Shockingly bad inside-the-beltway PR
July 25th, 2006 by Kevin
Here are two examples of shockingly bad PR by alleged professionals Inside the Beltway…
When 60 Minutes comes calling, don’t answer the door. This was a popular expression during the glory days of the show. The reason to avoid 60 Minutes was because they were there to make you look bad, to ask the tough questions, to make you sweat in front of a nationally televised audience.
In the new millenium, and in the new media, the new show to avoid at all costs seem to be The Colbert Report, that is, at least if you are a politician. Case in point, Florida Democrat representative Robert Wexler. Here is USA Today’s take:
Comedian puts Wexler in uncomfortable corner with interview
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler says he was just playing along with the joke when comedian Stephen Colbert prodded him in an interview to say: “I enjoy cocaine because it’s a fun thing to do.”
The Democrat who is unchallenged for re-election appeared on Colbert’s Comedy Central show and was asked to say a few things that would “really lose the election for you if you were contested.”
Colbert asked the congressman to complete this sentence: “I enjoy cocaine because … “A bemused Wexler looked into the camera and said, “I enjoy cocaine because it’s a fun thing to do.”
Here is the video of the interview. It’s as funny as it is uncomfortable. Once you get over the shock, the PR person in me was wondering:
- Did Wexler have any idea who he was sitting down with?
- Did he know that this was the top political satire show on TV?
- Did he think it was a straight interview on the important issues of the day?
- How well was he prepped for this interview by his PR people?
Not very well I’d say. Wexler hasn’t been exactly helpful in trying to figure this out either. Again, from USA Today,
Wexler told The Palm Beach Post after his interview aired last week that he had never seen the show before and only agreed to appear at the urging of his younger staffers.
This week, he is singing a different tune:
I think it’s an important thing for members of Congress to be able to participate in a good-natured joke,” he said. “Everyone who watches the show knows that what is being said is a joke and that it’s about silly topics. I thought it was funny.
I guess Wexler can afford to be all over the map, after all, he is running “unchallenged” this fall. Unchallenged by a political opponent anyway.
The second story involves breaking one of PR’s cardinal rules, never become part of the story.
Josh Rales, a Democratic candidate for Maryland’s U.S. Senate seat, paid a drug-treatment center in Baltimore to drive its recovering addicts to last week’s debate in College Park, where they held signs supporting his campaign.
About 20 patients from the I Can’t, We Can (ICWC) drug-treatment and counseling center in northwest Baltimore attended the debate, said Adrian Harpool, president of the 21st Century Group, a Baltimore public-relations firm hired by the Rales campaign to recruit volunteers.
“It’s not something that happens on a regular basis,” Mr. Harpool said, adding that the recovering addicts were unpaid volunteers who were to help post signs but ended up holding the placards. “It was a real error in judgment on my part.”
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 at 8:40 pm and is filed under Politics, PR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
