Hold the ladder steady. No need to wait for the Doctor's orders. Beltway consultants, move over Rover. Future candidates listen up!
Excerpts from 2-16-05 The Hill:
Reid, Pelosi plan shake-up
Sen. Harry Reid (Nev.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), the Democratic leaders of the Senate and House, plan to shake up the Democratic political consulting community and break the grip that a small number of consultants have had on strategy and contracts, party sources say.
The Democratic leaders want to bring in new people with track records of success and innovation and look beyond the Beltway for message smiths to help guide the party.
Reid, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and other Democratic leaders recently met with Paul Harstad, the pollster who worked on the campaigns of Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), the lone bright spots of the 2004 election for Senate Democrats.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the new chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), has also said he wants to diversify contracts awarded by the party committee, a Democratic consultant close to one of the party committees said.
Durbin said, “We don’t want to turn our backs on anybody that has been good to us. We want to be open to new people.” There were “new people out there” getting results and others “who produce the same cookie-cutter ads with the same results, and we don’t want that anymore,” he added.
A Democratic leadership aide said, “There’s general agreement in both chambers and at the House and Senate political party groups that we need to rethink our relationships with consultants [and have] more accountability for results.
“Senator Reid is interested in reaching out to new talent both within and beyond the Beltway. He’s looking at our rebranding effort to simplify the message and looking for new professionals to assist him.”
One Democratic strategist who worked closely with the so-called shadow Democratic Party, which spent tens of millions of dollars in the last election said, “There’s a clear sense that we need some fresh ideas and new blood. Being an establishment consultant tends to bring out the staleness in people.”
Because campaign-finance laws limit the direct help that party committees can give candidates, the committees set up independent expenditure organizations to work for candidates
A review of DSCC independent expenditures in the two months before Election Day showed that three firms consumed nearly all independent expenditures spent on making ads.
All three firms are based inside the Beltway.
Great American Media, the media-buying arm of Margolis, Greer, Mitchell, Burns, consumed the vast majority of independent expenditures made by the DCCC to buy television airtime.
The firm received more than $21 million in the month before the election. Buying Time received $1.1 million to buy airtime, and Brandsphere, a New York-based company, earned $172,000 for the same service.
Great American Media also received nearly all the independent expenditures the DSCC spent to buy airtime, $17.6 million in the two months before Election Day. Buying Time received $816,000.
One Democratic House aide said there is a greater sense of urgency on the Senate side about scrutinizing the relationship with entrenched consultants. That may be because Senate Democrats fared worse in the last election, losing five seats, while House Democrats picked up a net two seats, not counting Texas.
Reid, Pelosi plan shake-up
Sen. Harry Reid (Nev.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), the Democratic leaders of the Senate and House, plan to shake up the Democratic political consulting community and break the grip that a small number of consultants have had on strategy and contracts, party sources say.
The Democratic leaders want to bring in new people with track records of success and innovation and look beyond the Beltway for message smiths to help guide the party.
Reid, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and other Democratic leaders recently met with Paul Harstad, the pollster who worked on the campaigns of Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), the lone bright spots of the 2004 election for Senate Democrats.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the new chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), has also said he wants to diversify contracts awarded by the party committee, a Democratic consultant close to one of the party committees said.
Durbin said, “We don’t want to turn our backs on anybody that has been good to us. We want to be open to new people.” There were “new people out there” getting results and others “who produce the same cookie-cutter ads with the same results, and we don’t want that anymore,” he added.
A Democratic leadership aide said, “There’s general agreement in both chambers and at the House and Senate political party groups that we need to rethink our relationships with consultants [and have] more accountability for results.
“Senator Reid is interested in reaching out to new talent both within and beyond the Beltway. He’s looking at our rebranding effort to simplify the message and looking for new professionals to assist him.”
One Democratic strategist who worked closely with the so-called shadow Democratic Party, which spent tens of millions of dollars in the last election said, “There’s a clear sense that we need some fresh ideas and new blood. Being an establishment consultant tends to bring out the staleness in people.”
Because campaign-finance laws limit the direct help that party committees can give candidates, the committees set up independent expenditure organizations to work for candidates
A review of DSCC independent expenditures in the two months before Election Day showed that three firms consumed nearly all independent expenditures spent on making ads.
All three firms are based inside the Beltway.
Great American Media, the media-buying arm of Margolis, Greer, Mitchell, Burns, consumed the vast majority of independent expenditures made by the DCCC to buy television airtime.
The firm received more than $21 million in the month before the election. Buying Time received $1.1 million to buy airtime, and Brandsphere, a New York-based company, earned $172,000 for the same service.
Great American Media also received nearly all the independent expenditures the DSCC spent to buy airtime, $17.6 million in the two months before Election Day. Buying Time received $816,000.
One Democratic House aide said there is a greater sense of urgency on the Senate side about scrutinizing the relationship with entrenched consultants. That may be because Senate Democrats fared worse in the last election, losing five seats, while House Democrats picked up a net two seats, not counting Texas.
posted by Sid Cottingham | 6:13 AM
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