Who Is That Endorsing My Candidate?
While working on my strategic plan, I came across a list of endorsements for my candidate in the VA Lt. Gov. race, Phillip Puckett. The campaign website provides a long list of endorsements, but I have no idea who these people are.
Although visitors to a Lt. Gov. campaign website are probably die-hard supporters, I find it hard to believe that they would recognize the majority of members on the list. I think the website should make some effort to highlight some of the contributions of the members so that people can at least feel comfortable with the integrity of the endorsement.
This would make the endorsements list more powerful. A long list is impressive, but not if you’re not sure of whom the members are and what they have achieved. This could be perceived as playing favorites, but it would certainly help the voters.
3 Comments:
Maybe when a statewide candidate has such a long list of endorsements, it would be helpful if they broke them up by categories (geographical area, county, newspapers, associations, local business leaders, Republicans/Democrats etc). While you might not be impressed by an endorsement from Joe Schmo, the Sheriff from X County, the voters of that county might love Joe Schmo.
In class last night we looked at the endorsements for Stan Matsunaka's website. While an endorsement from a county chair might not mean much to someone outside his district, that person could be a highly respected member of their community who a lot of people respect.
Endorsements are great! Yes, a long list can look overwhelming, but organization is key to their effective use.
Yes, organization is key. It’ll also allow the voter to take some pride in the endorser (if they like the person). It would be nice for some to have their key achievements highlighted...it would give the endorser some additional credibility if the voter is not already familiar with them. You may not need to do this for some of the obvious endorsements, such as Governor, but maybe for that City Council member whom you never heard of that just helped lower your property tax!
A good way to remedy the unknown-ness of the endorsers would be to have a picture, a tag line about who they are, and a quote. It takes the focus off of the name and why they should be important and makes it seem more human, plus giving good reasons to support the candidate, the main point of a campaign!
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