Archive for LDVUSA

Learning lessons from the US elections: four legal differences you need to know

19 January 2012 , ,
Many of the differences between American and British election campaigns are not the result of American campaigners having good ideas the British should copy, but rather are the result of four key legal differences between the two countries.

You know what we’re doing wrong? We’ve not introduced tax breaks for wooden arrows

11 January 2012 ,
What do we want? Section 503. When do we want it? Now. Oh, you want to know what Section 503 is? Read here.

Even left-wing politicians will be hoping Newt Gingrich turns out to be a role model

23 June 2011 ,
Newt Gingrich, a right-winger whose bid to become US President looks to be crashing and burning after many of his senior staff walked out on his campaign, is not an obvious role model for British politicians, especially those not on the right. But at heart quite a few all across the political spectrum would, I [...]

This is not a negative advert

13 February 2011 , ,
The political advertising put out by people who disdain negative ads is often too self-consciously worthy to be effective. John Hickenlooper’s advert as part of his successful run for Governor of Colorado however was rather different – and was rated as being very effective by those watching the race: It is, of course, not a [...]

It’s not only in the House of Lords where filibustering is an issue

28 January 2011
Labour’s filibustering in the House of Lords in many ways echoes the current tactics of Republicans in the Senate: using delaying tactics to avoid issues coming to a vote when they know they will almost certainly lose a vote when it comes. The Wall Street Journal reports how the US version is being addressed: Senate [...]

US political TV ad puts Twitter centre-stage

16 September 2010 , , ,
Facebook too gets a walk-on role in this Iowa Senate TV advert: If the ad makes you want to follow him on Twitter, his account @grassleyworks is here.

If Twitter is just another way of sending out news…

23 June 2010 , , ,
For some people and organisations Twitter has become, at least in part, simply another way of sending out timely news. Issue a news release? Check. Put it on website? Check. Send out tweet with headline and link back to site? Check. All sounds fairly typical and unexceptional and if you’d asked me a few days [...]

Book review: learning from the Obama and McCain online advertising campaigns

Campaign ’08: A Turning Point For Digital Media is a slim volume by Kate Kaye, senior news editor at ClickZ, taking an in-depth look at the online advertising used in the 2008 Presidential contest for the primaries and then the general election. Though the book touches on other aspects of internet campaigning, what makes it stand [...]

The Obama grassroots campaign: glass half empty or glass half full?

14 October 2009 , ,
Time for a bit more probing underneath the figures about how big, amazing, awesome and must be copied the Obama 2008 Presidential campaign was. (See in particular my previous post about his fundraising.) New figures which have seeped out this month from a confidential report by Catalist, one of the big data and technology suppliers to Democrat [...]

Even Martin Luther King repeated the same message

31 August 2009 , ,
Plugging away with the same message time after time may sound the obvious way to get your message over, but think how often discussions about what should go in a leaflet revolve around coming up with new things to say – or how when you look through the collection of leaflets from a campaign some [...]