Cut-It-Out Communications: PR and Politics

Public Relations and the Tea Party

The Tea Party desperately needs some elemental public relations lessons, and one of its main problems in this area derives from its basic composition. As a decentralized movement, with no real head or leadership, the Party is dependent on the media depiction of its actions without any ability to influence them.

They have no spin doctor unless you count Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, two messengers widely viewed as prejudiced in their portrayals. If the Tea Party consists of average Americans, it needs some way to show that without images of the crazies holding up racist protest signs.

Electoral victories in the primaries this Tuesday would go a long way towards cementing their gains and improving their image. There’s no PR better than success.

However, this continues to ignore the fundamental problem: the need for leadership or a national spokesperson to rebut negative stories and highlight the good ones.

If Ron Paul can serve as a titular head for libertarians, the Tea Party must be able to organize enough to choose a similar representative. And Sarah Palin won’t do. She’s just too controversial and too self-interested.

Frankly, I’m just as glad to see the Tea Party go on like it is. They provide a perfect foil for President Obama and continue to be viewed as far outside the mainstream. However, from a PR perspective, they have a long way to go.

Public Relations and the Image of the Tea Party

The Tea Party has a public relations problem. Some of its more extreme elements, if that’s possible, have besmirched the reputation of the members by holding anti-racist signs, taunting handicapped people, comparing President Obama to Hitler, etc.

 

They are essentially destroying the Tea Party brand, and that presents a conundrum for the Republican Party. Republicans want to harness the energy of Tea Party supporters to increase turnout at the polls for the 2010 elections. However, while Tea Party support might be ideal for the primaries and revving up the base, it’s not so hot for getting Independent support during the general elections, the voters who end up deciding most contests.

 

So, the right-wing talk show hosts and pundits have developed a very cunning strategy. They’ve accused liberals of infiltrating Tea Party rallies, and holding up the racist signs themselves, in order to discredit the movement. Of course, this accusation is designed to inoculate the Tea Party’s image by blaming all the extremist elements on the other Party.

 

This also spares Republicans from the necessity of criticizing the Tea Party by inferring that they do not hold many of the beliefs that a large number quite evidently hold.

 

Of course, all the Tea Party vitriol is like poison to the American system. When people talk about wanting to “take their country back,” they are inferring that it has somehow been stolen, when in fact, President Obama won the election fair and square. It is all an attempt to delegitimize our President and should be opposed by every truly patriotic American.

Tea Party Public Relations

The Tea Party has an image problem. They are portrayed in the press as a collection of right-wing nut jobs, and, as a Democrat, and loyal supporter of President Obama, I tend to agree.

 

Yet, there may be many, or a majority, of people of good intent within the movement, and if they truly wish to become a permanent force of influence within American politics, they need to take a series of confidence-building actions.

 

The independent voter, one not dominated by broadcasts at MSNBC or FOX News, may not have reached a final decision about this group. The Tea Party's support of limited government, and anti-tax fervor, may seem one and the same with Republicans.

 

In fact, the Republican Party is desperately trying to harness the Tea Party's conservative values and enthusiasm, perhaps better describes currently as anger, in order to excite their base. In doing so, they have largely refrained from condemning some of the more extreme elements within the movement.

 

Tea Party activists need to step forward more convincingly to denounce the violent elements within their movement. This is difficult because the group does not really have any of its own leaders aside from its Republican umbrella.

 

The next couple of weeks could prove crucial for the movement and its long-term viability within the American system.