Four Campaign Veterans Weigh in on How Politics Has Changed

The campaign business has undergone a series of dramatic changes over the past several decades that have reshaped some of the fundamental ways that political consultants do their jobs. 

Campaigns & Elections sat down this week with four of the industry’s most storied veterans to hear about their experience in politics and how things have changed in the four-plus decades that they’ve been in the business. 

The panel, held at C&E’s 45th Anniversary party in Washington, D.C., featured Celinda Lake, a longtime Democratic pollster who’s worked on dozens of campaigns up and down the ballot; Alex Castellanos, the co-founder and chairman of Purple Strategies and a veteran of seven Republican presidential campaigns; Chris Mottola, a longtime Republican ad maker and the founder of Mottola Consulting; and Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist who served as campaign manager on Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, as well as acting chair of the Democratic National Committee.

The discussion touched on everything from campaign trail stories to how they got their start in the campaign business and what they make of the future of political consulting. Here are some select quotes – edited for length and clarity – from the conversation:

Alex Castellanos:

“I guess the biggest change that I’ve seen is the fragmentation of politics. You know, we used to have three networks. We used to all watch the same late night show. We used to all respect the same institutions. We used to salute the same flag. It meant the same thing to everyone. 

“What is it that we all have in common today? That’s a harder question these days. The media landscape is fragmented. We used to paint the American electorate with big broad brushes. Now it’s pointillism – little dots that we have to assemble a message, a vision, a journey out of. And I think as the chaos has broken the country into little pieces, it’s become a lot harder to unite it, which is what the campaign wants to do, right? 

“I think it makes a good campaign even more important. The purpose of a campaign is to become a cause – to give people something to fight for that is greater than themselves. And that’s what brings people together. We can still do that, and you see candidates on both sides…who can do that. You know, we’re the change we’ve been waiting for…You can see people who can turn campaigns into causes because they give each of us a larger purpose.

“But I think the job of campaigning is much harder than it used to be. And I mean, one thing it does is it makes it easier to be a bad consultant and carve out this little group and that little group and try to assemble some patchwork that has no greater meaning. So that’s where I think we are today, and that’s why consultants today should get paid more.”

Chris Mottola:

“For me, the biggest thing that has changed is technology. So in 1986, if I’m shooting a TV spot, I’m going to shoot on 16 millimeter film. That means I had to have 16 millimeter film rolls. A roll of film would be roughly 10 minutes, so I couldn’t shoot endlessly like its videotape or digital. I had a plan out the shoot. So I knew that I only had to take five rolls of film, so I only had 50 minutes. I had to plan that out. 

“After I finished that, then you had to take that film, which was exposed, and you had to send it out to be processed, and it was usually in some Godforsaken place. And the labs would open at midnight, and your stuff would be done at 5 in the morning, so you either sat in a bar or a diner the whole night and waited for it. Then you would have to take it and you have to transfer it to either film to edit or to videotape to edit. And you also had the audio, which was a separate piece of quarter-inch tape. 

“Then you do the editing process, and once you finish that, then you had to have client approval. Well how did you do that? There was no internet, there was no – you had to make a cassette, sometimes a three-quarter-inch U-matic, sometimes a VHS, God forbid a Beta. So you Federal Expressed it to the client. They would look at it at some point the next day…They would give you feedback, you would change it, you would send them another Federal Express. They would approve it. And then the real fun part of the job was, if you were doing a race in Illinois, you would have to make 70 or 80 physical copies of the tape that all had to be stuck in Federal Express bags and taken to Federal Express and delivered. The joke used to be: know when it’s good, know when it’s not getting any better and know what time Federal Express leaves. And that’s how you did spots. 

“The reason I kind of took you through that whole giant spaghetti salad mess of stuff is that things could get f***ed up, and often did at every single step of the way. And you better have discipline and planning and a plan A and plan B and plan C, because something was always going to go wrong. The lab was going to screw up the processing, they were going to lose it, the audio wouldn’t sync up. Every consultant has a million horror stories, but it taught you to think on your feet, it taught you to solve problems.”

Celinda Lake:

“Women-owned businesses were pretty rare when we started out, and there were a couple of women pollsters who were really helpful – across the aisle – to other women starting their own businesses.

“The thing that was great about polling is polling is a great profession for women, because politics relies too much on personal power, and I think personal power is still granted more to white men than it is to people of color and women. And the nice thing about falling is you enter early on in the process with an authoritative source of power that goes beyond your personal strength. You can go into the room and people can pontificate ‘well, you know, Al’s going to win this way and Al’s going to be ahead of this and Al’s going to be ahead of that.’ And Mandy Grundwald, a media consultant, taught me: just keep quiet, don’t contradict them. And then ultimately, someone would say, ‘well, Celinda did the poll, maybe we should turn to her and ask her what’s really going on.’ And that gave you a product to deliver early on. 

“So I think polling is a great profession for women, and now there are lots of women in polling, and that is a great, great development. And there are lots of women in direct mail and digital and media and across the board. But I still think it’s harder…There’s still not enough women-owned businesses and not enough women candidates running. We still need to get a woman president. So here’s my idea: We tried everything. Let’s go nominate a woman in each party, like Mexico did, and then the voters will have no choice. Brilliant, right?”

Donna Brazile:

“I try not to have flashbacks. That’s like having menopause. I’m not trying to have nothing that goes backwards. But, you know, I was never scared to be in the room. I really knew that, by the time I was able to peek inside and figure out who was around the table, that I could get in that room. And I got into those rooms. And once I got into the room, the first thing I decided was that I did not want to be the only one that looked like me. 

“So I immediately started to bring in other women, other people of color, who like myself, were out there doing the work. I mean, yeah, Celinda could be considered to be a pollster. Why not? So I had a big mouth. It got me in trouble. That’s why I go to a confession. If I stop going to confession, the Catholic Church is going to have to reopen as something else.

“But for me, I didn’t see myself as a woman or as a Black person. I was driven more by my values. I knew why I was in the room. And I knew the people, the country, the community – I knew I wanted to make America as good as it was promised…

“So Al Gore and I had a relationship, and it was based on: he respected me and I respected him. So he would come to me and say, ‘well, you know, they say, we shouldn’t participate in these pre-primary states. These beauty contests won’t matter toward the delegate count.’ And I’d say, ‘look, we’re gonna get the delegate count because we got most of the super delegates. Don’t worry. But we should not be seen as losers.’ I said, ‘I don’t want you to lose one contest, even if it’s a beauty contest.’ 

“Al Gore won every primary and caucus, even Super Tuesday, because I knew, as a vice president, he could not come across as a loser. Because the American people have this idea that VPs are No. 2. They’re not No. 1. You’re not strong enough. So that was my first battle, and I won that battle.”