Friends and Opponents

Alex Castellanos and Richard Schlackman don’t agree on much. Media maestro Castellanos heads National Media and backed John McCain.  Direct mail guru Schlackman is the ‘S’ in MSHC Partners and supported Barack Obama. But the two have become close friends. So when one offered to interview the other for Politics, I just sat back and let the tape run…Richard Schlackman: I wanted to talk to you %uFB01rst about the changing—from when you got into the business—of TV as a medium. I’m most interested in hearing your thoughts of where it started when you came in and where it’s going.Alex Castellanos: I guess it has changed a lot and it hasn’t. When I got into the business, TV was the big roller—the big paint roller—and life was simple and good. You could go into a race with the big mega- phone of television and change everything. But the world has fragmented. Now there are so many different channels to deliver information. Now the media consultant on a campaign is the juggler in the circus who has got spinning plates, chainsaws, axes…RS: Making your YouTube video…AC: Yeah, everything. It’s not that TV has become any less important; it’s now only part of what we do. But it’s still the best way, the most reliable way to change the world. Get on TV for a couple of weeks, and it’s still the most reliable way to change the world. It used to be that media consulting was like being a prize%uFB01ghter. Media guys got in the ring, and it was mano a mano. Now, you’re still captain of the football team, but it’s a team sport now.RS: Basically, in my experience there are two types of TV people: the ones who are more creative and the ones who believe in more repetition. Which are you?AC: There’s nothing more powerful than a story well told. That’s the power of metaphor—the moment that is larger than the moment itself. It’s something that reveals to you, not just something about where your country is going and where you’d like it to go, but reveals something about yourself. Obama had that. The Obama campaign wasn’t just a campaign, it was a cause. And causes beat campaigns. That campaign made people feel like they had a purpose larger than self. That’s not something you can achieve with a couple of talking points and massive throw weight on television. That’s good story telling and empowering people with local ends. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t also help to have superior throw weight—which Obama had coming out of his big ears.
Interestingly enough, the more fragmented the communications market has become, the more important that throw weight is. I think it’s even more important now to keep your message on long enough and repeat it suf%uFB01ciently. It becomes a part of people’s lives, they accept it.RS: In a previous interview that the magazine did with Fred Davis, he said that he had only about 12 hours to switch spots. [Ed. Note: Politics Shop Talk, April 2009] I know that on the Obama campaign, they tested everything. I found that an incredible contrast—that the McCain campaign didn’t have the ability to think that far ahead.AC: It’s easier to run a disciplined campaign and test everything when you know who you are and what you want to say. Obama had a narrative. We all knew early on why we were being asked to vote for Barack Obama—to this day we’re still not sure why we were being asked to vote for John McCain. It’s hard to score when you don’t know where the goal line is. And you can’t measure the success of any kind of advertising when you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve with it.
 RS: You were a commentator on CNN. Most of the time you were the only Republican with all Democrats. What was that like for you? Were you were able to criticize your own party more than they were? AC: Well, number one, it’s hard to tell people that they’re not watching a car wreck, when they’re watching a car wreck. The last election was not the best for Republicans. We burned our own house down and suffered for it. Plus this was a transformational election. This was an election about who’s going to lead this country into a very different world—economically uncertain as well as new metastasizing security threats. Generationally, it was our job to move—a generation transfer of leadership, and we didn’t do it. The Democrats did. And I had great hopes for Barack Obama. There’s a lot in candidate Obama to like. I thought there was a chance he was going to be a really “New Democrat.” I thought when he was talking about change comes from the bottom up and empowering average Americans—not the old Industrial Age government in Washington—I thought he meant it. The Democrats have had generational change in terms of people but not ideas.RS: Speaking of generational change, I know you have young children and I have a young son too. What kind of things do you see from a media point of view about how they obtain information? AC: They have no clue why anyone ever read a newspaper. They watch Comedy Central for news, and they don’t watch it on TV.RS: They watch it on Hulu.AC: Right. What its brought home to me is that we’ve been missing something in campaigns. We’ve been %uFB01ghting campaigns for years as if they’re only about people and policies, and this generation makes it very clear that it’s about people, policy and culture. There’s a new generation out there—and it’s not just a generation, it’s a movement—and unless you can identify with it culturally, they’re not going to listen to anything you say about policy or leadership. This is the most empowered generation of Americans that we’ve ever seen. These kids have never been told what to do by anybody. 
RS: As a parent I understand that.AC: When this generation realizes that they’ve just elected the most imposing, power-hungry, tell-you-what-to-do government in American history, there are two currents that are going to crash there. A bottom-up generation has elected a top-down government. There are going to be %uFB01 reworks.RS: What, in your mind, is the difference between issues or initiative campaigns and candidate stuff?
 AC: The issue’s wife doesn’t call you at night with an idea for a new TV spot. Candidates are still, I think, the most fun political experience. They risk rejection, they put themselves out there to be loved or ruined. Most of them, not all, but most of them do it for the right reasons. Because they actually believe that they can make the country better. I think that’s an admirable thing.RS: What about international work? What’s the difference in your experience?
 AC: It’s funny how similar people are, no matter what country you’re in. Anywhere where there’s a democracy, you’d recognize the same political campaign. The issues may be a little different—the cultural differences and the differences of class are signi%uFB01cant—but the idea that people want to be a little freer to achieve the things that are important to their family, those seem to be universal. That’s why American politics travels well. We’ve told the story about America’s journey to freedom and that’s the journey that a lot of other countries are taking. So the campaigns are not dissimilar.RS: If a young Republican kid was looking to become a consultant, what would you tell him to do, tell him to learn, to experience?AC: I think there’s only one answer to that question, and that is: Believe in something. Believe in freedom.
Believe that it is not only right and true, but believe that it’s built the most prosperous country in the world. Believe that it’s the greatest force for good in the history of the world. Politics is too hard to do, too much work if you don’t believe in something. I can’t imagine working this hard—winning or losing in front of the nation—if it weren’t for something really important. It’s like going to church when you don’t believe in God. If you’re going to go into politics, believe in some- thing so strongly that you’re not willing to compromise it for anything. My de%uFB01nition of hell would be being a political consultant who does not know what he believes in.