Message in a Battle
The message is what voters take into the booth with them.
Among the attributes people tout about a candidate is the strength of his or her "message."
One of the most potent parts of a campaign, the message is what voters take into the booth with them — their impressions of, likes and dislikes about, and reasons to vote for or against someone.
Sometimes, candidates' biographies serve as their message. (For instance, they may have grown up poor and made something of themselves.) Other times, they want people to remember their accomplishments or their agenda for the future. Of course, a good candidate wants to combine all of these tracts into one cohesive message. But not many of them do.
Candidates have to take their natural strengths and try to appeal their message to voters, which can be tricky. An interesting way to look at these messages and how they're crafted is to consider whom they are trying to target.
Since there literally is no such thing as appealing to all black people or all white people, or to every member of any group (although insiders often talk as if there is), candidates must tailor their message to those from whom they're trying to get votes.
A friend — whose opinion I respect — describes races as being about the many versus the few. In some cases, candidates have to appeal to a broad cross section of voters; in others, they need only a portion. How large a portion depends, in large part, on how many candidates there are.
In a strict mathematical sense, all you have to do is win one vote more than the next guy, so if there are five candidates in the race, you need to appeal to only 21 percent of voters. So, in a one-on-one race, a candidate needs a broader message to capture a majority.
For example, in Republican politics, a candidate may call for tax cuts, which is a broad-based issue that almost every Republican cares about. Another may focus on abortion or bashing gays, because a motivated minority of the voting population cares about such issues.
Take that thought and translate it to the current mayoral field. Which candidates are preaching to the many, and which are speaking to the few?
Bob Brady is pitching himself as someone who can bring people together, a natural dealmaker. He has few other accomplishments, so this is a natural fit. It's a pretty broad message — all voters say they would like more comity — but if voters get the feeling he's bringing together insiders around the trough, he will lose.
Much as he did in 1999, Dwight Evans is focusing on crime and guns — issues with much broader appeal today — and his accomplishments in Overbrook and Oak Lane, a narrow appeal he hopes will find broad support. He does not mention his work in Harrisburg all that much because at this point, that can only hurt him. If he can break through on crime and make a credible case that he'll take the lessons learned in Oak Lane to every neighborhood, he may win.
Chaka Fattah is clearly running as the candidate of "the few." Everything he says is about helping the poor, neglected and forgotten. He seems to clearly believe that in a multicandidate field, there will be enough voters who care about this specific issue. But he is doing nothing to appeal to middle-class residents who are surely worried he will raise their taxes; this is a problem because they make up most of the voters.
Tom Knox is running on his bio, and his rags-to-riches story is certainly inspiring enough to garner broad appeal. But the way he made his money — predatory lending — will hurt him the more people know about it. Besides, I've yet to hear him string together a single coherent sentence about what he would do as mayor beyond unspecified reforms. At the end of the day, it is likely that voters will want more than a bio to elect. They want specific, credible plans.
Finally, Michael Nutter is focusing on two issues with broad appeal: government reform and tax cuts. But no one knows yet whether enough of the voters his messages target — upper- to middle-class African-Americans and white liberals — will come out on Election Day. If they do, he may win. If not, he will lose badly.
Having toiled inside the belly of the local political beast for years, The Insider offers a weekly perspective on the looming primaries.
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