Tuesday, December 9

The way political campaigns communicate with the masses is rapidly changing, former Hillary Clinton strategist Mark Penn told a group of GW students and public relations professionals Tuesday evening.

“Everything is going to be different,” said Penn, who is also the chief executive officer of Burson-Marsteller, a global public relations firm. “I think the communication system is gonna be different, the participation levels, I think the fundraising is gonna be different. The question is how the system will or will not change to accommodate what we’re seeing in terms of these levels of participation.”

Political participation levels increased across the board in the 2008 election, Penn told around 40 audience members. Coupled with a more technologically-oriented audience, this increase has forced a change in the way political information gets to the public, he added.

Instead of traditional news cycles where the news outlets would push stories throughout the day, issues in the 2008 Election moved through a process where stories would come from the mainstream media, drive traffic to the Internet, and then work their way back into newspapers and onto cable television, Penn said.

Penn cited Clinton’s “3 a.m.” television ad – which he created – as an example of this phenomenon. The TV spot ran for just a single day in Texas, but became a national story through publicity from the mainstream media and Web browsing, Penn said.

“It was all made with stock footage for about twelve dollars,” he said.

Penn also told the audience that President-elect Barack Obama has done an “absolutely superb job” during the first few weeks of his transition to office, praising Obama’s selections for his cabinet.

Business Week correspondent Keith Epstein also spoke at the event, which was hosted by the Graduate School of Political Management and the Arthur Page Society.