This is the era of the "new" permanent campaign, says author and pollster Michael D. Cohen. The idea comes from a term coined by Jimmy Carter's pollster (and later Trump whisperer) Pat Caddell. Weeks after helping guide Carter to victory in the 1976 presidential election, Caddell drafted a memorandum to the president-elect on the subject of how to govern once in the White House. He advised Carter that "governing with public approval requires a continuing campaign." This meant giving off the kinds of signals that voters expected from the one-term Georgia Governor, using television and radio to convey what the president was doing while staying ahead of the news cycle and always making his case for the next election. Carter approved of Caddell's advice, writing "Excellent" on the memo's cover page.
With the explosion of social media and 24-hour political news, it's become more important than ever "to keep all aspects of campaigns in play, including fundraising, grassroots, and paid media to remain relevant while the world moves," Cohen told us from his home in Virginia. Speed kills, and it's making it "more difficult to govern, let alone run campaigns with strategic, focused messaging." In his new book Modern Political Campaigns, Cohen lays out in plain language what it takes to run for public office, describing field operations, campaign planning and management, and, of course, focus groups and polling. It's an accessible-yet-enlightening book for aspiring political professionals, but also for any reader who wants to go deeper into the methods used by political experts to get an edge in the competition for voters' affections. The author took a break from various projects to speak with us about mail-in voting, trust in elections, and 2024. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
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