Clinton is able to figure out who to target with ads and what issues she needs to discuss more. Clintons group is very close to her and are doing the best they can in this unorthodox election. Trump on the other hand wants the election to be unorthodox because it suits his campaign. Even his campaign team is unusual with more well-known people like Roger Ailes. Kellyanne Conway has been the star of Trump’s campaign and is very good at her job. Through everything that Trump has done or said Conway has been able to speak on behalf of Trump and convince people that he is still the right guy for the job.
ReplyDeleteIt is crazy to see how much consultants of the Republican party failed so immensely in the early months of this election. Jeb Bush is a consultants dream because he spent 52.5 million dollars on his campaign and he was only polling at 3%. He spent so much money on media and advertising but unfortunately it didn’t help him. The leader and eventually primary winner, Trump, only spent 1.2 million on his campaign and 0% of it was for media or advertising. It safe to say that the campaigning process is changing and the traditional methods aren’t necessarily the best way to gain supporters. Trump simply used the media by saying outrageous things and overshadowed every other possible candidate. He didn’t need to pay for consultants or polls he just controlled the media with his words instead of his money. It will be interesting to see what Trump will do for the “get out the vote” on election eve. Ordinarily the candidate will spend those final hours encouraging people to go and vote. We haven’t seen much of that influence from Trump so it will be interesting to see what his final campaign hours consist of.
DeLaney, Ann. "Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics." Politics for Dummies. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
DeleteOpen Secrets Staff. "Behind the Candidates: Campaign Committees and Outside Groups." OpenSecrets. N.p., 19 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." The New York Times. N.p., 30 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
The annoying polling phone calls make most of us crazy but we know some people must do them. When we turn on the news or open twitter we hear and read about who’s leading in the polls by whatever percent or margin. This would lead us to potentially doubt the credibility of these polls. Nate Silver, in a FiveThirtyEight article about the State of the Polls said, “Although there were lots of reasons to be worried about the reliability of polling — in particular, the ever-declining response rates for telephone surveys — there wasn’t much evidence of a crisis in the results pollsters were obtaining. Instead, the 2008, 2010 and 2012 election cycles had all featured fairly accurate polling” (Silver).
ReplyDeleteWith polls still pulling in fairly accurate results politicians and campaigns can use them to their advantage. Things like microtargeting would be helpful during this election and have been in previous elections. In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, it explains that, “microtargeting involves using consumer data, appended to voter files, to more precisely target individual voters. As the amount of information in these databases has increased, researchers have been able to use sophisticated algorithms to model the behavior of individuals” (Semiatin). Someone like Hillary Clinton probably uses this to work on securing her lead. According to another FiveThirtyEight article also by Silver, “Hillary Clinton has a 6.6-percentage-point lead in the popular vote and an 87 percent chance of winning the Electoral College…” (Silver). Another thing Silver talks about in the same article is how there still is a small chance Hillary could lose despite her lead in the polls. Trump has a 1-in-7 chance to win so you’d expect a candidate with those odds to win an election every 28 years (Silver). Using techniques like mircotargeting would help Clinton in the last few days into Election Day. She could figure out which voters she needs to focus on the get them out to vote.
Polls this year are playing a large part as always, but they’re proving that anything can happen. Watching the polls change so much so quickly has the candidates making moves they never would in a normal election. (We can all agree this election is fairly less than normal, fairly being an understatement.) For example, watching the polls change from a close tie to a lead for Hillary, especially in states you wouldn’t expect has lead Hillary to go to states democrats wouldn’t normally campaign in. A state like Arizona, which normally leans right, is showing Hillary close or ahead of Trump. To try and secure that state she’s traveled there to speak and gain support. A headline from CBS News reads, “Hillary Clinton takes 2016 fight to Arizona.” The article states, “there is palpable momentum for Democrat Hillary Clinton in Arizona, a state so traditionally Republican that her party’s nominee for president has carried it just once in the past 64 years” (CBSNews).
Polls have showed that any election, anything can change. Clinton could be the first Democratic candidate in 64 years to win a red state. Polls always play a large role in the election because they show us who is winning and who isn’t. It makes us wonder if our vote is counting or not. This year, they’ve played a larger role as the election is unlike any recent elections. The annoying phone calls may bother us but the candidates love them and can’t live without them… unless you’re Donald Trump then you might just think they’re rigged.
"Hillary Clinton Takes 2016 Fight to Arizona." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 24 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Silver, Nate. "There Are 4 Ways This Election Can End — and 3 Involve Clinton Winning." FiveThirtyEight.com 21 Oct. 2016. Web.
Consultants, Pundits, special interest groups each dictate the actions of a candidate running for the presidency. Though they may each go about this in their own way it is nonetheless the case. This election in particular has seen some of the roles of each of these influencers vary from their traditional relevance to a campaign. Of these positions, this is most prominent with consultants. A consultant is essentially somebody who advises a candidate as to what actions they should take to reach the voters they need, and to keep the candidate on good terms with the electorate. The role of a consultant has been evolving since the presidency existed, and consultants have seen a growing importance to elections since Calvin Coolidge’s bid for the presidency (Trent Et. Al. 282). This particular election may be the most publicly involved a consultant has been with the election, however, as John Podesta’s name has become infamous this election, and his email leaks continue to plague the Clinton Camp. From consultants we move on to special interests and their role in elections. For better or for worse special interests are crucial to campaigns now as they supply a large amount of revenue needed for all of campaigns’ expenses. Throughout this election special interests have accounted for over a billion dollars in revenue raked in. According to the Washington Post, “By the end of August, super PACs had raised $1.1 billion and had spent $454.3 million on ads and other forms of voter outreach. Including expenditures through Oct. 4, super PACs had spent a total of $674 million.” (Narayanswamy Et. Al.) Another crucial aspect to a winning campaign is polling. Polling allows a candidate to collect data on what advertisements work, what demographics they need to do a better job reaching, and how they may be doing nationally. According to Ann Delaney the few hundred people polled, “have a significant impact on the message and strategy for the campaign. Their answers help decide which programs a candidate supports or opposes during the campaign. They tell a candidate whether her message is getting through or needs to be refined. No campaign will spend money finding out what you think if you are not a registered voter.” (Delaney) The final place that a candidate may look for support in her efforts to reach the presidency comes from the media, and political pundits. Pundits are influencers of thought. They give a voice within the media to the average person viewing the election. When a pundit either endorses or condemns a candidate or their actions it may not change any polls, but minds could be changed and the candidates should still be weary of this. One pundit who may be a particularly powerful force this election is Nate Silver. He is known for his use of data and statistics to predict the election. He provides the opinion that goes with a poll, and people will listen because it’s hard to argue against statistics (Dougherty and MacNicol). Each of these influencers has the capability to shape public opinion. Whether its through millions od dollars of ads that come from special interest groups or just a pundit’s humble opinion the election is influenced and a candidate is well aware of this.
ReplyDeleteWork Cited
Dougherty, Michael. MacNicol, Glynnis. “THE POLITIX 50: Here Are The Only Pundits You Need To Pay Attention To Between Now And The Election.” Business Insider 11 Nov. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2016
Delaney, Ann. “Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics.” Politics For Dummies, 2nd Edition. N.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016
Narayanswamy, Ana Aaron Williams and Matea Gold, "Meet the Wealthy Donors Who Are Pouring Millions Into the 2016 Elections." Washington Post 5 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016
Trent, Judith S. et al. Political Campaign Communication: Principles & Practices. 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
The roles of consultants, pundits, special interests and polls play a huge role in this years election. Consultants are important, because they advise the production and mass media portrayed of their candidate. Campaign consultants advise candidates on strategies, and efforts to attract their target audiences. Trent states that: ““Political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and utilizing direct mail, preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate, mounting a fund-raising campaign, and establishing and utilizing an Internet website” (Trent, 285). With his insults to many people such as veterans, women, Mexicans, Muslims, etc; The NY Times says “Trump’s campaign is a nightmare for the political consulting industry”( Sheingate, Adam). Kellyanne Conway, Trumps’ campaign manager must defend his actions and words almost every day. Unlike traditional candidates, Trump has not relied on much help from professional consultants to further his campaign. Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, has been with the Clinton’s since her campaign in 2008. Pundits have also played a huge role in this year election, for their opinion’s and commentary on both Clinton and Trump. Pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and Ann Coulter are two people who definitely express their opinion and analyze both candidates. Pundits commentary and knowledge of politics assist with helping the general public in deciphering what is going on in front of them.
ReplyDeleteInterest groups are vital for campaigns, because they involve individuals and organizations that have the same concerns, and attempt to influence public policy in favor of their organization. A lot of these special interest groups contribute large amounts of money towards campaigns, whether it be for commercials and advertisements or to further the candidates campaign. For example, Trump’s loyal special interest group happens to be the NRA (National rifle Association). Groups like the NRA attract and target specific audiences that Trump is hoping to attract to vote for him in the upcoming weeks. Clinton on the other hand, one of her biggest donors is the special interest group called “EMILY’s List”, an organization that seeks to help elect pro-choice Democratic candidates to any appointed office. Donors and groups like these are vital for campaigns. Election polling is fundamental for a democracy. Poll’s such as Gallup and the Quinnipiac Poll have repeatedly been favored for their fair and accurate polling. I learned in my statistics class that fair and accurate polling must be conducted by sampling a large number of people, in order to get an accurate representation of the American people. Many polls offer different questions towards voters. The Pew Research Center focuses on “people’s issue preferences, engagement in the election, and opinions about the candidates”( Suh, Michael). In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge Semiatin states that “To raise the response rate, pollsters are experimenting with using social media as a way to do a survey sample” (Semiatin, 6). Polling is fundamental in elections as a way to get a grasp of what our country is thinking about for this particular election.
ReplyDeleteWork Cited
ReplyDeleteSemiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Suh, Michael. "Election Polling." Pew Research Center RSS. N.p., 02 Feb. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
The roll of special interest groups in American politics has been important to the 2016 United States presidential election, especially when attacking Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
ReplyDeleteDuring the Democratic primaries Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders repeatedly attacked Mrs. Clinton acknowledging the fact that some of her biggest donors are hedge fund managers, financially powerful individuals who he insinuated were only donating to her campaign because they expected favorable treatment for their industry in return (Narayanswamy et al).
Republican nominee Donald Trump has employed the same attacks on Mrs. Clinton and has even gone as far as insinuating that the Clinton Foundation, a charitable organization run by the Clinton family that has made great strides in HIV prevention in Africa, was taking money from special interest groups in return for preferable treatment by the State Department during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.
Mrs. Clinton has attacked Mr. Trump regarding special interest groups that contributed to his campaign as well, in particular, the National Rifle Association. The NRA tends to back most Republican nominees as they almost always promise the protection of the Second Amendment as part of their major platform, and Democratic nominees like Mrs. Clinton almost always portray their opponent as being in the NRA’s pocket.
Political pundits have had a profound influence on the election; most of them display some level of bias towards Mrs. Clinton which has been aiding in reassuring Clinton supporters of their stances and has also been aiding in reaffirming Mr. Trump’s claims that the mainstream media is conspiring against him.
Among the few political pundits who support Mr. Trump Fox News’s Sean Hannity has surely been the most active advocate, for a good period Mr. Trump would not talk to any pundit but Hannity. Hannity tries his best to spin the Trump campaign to be attractive beyond its base, but the platform is so polarizing a lot of the effort has not produced favorable results.
Mrs. Clinton very rarely speaks to political pundits, though despite her lack of appearances she is constantly spoken of highly. Liberal pundits have generally based their arguments more on outrage over Mr. Trump’s actions than praising of Mrs. Clinton’s; CNN political commentator Angela Rye for example is effectively used to express outrage against Mr. Trump and his supporters and inspire voters that a vote for Trump is a for vote racism and sexism.
Political consultants have played an important role in both major campaigns of the 2016 presidential election, mainly by making television appearances pleading their candidate’s case. One major reason they are important is because, especially in this election, consultants are vital to doing damage control in the wake of controversies.
Polling data has not had a great impact on the election itself, but has helped keep the 24-hour news narrative focused on associating the election with a sports game. Mr. Trump has been behind in national polls for the majority of the election, but with his claims that the mainstream media is conspiring against him he has discredited the polls amongst many of his supporters (Noland).
Overall pundits, special interest, campaign consultants, and polling have not had a very strong influence on the 2016 election, but they have been crucial to the 24-hour news cycle.
Works Cited
Narayanswamy, Ana Aaron Williams and Matea Gold, "Meet the Wealthy Donors Who Are Pouring Millions Into the 2016 Elections." Washington Post 5 Oct. 2016. Web.
Noland, Jack. "Outpolled, Outraised and Outspent." OpenSecrets.org 21 Oct. 2016. Web.
This election cycle has had a massive focus on the personalities and character of the two candidates, however there are countless actors working behind the scenes, each of them with their own agendas. The powerful Democratic National Committee has been a driving force for the Clinton campaign, and their political consultants have undoubtedly been a major factor in her success. The DNC employs a huge amount of people across the nation whose sole goal is to ensure that their candidate wins, Trent writes that political consultants can “provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and utilizing direct mail, preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate, mounting a fund-raising campaign, and establishing and utilizing an Internet website” (Trent, 285). They are the campaign team that does all of the behind the scenes work, as well as a good chunk of the field work. While Trump also has a good deal of political consultants, his team appears much weaker. In fact, the RNC, Trump’s biggest national organization of political consultants, recently halted funding on some their pro Trump programs (Isenstadt). Trump is also struggling to attract the support of pundits, with even traditional conservative pundits speaking out against him. When looking through Business Insider’s list of the top 50 pundits, the vast majority of them are not supporters of Trump. Even those who try to stay neutral have sharply criticized him over his reckless and inappropriate actions (Dougherty, MacNicol). Special interest groups, and individuals with political agendas, have poured millions of dollars into ensuring their candidate wins this campaign. The top 10 so called “mega donors” have already helped to pour at least 1.1 billion dollars into campaign related PACs. The donations are split between democrats and republicans, but there is no denying that most donors have a good financial reason to invest millions of dollars into an election (Narayanswamy).
ReplyDeleteThe polls have had a nonstop presence in this election ever since the first candidates declared their candidacy in the primaries. Both candidates have been pegged by the polls since the beginning as being popular among voters in contrast to their opponents. These polls can serve to motivate voters that their candidate is doing well. They are also a valuable resource for campaigns to see where to focus their resources. The closer the polls are, the more a campaign needs to work in a swing state. While Trump is quick to tweet about and talk about any polls that have him winning, he has dismissed recent polls showing him losing as rigged. It is true that polls can sometimes have a statistical bias, but according to Nate Silver, the bias has the potential to go both ways. Writing on polls he said “Importantly, the polls (and even more so, the polling averages) had a good track record of calling winners, with the polling front-runner winning the vast majority of the time” (Silver). Silver uses polling data to formulate his election forecast, which currently has Clinton at a 86% chance of winning.
This was Jack Onofrio's post, I'm not sure why it posted as anonymous.
DeleteWorks Cited
DeleteMichael Brendan Dougherty and Glynnis MacNicol. "THE POLITIX 50: Here Are The Only Pundits You Need To Pay Attention To Between Now And The Election." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 30 Nov. 2011. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Isenstadt, Alex, "RNC Halts Victory Project Work for Trump." POLITICO. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Narayanswamy, Anu Narayanswamy. "Meet the wealthy donors who are pouring millions into the 2016 elections." The Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/superpac-donors-2016/. Accessed 23 Oct. 2016.
Silver, Nate. "Election Update: Women Are Defeating Donald Trump." Five Thirty Eight, Word Press, 11
Oct. 2016, fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-women-are-defeating-donald-trump/.
Accessed 23 Oct. 2016.
Trent, Judith, S, et al. Political Campaign Communication. 8th ed., New York, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
There are always many factors at play in a political campaign, but with the candidate being the one directly under the microscope, many forget the important role of consultants and pundits, polls and special interest groups. These rolls play an important factor in getting a candidate elected.
ReplyDelete“Political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing, a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate… preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate… fund-raising… and utilizing an internet website,” (Trent 285). As seen in the TV show Scandal, or just looking more closely at a campaign, you can see the large role consultants and advising teams play in a candidate’s campaign. Normally we see very little of a campaign’s consultant, however in this campaign, we have seen and heard a decent amount from Trump’s current consultant Kellyanne Conway. She has gone on shows to talk about Trump’s actions and certain aspects on his campaign most likely to try and explain all of Trump’s outlandish behavior.
Pundits play a big role in communicating with voters through mass media. Pundits speak their opinions on political issues and are not necessarily affiliated with specific campaigns, but more with a party based on their views. For example, Bill O’Reilly is a popular pundit on Fox News. Many times he appears on the news or talk shows to give his opinion on certain issues. He has been seen many times throughout this election trying to defend certain actions and plans of Trump. Pundits have also taken largely to social media. For example, Tomi Lahren is a television and online video host and talks a lot about a lot of political issues from a republican standpoint. She posts a lot to Facebook and has over 3 million likes on her page.
Polling is very important in a campaign. It can give a candidate and their team feedback on how their campaign is going and whether its working well. It can also give them feeback on certain issues they plan to tackle and how they want to tackle them. This election season, we have seen Trump uses a lot of polls that favor him to win to show voters that he is ahead. He has been posting results to social media potentially as a way to try and show voters that he is not really behind Clinton.
Special interest groups are a group of people interested in advancing or changing ideologies and policies. They are also large donors to certain campaigns. Their donations are a show of their support to candidates. This election season, Trump has been backed by the NRA and some police groups. Clinton has been supported by many groups as well.
Consultants, pundits, polls and special interest groups are glue that help to hold a campaign together. Their importance in evident and are valuable in molding the campaign into what it has to be in order to win.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
DeleteTrent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
The role of consultants, pundits, special interests, and polls seem to be often overshadowed by the polarity of the current candidates. However, this election, similar to ones in the past also has a place for these groups as they serve to influence a campaign in different ways. In terms of political consultants, Adam Sheingate’s article on racket of political consulting does well to look at Trump’s style. Sheingate notes “Trump is a nightmare for the political consulting industry…[whereas] Jeb Bush, by contrast, is a political consultant’s dream—mostly because his campaign has deep pockets” (Sheingate). Money is a driving force for most campaigns, but also for the role that consultants play. Sheingate goes on to say “consultants are like the microscopic bugs in our gut that help us metabolize food: Consultants help candidates and campaigns metabolize money, but their work leaves the body politic hungry for more” (Sheingate). Furthermore, “the result it a system of big money donors, expensive campaigns and incessant political ads” (Sheingate). With enough money it would seem that “political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks” among many other services (Trent 285).
ReplyDeleteSimilar to using consulting firms “most campaigns for high-profile offices employ professional pollsters” (DeLaney). A relationship between the pollsters and consultants thus develops because the pollsters “are hired to perform polls that the handler (that is, the campaign consultant) and the candidate need and for which they can afford to pay” (DeLaney). Polling seems to have become a large part of campaigns, as each candidate looks for the target demographic to appeal to. Wealthy donors also play into this equation because they provide necessary funding to continue paying for the expenses associated with polling and consulting fees. In relation to this election cycle “wealthy donors are giving record sums to super PACs, which can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations” (Gold). While “these groups are not allowed to coordinate their advertising with candidates or political parties” they still work alongside the campaigns (Gold). These donors “hail from various sectors, fueled by fortunes made in the energy industry, on Wall Street and in health care” (Gold). And yet the more concerning factor are those with unidentified backers known as “ghost corporations.” It is a bit concerning to think that there are donors that cannot be identified, which calls into question why they would choose to remain anonymous.
Finally, political pundits are also quite interesting to look at, especially in relation to this year’s election. Despite having a woman running for office, “men outnumber women significantly in cable news political punditry” (Lally). CAWP Director Debbie Walsh has said, “at this point, there is no excuse for not including women, but it’s happening…we have heard this too many times. They want women but they just can’t find them” (Lally). This issue comes to light at a pretty opportune time as this election comes to an end. Many feel that women, who make up half of the population, need to be represented within the sphere of political punditry.
Works Cited:
DeLaney, Ann. "Understanding the Role of Polls in Politics." Politics For Dummies. Wiley, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.
Lally, Robin. "Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked." Rutgers Today 17 Oct. 2016. Web.
Narayanswamy, Ana Aaron Williams and Matea Gold, "Meet the Wealthy Donors Who Are Pouring Millions Into the 2016 Elections." Washington Post 5 Oct. 2016. Web.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." New York Times 30 Dec. 2015. Web.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
ReplyDeleteThis year’s elections undoubtedly included many aspects that no other election did before. With the two candidates being the most disliked ones in American history, it was up to the campaigns to especially get people to vote for their candidates. Political consultants and super PACs have strategized ways to reach out to more voters and sway them in their candidates’ direction through utilizing all tools available to them. Throughout the history, political consultants weren’t always taken as seriously as they are now, and their vitality to how an election turns out wasn’t clearly recognized until the last half of the twentieth century. Today, political consultants get paid very big figures for the job that they do, and unlike before, they work uninterruptedly today. Since “getting elected has become a perpetual job, helping candidates has become a perpetual job.” (Trent et al. 283) Their work is oriented on the goal of getting the most efficiency out of the resources invested in their candidate’s campaigns. This includes working with other groups like pundits and super PACs, and being able to respond in the right way at the right time to opinion polls. Sometimes depending on the direction that the campaign is going, consultants and campaign managers can also act as open surrogates for their candidates. We have seen Kellyann Conway go on different TV shows and speak in support of her candidate Donald Trump, even though that isn’t officially her job description. These consultants’ responsibilities are extremely flexible and depend on the nature of the elections.
Polls are probably the most useful source for campaigns, consultants and special interest groups because they provide them with the information they need to attract more voters. Polls specify the demographics in specific areas that qualify as strengths and weaknesses and consultants use this as a map to shape the campaign strategy. Campaigns invest a considerable amount of their resources in polling because it works. Granted, each way of polling has its downsides - like phone surveys being cumbersome as most people don’t answer poll calls, or online polls’ lack of randomness – but generally, polls succeed in giving campaign consultants a clear idea on what they should be working hard on. And they also display the success of campaigns if that is the case, as we’ve seen Trump mentioning polls in his rallies as a sign of how badly he is beating Clinton in the polls.
Today’s customer-driven campaigns also act as extremely helpful tools in maximizing the number of votes from specific groups of people. The customer-driven campaigns employ customer relations management (CRM), which includes “micro-targeting, multiple points of contact with voters and multiple methods to get voters to the polls.” (Semiatin, 79) This helps consultants easily locate and contact voters and get them to support their candidate.
Super PACs also have a big effect on elections, as can be seen from this year. Clinton’s super PAC Priorities USA has continuously put out ads that support Clinton and condemn Trump, a recent one being an attack ad showing Trump’s comments about women and it clearly aims to show him in a negative light. These special interest groups have had a tremendous impact throughout elections that has definitely swayed voters in certain directions.
Pundits who come out in favor of candidates also have a powerful impact in supporting their candidates on big platforms. Throughout these elections, we’ve watched CNN bring in various pundits from both sides, such as Jeffrey Lord for Trump and Sally Kohn for Clinton. These pundits appear to be independent in terms of employment, which helps them appear as more transparent; but they still have a very big influence on creating impressions of candidates in voters, and determining who they will vote for.
Works Cited
DeleteSemiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Trent, Judith S., Robert V. Friedenberg, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. Political Campaign Communication, 8th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
This presidential election has, once again, proven to be a different than other election cycles. The recent WikiLeaks of the DNC and Hilary Clintons campaign have set the stage of what goes on behind the scenes in political campaigns. Polling centers have worked hard since the primaries to determine opinion polling every week during this election. Political pundits are taking every opportunity to take part in the campaign commentary. There are pundits on radio, podcasts, television, Twitter and, traditionally, blogs. Lastly, we learned from this year that big money does not necessarily determine a win, and, as we’ve seen from Donald Trump, political consultants may not be as important to a campaign than previous years.
ReplyDeletePolls are the best way to quantify the election through public opinion polls. Yet, recently Donald Trump has turned to criticize the legitimacy of the polls being released. This year, polling centers have become more accurate, using the “gold standard” methodologies (Silver). They have also become increasingly transparent through the American association for public opinion research (AAPOR) (Silver).
Political consultants are key to a political campaign, and this election has shaken things up on how candidates use them. Consultants are important to campaigns as it turns “billions of dollars given to candidates, political parties and “super PACs” [..] into the products and services of contemporary campaigns, especially TV (and Internet) ads.” (Sheingate. Not only that, but they can also act as a candidates surrogate as seen from KellyAnne Conway. Additionally, Donald trump’s ability to not ‘follow the script’, his use twitter, and the sudden shift campaign managers right after the republican national convention are changing the ability of how political consultants can work with candidates. In contrast, Hillary Clinton’s campaign management and consultants have remained quiet, doing their jobs, turning big money donations to the emotional adverts we have been recently seeing and with no campaign shake up (at least publicly).
Political pundits initially had a tough run on taking Donald Trump seriously as a candidate for the republican nominee. Now that he is, it may change how pundits consider potential presidential candidates early in the campaign. Another change this election are the pundits increasing and integrated use of social media. However while there is a woman running for the most powerful office in United States of America, Robin Lally of Rutgers Today indicates that there aren’t that many women on the pundit table. Only Rachel Maddow on MSNBC and Anderson Cooper 360’s pundit tables have kept a 50:50 gender ratio. Will there be more political pundits on the table after this election? Maybe, depending on the results of the election, we may see more female pundits on television.
Special Interest groups have increasingly donated more money to political candidates this year. However the more money does not guarantee a win. Jeb Bush spent $52.5 million on media and yet he didn’t receive the Republican Party nomination (Sheingate). Donald Trump had spent $1.2 million and received the party nomination (Sheingate). Will special interest groups be more cautious after this election? Maybe but it may also be dependent on the candidate and the polling.
Lally, Robin. "Hillary Clinton’s Run May Be Historic but Female Political Pundits Still Overlooked." Rutgers Today 17 Oct. 2016. Web.
DeleteSheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." New York Times 30 Dec. 2015. Web.
Silver, Nate. "The State Of The Polls 2016." FiveThirtyEight.com. 2 June 2016. Web.
Some of the key people in every election have been the personnel behind a candidate’s campaign, otherwise known as political consultants. Political consultants, essentially, are people who support and plan a presidential candidate’s campaign. According to Trent and her colleges, “political consultants can provide candidates with virtually any service necessary in the conduct of a campaign, including help in targeting voters, establishing a precinct organization, setting up and utilizing phone banks, polling the electorate, preparing and utilizing direct mail, preparing and using radio and television commercials, writing and preparing to deliver a speech, preparing for a debate, mounting a fund-raising campaign, and establishing and utilizing an Internet website” (Trent, 285). Consultants are used by both the Clinton and Trump campaigns to develop ways to gain more voters. They are usually responsible for the candidate’s public appearances, such as when Trump appeared on Jimmy Fallon or when Clinton appeared on “Between two Ferns”.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to consultants, polls also have a powerful effect on this election. According to Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, “the accuracy of polls will also play a role in the 2016 presidential elections. With a crowded Republican field for the nomination, sponsors of the early Republican debates announced that the criteria for being invited to participate in the debates would include standing in public opinion polls. Both Fox News and CNN, sponsors of the first two debates, planned to limit participation to only the top ten candidates in an average of national public opinion polls.” (Semiatin, 70) Now that the debates are over, we can see clearly what the effects the polls have had on the candidates, especially Trump. As of late, Trump is trying very hard to avoid the grim truth now facing his campaign, which is that polls have put him solidly behind Hillary Clinton and the electoral map is tipping toward a Democratic Landslide (Stokols). Trump’s reaction to these polls have put him in the forefront of the media once again, as he claimed that the polls – one of which puts Clinton up 11 points nationally – and the media are biased against him, and that he is actually winning (Stokols). Generally, this is being perceived as negative by large and may continue to hinder his chances at becoming president.
Another extremely influential force in this election are special interest groups. Special interests groups are groups of people who share similar ideas and try to work together to persuade politicians to legislate in your group’s best interests usually through a hired third party known as a lobbyist (Clark). Special interest groups can be either helpful or detrimental to a candidate’s campaign. Some helpful special interest groups, such as labor unions, coordinate with campaigns and provide them with volunteers. On the other hand, however, special interest groups can also be responsible for nasty smear campaigns, such as when the special interest group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth challenged John Kerry’s Vietnam service record in the 2004 election (Clark).
DeleteIn this election, special interests groups have mostly been affecting the Clinton campaign. Records show Clinton has ranked in $3.2 million from registered lobbyists, who bundle money from their rich clients such as Marathon oil, MasterCard, Corning Inc., Prudential Financial, Exxon Mobil, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Delta Air Lines, Ernest & Young and General Electric (Shultz). These accepted donations have caused her to be criticized not only by Trump, but also by other democrats such as Bernie Sanders. They’ve argued that Clinton can’t be a trustworthy president because she will have to show loyalty to her donors, rather than the citizens that support her. While Clinton is seemingly in the lead, the money she received from her donors are often a talking point from her opposition.
Works Cited
Clark, Josh. "Do Special Interest Groups Hurt Candidates?" HowStuffWorks. N.p., 07 Feb. 2008. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Semiatin, Richard J., ed. Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Sage, 2016.
Schultz, Marisa. "Hillary Will Take on Wealthy Special Interests -- but Not before Taking Their Cash." New York Post. N.p., 17 Nov. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Stolokos, Eli. "Trump’s Love Affair with the Polls Is over." POLITICO. N.p., 24 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Trent, Judith, S, et al. Political Campaign Communication. 8th ed., New York, Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
The biggest importance when it comes to this election is the role that consultants and pundits play. Through the last 2 years we have been watching this election unfold we have seen many pundits poke fun at both candidates. Donald Trump has also made it extremely difficult for consultants to even want to help him as he has insulted so many people of all different nationalities and religions. According to Adam Sheingate, “More money means more ads, and more ads means more money. However, media saturation makes it more difficult to grab our attention, requiring more ads, and more money and contributions, to reach the electorate” (Sheingate). This whole campaign has been another political event that SuperPACS and other donors have continued to throw money at. Trump hasn’t been one of the candidates to spend a significant amount of money on his marketing and ads. Clinton has been one of the candidates to spend the most on her campaign and continues to spend incredible amounts. According to Jack Noland, “In September, the Democrat collected more than $73.8 million in total contributions, exceeding Trump’s haul of $54.7 million – a sum that included more than $2 million of the Republican’s own money, bringing his self-funding to about $56.1 million, or a quarter of his total haul for the race” (Noland). That is a considerable difference in campaign money spent. With Hillary spending a considerable amount more than Trump she may have a lead over him and an advantage and so we might see Clinton win this election. If you think of the differences between money spent there is a significant issue as many ads, I have seen have only been endorsed by Clinton. The only Trump ads I’ve seen have been minimal and directed solely at Clinton and for the purpose of attack. According to the article written by Nate Silver, there are only four ways this election can go and three involve Clinton winning.
ReplyDeleteSilver says,
“A narrow Clinton win, wherein she wins the Electoral College, but wins the popular
vote by 3 percentage points or less. (Or wins the Electoral College and loses the popular
vote.), A Clinton win in the ‘Obama zone,’ wherein she wins the popular vote by 4 to
7 percentage points — the margins by which President Obama won the elections
in 2012 and 2008, respectively. Clinton is all but certain to win the Electoral College if
she wins the popular vote by this amount, and Finally, a Clinton blowout, wherein she
wins the popular vote by 8 points or more, which would almost certainly also yield a
dominant performance in the Electoral College” (Silver).
Basically all the consultants Clinton has used and the pundits who terrorized her in the media in these scenarios have no effect over her winning. The pundits maintained their focus more on Trump and his media presence then Clinton and her failed wardrobe and daily public attire.
Works Cited
Noland, Jack. "Outpolled, Outraised and Outspent: Clinton Leads Trump in September and Overall, but Numbers Not as High as Obama's." Opensecrets RSS. 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Sheingate, Adam. "The Political Consultant Racket." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 30 Dec. 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Silver, Nate. "Election Update: There Are 4 Ways This Election Can End — And 3 Involve Clinton Winning." FiveThirtyEight. 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.