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Inside Campaigns: Elections through the Eyes of Political Professionals
Inside Campaigns: Elections Through the Eyes of Political Professionals offers readers a detailed, thoroughly researched examination of U.S. political campaigns. Through the eyes of more than 100 campaign managers and political professionals, it takes a behind-the-scenes look at the ways campaigns are managed, the strategies that are employed, the roles played by both staff and the candidates, and all the ways campaigns affect election outcomes. The expert author team of William J. Feltus, Kenneth M. Goldstein, and Matthew Dallek provide guidance drawn from actual campaign case studies, contribute their own data-backed assessment of the current state of modern political campaign management, and offer a trove of observations and war stories. Interviewees include high-profile professionals such as David Axelrod, Ken Mehlman, James Carville, and Kevin Sheekey, as well as lesser-known political journeymen and women who manage America's state and local campaigns. Democrats and Republicans are evenly represented, giving students a balanced, unique and valuable insight into how campaigns operate.
320 pages, Paperback
Published March 29, 2016
22 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 2, 2021
This book kind of bounced between being repetitive and okay, with random lines that would actually be really interesting. My favorite parts were those about Bernie.
July 22, 2023
Amazone
How Political Campaigns Function (or Don’t) and What That Entails, from the Inside.
“Inside Campaigns” is a textbook that “seeks to reveal what really happens inside American political campaigns and to unpeel some myths.” The authors –William J. Feltus, Kenneth M. Goldstein, Matthew Dallek- interviewed more than 100 campaign managers and political professionals to gain insight into how political campaigns work and why they matter. They look beyond presidential election campaigns into the much more common down-ticket campaigns, providing examples and insights into successes and failures. The book is organized into ten chapters, each addressing one of the many roles of the campaign manager. The authors state that “this is not a how-to handbook but instead the collected insights from scores of political professionals.” It does include some how-to advice, but it is complementary to instructional books in presenting real-world observations and experiences.
The chapters and roles of the campaign manager are broken down thus: Losing and Winning (compares modern and 19th century campaigns), Political Math (determine where your votes are going to come from), Political Historian and Data Scientist (big data, microtargeting, other information gathering, get out the vote), Entrepreneur and Chief Financial Officer (financial and organizational decisions), Marketing Maven (how the campaign will reach the voters, why television is still important), Producer and Stage Manager (how the message matters, why negative ads work), Spinmeister and Policy Wonk (new media, gimmicks), Field General (field organizing, grass roots activism), Strategy Enforcer and Team Builder (keep the campaign on-message, be aware of Super PACs, the predicament of the replacement manager), Candidate Caretaker and Confidant (campaign manager’s relationship with the candidate).
The authors return repeatedly to the five questions a campaign manager must ask and then answer: Who are our targets? How do we reach them? What do we tell them? How are we doing? What are they (opponents and allies) doing? Each role the campaign or its manager plays helps to answer those questions. But “Inside Campaigns” is not only about campaign managers. Perhaps they are the stars, but the authors interviewed many political professionals. “Inside Campaigns” is intended for students of American politics and for campaign leaders, but it is also suitable for interested observers. I was surprised how readable the book is; it’s not dry at all. With a March 2016 publication date, the authors probably did not have the opportunity to interview members of the Sanders and Trump campaigns, which would have been great additions. Hilary Clinton’s campaign manager is quoted a few times in chapter 9, but I got the impression it was early in the season.
There are several appendices which include questionnaires that the authors’ students used in conducting interviews with campaign professionals, followed by one such interview of Doug Bailey of the Republican consulting firm Bailey, Deardourff, and Associates. Also included are profiles of Katie Merrill, a Democratic campaign manager, and Reed Galen, a Republican strategist, both from California. This is followed by a case study of Herman Cain’s 2012 presidential campaign, its meteoric rise and subsequent implosion.
mirasreviews
---
What's Included is Quite Good
This is a good solid book which will give a great deal of insight into how modern political campaigns work. It starts out somewhat analytically by discussing if campaigns can have any effect on the outcome. After all, many voters today would rather gargle razor blades than vote for the opposition candidate. As of this writing, Trump is running against Clinton. How could the Clinton campaign convince a Trump voter to vote Democrat? Well, it can’t.
Campaigns work on the mushy center. A Trump leaning voter can be swayed to vote Clinton if approached properly and properly is the material of this book. Most of it is a framework peppered generously with effective and often eye opening and / or amusing anecdotes about how this or that campaign did something wonderful or amazingly boneheaded.
I spent about ten years consulting for a fee on Democrat candidates’ political campaigns. I found the book to be for the most part, quite accurate if it does overstate the campaign manager’s need for specific technical knowing. The book tends to draw more from Democrats than Republicans but I detected no bias and believe me, I looked. I did smile at few no doubt accurately quoted but self-serving distortions such as the Democrats claiming the mainstream media has no bias. Inside all the campaigns I worked on we assumed rightly that we had all the media in the bag. That was, though, before the rise of the alternative media via blogs and other Internet conduits.
My big disappointment was no mention of either Sanders or Trump both of whose primary runs busted the mold so completely that I doubt it’ll ever be reconstituted as before. This isn’t due to publication pressure because Clinton’s 2016 primary run is well documented as is her manager, Mook. The complete exclusion of the two most interesting candidates in my memory at least truly astounded me.
Still, what’s there is quite good, educational and informative.
Paul Cassel
---
How Not to Run a Campaign
Like generals who study the strategies of wars past, campaign managers study campaigns past even though they know that the muskets of yesteryear won't do the job anymore. The rules of campaign management are changing every day and even the basic ideas of getting your message out and differentiating yourself from your opponents are morphing into micro-targeting and strategic repositioning. Does it make sense to even learn about the campaign tactics of previous elections?
I don't know, but on the assumption that it does, Inside Campaigns is a pretty good place to start your studies, with interviews of campaign managers and lots of case studies of campaigns of the recent past. My favorite chapter was one with the innocuous title Producer and Stage Manager, which was really all about negative campaigning, many of which went bad although quite a few succeeded. One notably bad move was in a 2010 California congressional campaign in which one candidate sent out flyers that when opened, emitted a foul odor, intending to equate the smell or ordure to his opponent. It backfired when it turned out that people do not like stink bombs sent to their mailboxes.
Found Highways
How Political Campaigns Function (or Don’t) and What That Entails, from the Inside.
“Inside Campaigns” is a textbook that “seeks to reveal what really happens inside American political campaigns and to unpeel some myths.” The authors –William J. Feltus, Kenneth M. Goldstein, Matthew Dallek- interviewed more than 100 campaign managers and political professionals to gain insight into how political campaigns work and why they matter. They look beyond presidential election campaigns into the much more common down-ticket campaigns, providing examples and insights into successes and failures. The book is organized into ten chapters, each addressing one of the many roles of the campaign manager. The authors state that “this is not a how-to handbook but instead the collected insights from scores of political professionals.” It does include some how-to advice, but it is complementary to instructional books in presenting real-world observations and experiences.
The chapters and roles of the campaign manager are broken down thus: Losing and Winning (compares modern and 19th century campaigns), Political Math (determine where your votes are going to come from), Political Historian and Data Scientist (big data, microtargeting, other information gathering, get out the vote), Entrepreneur and Chief Financial Officer (financial and organizational decisions), Marketing Maven (how the campaign will reach the voters, why television is still important), Producer and Stage Manager (how the message matters, why negative ads work), Spinmeister and Policy Wonk (new media, gimmicks), Field General (field organizing, grass roots activism), Strategy Enforcer and Team Builder (keep the campaign on-message, be aware of Super PACs, the predicament of the replacement manager), Candidate Caretaker and Confidant (campaign manager’s relationship with the candidate).
The authors return repeatedly to the five questions a campaign manager must ask and then answer: Who are our targets? How do we reach them? What do we tell them? How are we doing? What are they (opponents and allies) doing? Each role the campaign or its manager plays helps to answer those questions. But “Inside Campaigns” is not only about campaign managers. Perhaps they are the stars, but the authors interviewed many political professionals. “Inside Campaigns” is intended for students of American politics and for campaign leaders, but it is also suitable for interested observers. I was surprised how readable the book is; it’s not dry at all. With a March 2016 publication date, the authors probably did not have the opportunity to interview members of the Sanders and Trump campaigns, which would have been great additions. Hilary Clinton’s campaign manager is quoted a few times in chapter 9, but I got the impression it was early in the season.
There are several appendices which include questionnaires that the authors’ students used in conducting interviews with campaign professionals, followed by one such interview of Doug Bailey of the Republican consulting firm Bailey, Deardourff, and Associates. Also included are profiles of Katie Merrill, a Democratic campaign manager, and Reed Galen, a Republican strategist, both from California. This is followed by a case study of Herman Cain’s 2012 presidential campaign, its meteoric rise and subsequent implosion.
mirasreviews
---
What's Included is Quite Good
This is a good solid book which will give a great deal of insight into how modern political campaigns work. It starts out somewhat analytically by discussing if campaigns can have any effect on the outcome. After all, many voters today would rather gargle razor blades than vote for the opposition candidate. As of this writing, Trump is running against Clinton. How could the Clinton campaign convince a Trump voter to vote Democrat? Well, it can’t.
Campaigns work on the mushy center. A Trump leaning voter can be swayed to vote Clinton if approached properly and properly is the material of this book. Most of it is a framework peppered generously with effective and often eye opening and / or amusing anecdotes about how this or that campaign did something wonderful or amazingly boneheaded.
I spent about ten years consulting for a fee on Democrat candidates’ political campaigns. I found the book to be for the most part, quite accurate if it does overstate the campaign manager’s need for specific technical knowing. The book tends to draw more from Democrats than Republicans but I detected no bias and believe me, I looked. I did smile at few no doubt accurately quoted but self-serving distortions such as the Democrats claiming the mainstream media has no bias. Inside all the campaigns I worked on we assumed rightly that we had all the media in the bag. That was, though, before the rise of the alternative media via blogs and other Internet conduits.
My big disappointment was no mention of either Sanders or Trump both of whose primary runs busted the mold so completely that I doubt it’ll ever be reconstituted as before. This isn’t due to publication pressure because Clinton’s 2016 primary run is well documented as is her manager, Mook. The complete exclusion of the two most interesting candidates in my memory at least truly astounded me.
Still, what’s there is quite good, educational and informative.
Paul Cassel
---
How Not to Run a Campaign
Like generals who study the strategies of wars past, campaign managers study campaigns past even though they know that the muskets of yesteryear won't do the job anymore. The rules of campaign management are changing every day and even the basic ideas of getting your message out and differentiating yourself from your opponents are morphing into micro-targeting and strategic repositioning. Does it make sense to even learn about the campaign tactics of previous elections?
I don't know, but on the assumption that it does, Inside Campaigns is a pretty good place to start your studies, with interviews of campaign managers and lots of case studies of campaigns of the recent past. My favorite chapter was one with the innocuous title Producer and Stage Manager, which was really all about negative campaigning, many of which went bad although quite a few succeeded. One notably bad move was in a 2010 California congressional campaign in which one candidate sent out flyers that when opened, emitted a foul odor, intending to equate the smell or ordure to his opponent. It backfired when it turned out that people do not like stink bombs sent to their mailboxes.
Found Highways
July 2, 2021
Altogether, a good book. It delivers a good inside story of the campaign managers' jobs all around America and in bot the major parties - Democrats and Republicans. Several managers, who worked in national or regional elections, are here interviewed, and then the authors do a great job comprising the information in a readable and informative style. The only problem is its repetition of concepts, that feels tiresome sometimes. But well, sometimes campaigns are circular, so we can manage to understand that.
But the best tip, I would say, is the authors model of what someone has to ask in order to conduct an organized and goal-oriented political campaign:
(1) "Who do we need?";
(2) "How do we reach them?";
(3) "What do we tell them?";
(4) "How are we doing?";
(5) "What are they doing?"
But the best tip, I would say, is the authors model of what someone has to ask in order to conduct an organized and goal-oriented political campaign:
(1) "Who do we need?";
(2) "How do we reach them?";
(3) "What do we tell them?";
(4) "How are we doing?";
(5) "What are they doing?"
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews