The Holy Trinity of Political Campaigns – Steve Beren
Steve Beren’s odyssey has led him from New York to Oregon and from left wing radicalism to the conservative right. As a political consultant, he’s done an incredible amount of work in a short time and his time in the trenches of the left is now paying off for the right.
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I hope y’all are doing well and had a great Easter and Passover. I got to spend some time down with my family at the ranch polishing my shooting skills, catching some fish and eating plenty of my mom’s fine cooking. Plus my little man Stoney just hit six months old and we had plenty of grandparents and great-grandparents at the ranch to spoil him. It was great!
It’s good to be back with y’all and a new interview though! This week we’re talking to Steve Beren, owner of One Spark Marketing of Washington State. He’s been working in the political consulting field for a number of years, has run for office himself and is a long time activist in the Washington State GOP. The really interesting part though is that through the first several decades of his life, Steve was a radical leftist activist. He was a union activist, leftist infiltrator, socialist and antiwar radical. That’s hardly the avatar of someone you’d figure would become a conservative, let alone a successful Republican consultant later in his life.
Steve’s conversion story and his advice on what he calls “the Holy Trinity of Political Campaigns” is fantastic and I think y’all will enjoy our conversation.
“What orators lack in depth, they make up for in length.” – Charles-Louis de Secondat
Here’s today’s tip: “What orators lack in depth, they make up for in length.” – Charles-Louis de Secondat
It’s hard to be concise with our words. It takes work. If you give me an hour to talk and a topic, I’ll have no problem filling the time and I probably won’t need to spend more than one or two times the alloted time to prepare. However, If you give me 5 minutes, I’m going to spend 10-20 times my speaking time to prepare.
With today’s shrinking attention spans, whether in person or on video, it’s important that we work hard on communicating within tight time constraints. We need to be concise and it takes significant effort to achieve that.
Never say or write anything you don’t want on Buzzfeed.
Here’s today’s tip: Never say or write anything you don’t want on Buzzfeed.
It’s incredible how social media and the internet have changed campaigns! While there are plenty of negatives associated with these evolutions, one of the things I like is that it makes it much easier to catch candidates in lies.
Even outside of campaigns, we see corporate HR departments reviewing applicants’ social media presence for liabilities. A quick google search will reveal plenty of examples of candidates, their families or staff saying things on social media, even private messages or texts, that hurt the campaign when they came out.
You can’t win a campaign by working banker’s hours
Here’s today’s tip: You can’t win a campaign by working banker’s hours.
Taking on a campaign, depending on the scope, is basically like signing up for another part or full-time job. Just like taking a new job, there’s a lot to learn and an adjustment period where you have to re-learn the art of balancing your schedule and figure out how to juggle your competing responsibilities.