Pundits versus strategists

OAKVILLE, ONT.—When it comes to viewing the battlefield of politics, political strategists, and media, pundits tend to take starkly different perspectives. Pundits like to “zoom out” to take in as wide an overview as possible, while strategists, by contrast, will “zoom in” to focus on the nitty-gritty details of what’s going on in the trenches. The result of this difference in perspective is that the two sides often don’t understand each other. As Jaime Watt, the executive chairman of Navigator and an experienced political strategist, recently noted in an interview, “when you read these columnists, they have the craziest ideas of what actually goes on in politics. It’s actually bizarre what some people write because they’ve never been in politics, and it’s as though they’re looking through a glass window and they can’t hear anything, and all they can see is a pantomime.” Meanwhile, pundits will tend to regard strategists as cynical, political mercenaries who will brazenly tarnish our cherished democratic ideals through their use of crass and manipulative tactics. The media, for instance, once dubbed a political strategist friend of mine as the “merchant of venom.” At any rate, let’s examine how these different frames of reference between pundits and strategists will manifest themselves. First off, the most obvious conflict between the two groups involves the use of “negative” or “attack” ads. In fact, the punditry class’ first reaction to any sort of electoral “attack ad” will almost always be a hostile one. They’ll scorn such attacks as “debasing our civil discourse” or as “mean-spirited and divisive.” Again, this is a zoomed-out view of the world. Political strategists, on the other hand, who are closer to the action, have a totally different perspective on negativity. For them, if their polling data tells them the only way their side can win is to degrade the other side’s brand with “attack” ads, then they’ll do it without hesitation or compunction. Unlike pundits, strategists believe it’s completely legitimate to aggressively point out their opponent’s flaws. Another pundit complaint is that political messaging is “dumbed down” or too simplified, with campaigns boiling down complex and nuanced issues to “sound bites” or bumper-sticker slogans. The way pundits see it, politicians running for office should offer voters detailed and extensive policy platforms. Yet for political strategists, who must get their message out in a noisy marketplace, concision is everything. After all, while pundits can convey their views in 800- to 900-word newspaper columns or in 3,000–5,000-word essays, political campaigns usually communicate to voters through radio and television ads, which typically feature scripts of only 80 to 90 words. Essentially then, it’s impossible for a strategist to satisfy a pundit’s desire for nuanced and complex political messaging since to be persuasive, a campaign ad must deliver a message that’s both impactful and short. (The “Merchant of Venom” once aired political TV commercials in Eastern Europe that were a grand total of five seconds long. Pundits would hate them!) One last area of disagreement between pundits and strategists has to do with the tone of political debate. Pundits, with their eyes squarely on the bigger picture, expect debates to be a rational discourse, with an emphasis on facts and logical arguments, as this is the best way to reach a national consensus. Political strategists, however, who believe they are closer to the ground and thus have a more realistic perspective on voter attitudes, tend to rely not on reasoned debate, but on emotional appeals. Anyway, all of this explains why there’s often tension between pundits and strategists. They look at the exact same situation, but see different priorities. Gerry Nicholls is a communications consultant. The Hill Times