Gordon Brown is struggling in the presentational department.
On 1 May, BBC 5 Live‘s Nicky Campbell told him right out about “that lack of human connection that you have.” (listen from 1:39) [Non-UK readers – imagine your political chief taking this verbal slapdown?]
So how can Gordon get that “human connection”? Perhaps by taking a leaf from the copybook of another leader, new to the top job, facing some of the same perceptual challenges as Gordon, and reviewing the effectiveness of his own communications strategy.
The net result of this operation has been to create the impression among average voters … that we are an efficient, crafty, cold, machine…
[W]hat is needed is to get across those fundamental decencies and virtues which the great majority of Americans like hard work, warmth, kindness, consideration for others, willingness to take the heat and not to pass the buck and, above all, a man who always does what he thinks is right, regardless of the consequences (he would rather be a one-term President doing what is right, rather than a two-term President doing what is wrong), and just plain guts and courage.
In almost two years, none of this has gotten across…
This is the primary failure of the public relations side of my first two years, and the irony of it is, of course, that we have gained the liability of being known as a “PR-obsessed Administration” and have been less successful in PR than in any other area of undertaking.
I would like for you to discuss this … I have mixed feelings about whether X should be there and even possibly Rumsfeld, although I would lean against Rumsfeld since he is such a practical, no-nonsense type… [pdf]
The President had already benefited from presentational advice from Fox News boss Roger Ailes:
I think he should wear make-up or at least beardstick…A double layer of beardstick should be applied to the area above the upper lip. He is especially dark there.
So who was it? Well, Donald Rumsfeld was around the White House for a quite a while before he signed on under Bush 43.
And Gordon Brown? He looks nothing like Richard Nixon – at least not after a bit of beardstick.