The top media consultants who did placement were paid upwards of 15% per advertisement.  As you know, this kills the treasury.

There definitely needs to be severe reform to this entrenched activity. How should we go about urging this practice to end?

Shrum is good at state races.  He just doesn't get the meta-message necessary for Prez races.  

Activists should get out there and become operatives themselves.   They'll find out that you don't make diddly squat your first 5-10 years in the business.    

Political consulting is like showbiz - a very small number of people make it big, not necessarily fairly - while competent (and incompetent) lesser ones get by.   Or drop out of the game.

It is not so much that they make a 15% commission, but rather it is because they push and push and push the purchase of so much airtime that they make their money on the sheer volume of advertisements the campaign runs.

Campaigns should take a more central role in crafting their advertisement messages.  They hire a communications director to determine message, so hire one that is savvy in advertisement design.  Yeah, you may not save your money on individual ad buys.  But, you can determine from "the inside" when best to air advertisements, and where.  In essence, you are "cutting back" on unneccesary ads that media consultants have an incentive to run (because their pockets are lined.)

In this model, the DC-insider media consultant becomes obselete.

• the media buyer does not collect 15%; typically a media buyer will receive less than 5%; while the producers of commercials and image makers receive the lion's share.  as the $ go up, often the commission paid to the media buyer goes down

• candidates can buy political advertising for exactly the same discounted price as agencies; this is atypical; most agency buys are afforded the 15% discount in typical commercial situations.  so candidates hire consultants because they seek expertise, assistance, etc.  

• i tend to agree that the commission system is not the best arrangement.  i am willing to work for a flat fee or a retainer and often do so.

• i think incentives for victories are positive but the team should be rewarded for those, not heavily penalized.  you can do good work and still  get beat, or have the election stolen.  plus the media buyer has far less influence over the result  than the campaign managers and commercial producers.  doing media buys for an election is nearly a 24/7 job during the heat of the campaign and there is heavy responsibility to get it right.  those who do it well should be well compensated.

• i don't think the problem is nearly as much the commission structure as it is the effectiveness of the ads and the media buys.  i agree that Shrum has had enough chances and it's time for someone new

This ignores the fact that Kerry was imminently definable. He paid the price for his record, eastern elistist background and youthful passions. Bush did not because 9/11 allowed him to reinvent  and thus redefine himself courtesy of rove and Mehlman.

Next time less on marketing, more on quality product, eh?

Was it the reason we lost? No.

The DNC was abused during the 90's by Clinton (Wilhelm, fundraising scandals, etc.), so when it started in 2001, it was way behind the RNC in terms of capability.  They were doing targetting tests when we were still building a voter file.  We were behind.

Bitching about Shrum and passing it off as the main reason we lost is misplaced and misleading.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Dec2004/
Mayer1228.htm

Is there a model other than flat fee/retainer or percentage of media buy?

How would you or anyone recommend a low-budget, local campaign address the same issue when dealing with its vendors (direct mail firms, canvassing firms, etc)?

"It's one of John Kerry's biggest achievements in the Senate: a groundbreaking investigation into money laundering, drug dealers, terrorists and secret nukes. Yet voters have rarely heard of the senator's dogged inquiries into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Why? Because some of Kerry's leading campaign strategists believed it was too difficult for voters to digest. "You can't talk about that because people think you're talking about the BBC," Bob Shrum, Kerry's top adviser, told one senior staffer. "Why were you investigating British TV?""

This one paragraph wants me to hunt Bob Shrum down with a now legal assault weapon.

The watershed event for me was one campaign analysis panel I saw on C-Span where one of the panelists said "Republicans won, Democrats lost, we all got paid."  No one took issue with his statement.  Later, as the program shifted to Q&A, the moderator told the audience something like this:  "We'll take questions, but please don't make long, opinion-laden statements which don't contain a question."  Even later, he chided one questioner who didn't get to the point quickly..."Is there a question in here someplace?"

This really told the story for me....they only want our money, not our opinions or even much participation...just write our checks and don't make a fuss.

While IMHO there are many reasons why Kerry lost this election, the overriding one for me is that the Republicans figured out how to make their base (and others) feel like the party leaders were speaking directly to them...like they were SO included in the KNOW, the inner circle. This didn't happen so much in Dem circles.  I emailed and volunteered for everything and didn't receive ONE SINGLE FOLLOWUP....just a never ending series of requests for money.

Though I am not opposed to donating money to the progressive casue, I am opposed to underwriting failure, and this time around, I will be much more selective.  I am interested in funding people who want to play to win, and I think total party reform is what it takes to win.

From what I can tell, Democratic media consultants and GOP consultants both believe in their side, but they are also in a business.  While it's hard to measure motivation, Dem consultants like Republicans make money by winning.  That has to be a motivation from a business standpoint.  TV is recommended not just to make them more money, but because tv is still the best (and most cost effective) way of reaching the most voters, and it reaches those swing voters who are lazy and only vote once every four years and only get their info from late night tv comedians and tv ads - they don't spend much time blogging.  This is changing as more people spend more time on line, but it is still true.  And while it may be very tempting for media consultants to recommend more TV to line their pockets, the campaign (manager, candidate, etc) has final say on expenditures. The real conflict was in the Dean campaign, where Trippi was the campaign manager AND the media consultant so there was no check or balance in the campaign.
Madison Avenue costs too much to work for most campiagns.  A cheap MadAve commerical will cost $60K while political consultants do it for $5-15K.