“Whenever I record an interview, it’s in my basement, and half the time I’m not even wearing pants.” – Me, doing my “DIY/Stop Whining About Liberal Media” schtick to an audience of activists in Goshen, NY
Sorry I missed y’all last week, but it was a long eight days. It started two Wednesdays ago when I headed up to Orange County, NY for an Assembly primary. From there, it was off to Cincinnati for Freedomworks’ FreePAC: Cincinnati. Then, after being home for a day, I took a train upstate just so that I could take a bus back home the next day for AFP’s “Obama’s Failing Agenda Tour” through New York.
On top of that, it looks like we’ve added more dates to the Brodigan Surreal American Hero 2012 tour between now and Election Day, and might be hitting Florida, Colorado, and the Dirty Jerz. As I keep saying, highway run into the midnight son, yo!
The Assembly primary unfortunately didn’t go our way. It would have been a tough win in the first place: new district, running against a sitting Assemblywoman who lied about our record, etc. And lying is exactly what it was. The candidate left some openings he didn’t take seriously enough, and if I was running against him I would have lied too. To quote that conservative proverb, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
Regardless of the result, it was a learning experience, plus I always lose my first week in fantasy football anyway. I make some adjustments, and more often than not win the championship in the end. Boom. Done.
What I found most frustrating was coming up with an idea that could have helped . . . two weeks after it would have helped. It all came to me when floods, power outages, and a tree added an extra three hours to my commute. Let’s take a look at FreePAC for a second. Whenever the mighty FTR Radio rolls in to town for these events, it’s an all-day, live event coverage with a few live broadcasts, interviews, etc.
Why not take that, something I’m quite good at, and apply it to a political campaign? Case in point, two weeks ago my client was at a big event in his hometown. While we were handing out the lit and kissing the babies, at least four different elected officials (from congressional on down to town supervisor) stopped by the Republican booth looking for the candidate. If someone was there with recording software, we could have recorded them talking about the candidate, why they support him, and the importance of community events like this.
Not only would it have been a totally free radio commercial (of sorts), we could have broadcast the entire event online and hopefully covered the entire district. While we were in the southernmost part of it, the northernmost part was close to three hours away.
Unfortunately, this ingenious idea didn’t come to me until two weeks later (and a week after the election). Too late for this race . . . but thankfully NOT for future clients. The plan now is to develop more ideas that can combine the bulk of what my social media experiences have been so far working with FTR Radio, and how to apply them to political campaigns.
And I am getting anxious to get my hands on a campaign I can build from the ground up.
Here’s your song of the week…