DO WE NEED CRISIS MANAGEMENT TO HEAR POLITICAL CANDIDATES WITHOUT HAVING TO CUP OUR EARS?
Are we to speak low when we speak love or politics? Will the cupped ear become a trademark, a political symbol, a familiar sight at political rallies?
When you’re in PR like me and have been doing crisis management forever, you can’t help thinking how you would handle the ultimate cases you see swirling in the news media and hear in interview after interview on TV today.
Take the blizzards of bad press our two presidents, former and current, are trudging through.
You don’t have to necessarily be on their respective sides or in their respective corners or even sympathetic or supportive to come up with some spot-on crisis management strategies and slogans for them.
Think of a crisis manager as a surgeon called in to perform immediate open-heart communications surgery to save political lives imperiled by peevish prosecutors and arbitrary judges from both the left and right.
I would advise former President Trump to adopt the image of a cupped ear over the words:
“They want me to go quietly, so you’ll have to cup your ear to hear me.
“I’m to keep my big mouth shut . . . put free speech away in a quiet corner.”
Then . . .
For beleaguered, bombarded Biden, I would suggest his supporters ask almost Biblically: Are a son’s sins his father to bear? Is loving a son such an unpardonable offense?
Words! Words! Words!
It’s all matter of words, choosing the right ones to make a point emphatically, vividly, impressively, to make speech more powerful and writing more inviting to read, which I write about and give examples in my latest book WORDSHINE MAN.
Here’s BEFORE and AFTER examples from my book about a product my PR firm was promoting called UVC-650 for our client then, PleXus. The device was heaven-sent for churches losing attendance during the pandemic as it emitted whiffs of sanitizing air that sent COVID-19 and other viruses to hell.
BEFORE: UVC-650 PleXus Device Effectively Sanitizes Church of COVID-19
AFTER: Believing Virus Cleanliness is Next to Godliness, PleXus’s UVC-650 Sanitizes Church of Satanic COVID-19
Politically, some believe there may be a new speech pandemic brewing, one that’s threatening free speech that could be harmful to a church we call democracy.
As a crisis manager, until I’m hired, all I ask is that we listen carefully to what courts are mandating what defendants can say in a free and open society.
Remember we’re in a country where if it wasn’t for our forefathers’ saying infuriating words to a king Declaring our Independence, we wouldn’t have a country. Amen!
Tom Madden is a tireless writer of articles, books and his weekly blogs at www.maddenmischief.com. When not writing he’s managing his PR firm, TransMedia Group, headquartered in Boca Raton, FL, where he practices his specialty, crisis management, as he has done effectively over the years for many of America’s largest companies.
