YPS

I remember a time when I was younger ( looong time ago) and  my cousin told me that he had written a song.

Of course I was impressed and asked him to sing/play it for me.

What came out was a pleasant enough melody with very catchy lyrics. But through all that something bugged me about the song.

So I pressed him to tell me if he had really written the song. He laughed and told me that he had just taken lines from some random hits with similar melodies and themes and stitched them together.

Of course it took some sort of talent to do even that but the problem was that the more you heard it, not only did the lyrics sound suspiciously familiar, but you began to notice that the flow of the music and the lyrics were slightly stilted.

The upside to having a “campaign” period start so early is that candidates start singing their songs early in the game. It is to be expected that, with the intense scrutiny of the public and time element being so new to the candidates and their team, the songs seem awkward and generic. What I think all of us hope to see is that the candidates start tightening up their messaging, and with the public s help and awareness, the tightness of these messages translates into real issues.

The challenge then for the candidate and their PR teams is to turn their cobbled up songs into the greatest performance of their lives. If not, the availability of monitoring technology, the internet, and the increasing awareness and election savvy of the voting public may turn any candidate’s pre election ditty into their political swan song.