Oct
13
Presidential Candidate PR
October 13, 2008 | Tagged Auburn, president, student | 1 Comment
As the presidential election draws closer, more and more negative things about the candidates are arising. John McCain and Sarah Palin just bashed Obama for having ties with William Ayer. Obama got personal with McCain and said he was showing “erratic” behavior.
Well, in the latest issue of “Men’s Health”, Obama talks about his smoking habit. He said that quitting is a very hard thing to do, especially with it being in the middle of a presidential election.
“There have been a couple of times during the campaign when I fell off the wagon and bummed one, and I had to kick it again,” said Obama. “But I figure, seeing as I’m running for president, I need to cut myself a little slack.” Obama then goes on to give advice for those trying to quit smoking.
I am not trying to be an Obama basher; I just want to point out the good public relations techniques that are being used here. Most everyone knows, or has at least heard, of Obama’s smoking problem. The cast of Saturday Night Live made fun of it in one of their skits; people say they have seen him smoking before a speech; and people who have known him have said he smokes, so it’s not a big secret for anyone out there.
Knowing the people know about his smoking, Obama decides to fess up. Instead of just admitting that he has this problem, he also goes on to give people who do smoke, pointers about how to quit. He says, “Eliminate certain key connections – that first cigarette in the morning, or after a meal, or with a drink.”
Whether you are voting for Obama or not, this was a pretty good public relations move. He can’t cover up his smoking so he decides to use it to the best of his abilities. There really was not much he could say to this issue, so he took a bad situation and tried to make it better.
Obama has made sure that there are no pictures in the media of him smoking. If the American public actually saw a picture of him smoking, I think it would be very bad for him. Since he has admitted to cocaine and marijuana use in his past, the media would be all over it if they caught a picture of him smoking. They would question whether he was still doing drugs or not. There are places that are actually offering reward money for anyone who can catch a picture of him smoking.
I am not going to judge Obama on the fact that he does smoke; there are way too many other issues that I would judge him on before I judged him on smoking. I do think it is a good thing that he has admitted to this himself, before letting the media run wild with it. I do think he should continue to keep his smoking to a minimum because the press would have a field day if they get a picture of him smoking.
Comments
1 Comment so far
[...] Annie McGilvray on her Presidential Candidate PR Blog had this to say about it [...]
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The comment’s server IP (64.13.192.23) doesn’t match the comment’s URL host IP () and so is spam.