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ANALYSIS: As Onorato hammers away, two PR strategies emerge, and GOP frets

Over a seven-day stretch this month, Democrat Dan Onorato held events in six cities, criticizing gubernatorial rival Tom Corbett at every stop for his comments about unemployed Pennsylvanians. His campaign blasted reporters more than half-a-dozen releases, produced a Web video and started an online petition. In each city he visited, Onorato picked up earned media—campaign parlance for when the press covers a candidate’s activities. Newspaper editorial pages came down mostly on his side of things.

In short, during the week-long blitz, Onorato spoke to anybody and everybody who would listen (Onorato’s campaign even sent out an eight-pager documenting “Corbett’s bad week”). During the same period, Corbett gave only one major media interview, while he and his campaign offered contradicting statements about the source of his original assertions, backed away from the comments only tepidly and mostly tried to ride out the storm. By this week, Corbett’s campaign said the candidate was “not saying anything more about the subject.”

If nothing else, the controversy has shown that the competing campaigns have two very different public relations strategies. For Onorato, it’s all about winning every news cycle, aggressively squeezing every drop of favorable coverage out every scenario. For Corbett, it’s not much changed from the months before he cruised to the GOP nomination: coast by as much as possible on the positive press the attorney general gets from his high-profile “Bonusgate” probe into legislative corruption.

With little attention being paid to the governor’s race at the moment, the strategy hasn’t yet done much for Onorato’s poll numbers: Corbett still leads comfortably in all public surveys. But the press coverage has likely laid the groundwork for a more effective paid media campaign in the fall. And in the process, even some Republicans are getting spooked at the Corbett campaign’s seeming inability—or unwillingness—to fire back and wrest control of the political narrative.

“I think they botched this thing pretty remarkably,” one knowledgeable GOP insider told pa2010.com. “Once it was said, they went into this kind of bunker mentality. They tried to be too cute. Instead of coming out and addressing the thing head on, they got their facts wrong and made the situation worse. Now it’s the issue that won’t go away, and that’s when these things become a problem.

“I hear a significant number of major Republican players openly concerned about the direction, management and style of the Corbett campaign,” this insider added. “I don’t know that it’s reached the stage of buyer’s remorse yet, but there’s buyer’s concern, and that’s at the highest level of the Republican Party apparatus in the state.”

Corbett campaign aides did not return multiple messages seeking comment for this article. But Ray Zaborney, a GOP operative who ran Lynn Swann’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign, said Corbett’s camp handled the issue the right way.

“I think they’ve taken the approach that the more you push back the bigger it becomes,” Zaborney said. “The Onorato people see this as an opening in what has been up until this point a lackluster campaign. They’re going to milk this for everything it’s worth.”

Zaborney compared the recent flap to Gov. Ed Rendell’s controversial comments during the 2006 race, when Rendell said that slot machines are good for senior citizens because they bring “brightness and cheer” to seniors’ otherwise “gray lives.”

“I can remember us in the Harrisburg echo chamber here celebrating and high-fiving,” Zaborney recalled. “We used it in TV and in mail, we used it wherever we could, and it basically got us no traction. The Rendell people did basically what the Corbett people are doing now, which is ignore it.”

But at least at the moment, that sentiment appears to represent a minority. Granted anonymity to speak candidly about their party’s nominee, numerous GOP operatives and other party insiders bashed the Corbett campaign’s handling of the controversy.

“It was such a silly thing to say, because the people that agree with you, and there are many, are voting for you anyway,” one Republican consultant said. “And the people that you offended, quite frankly, are the blue-collar union guys in southwestern Pennsylvania that haven’t made up their minds yet.

“Corbett’s just not ready for a prime time campaign,” he added.

Another party insider said Corbett’s response allowed the issue to be “magnified” and “much bigger than it would have been.”

Onorato’s campaign, for its part, has said it will keep focusing on the issue “as long as it keeps getting heard, as long as it’s working.” Onorato was set to make another appearance in Philadelphia Wednesday morning, again focusing on jobs.

One Republican who agrees with how the Corbett campaign has handled things is veteran ad man Elliot Curson.

“I would ignore it at this point,” Curson said. “If you talk about it, you’re just keeping it alive.”

To some extent, the differing PR strategies are a natural result of the fact that Onorato staffed up months ago for a competitive Democratic primary. Onorato has numerous press staffers on payroll, while Corbett only recently hired a campaign spokesman.

But one Republican consultant expressed concern that the same people who ran Mike Fisher’s losing gubernatorial bid in 2002 make up Corbett’s inner circle this year. Prominent GOP consultant John Brabender handled advertising for both campaigns, campaign manager Brian Nutt was a political director for Fisher, and spokesman Kevin Harley was Fisher’s campaign press secretary.

“That’s the problem,” this consultant said.

July 23, 2010 at 12:40 pm

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Dan Onorato, Tom Corbett

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