By Fraser P. Seitel
What kind of a year was it for PR practice?
This kind: Barack Obama entered 2010 having set a new standard for political PR. In the best communications traditions of Presidents Reagan and Clinton, he was decisive, down-to-earth, and personable. By year-end, after a political season of flipping and flopping, the "public relations President" had become less credible than Donald Trump, more overexposed than Brett Favre, and less decisive than Michael Scott.
And President Obama wasn't the only one who took it on the shnoz in terms of PR. Others who saw their reputations stumble, their credibility tumble, and their character crumble during the last year of the first decade of the 21st century include the following recipients of the 2010 Public Relations Sinners & Winner awards.
For a political party that started the year off owning most state houses, both houses of Congress, and the White House, the Democrats sure took it on the chin. President Obama, himself, was kind enough to provide Republicans the sound bite they needed, when he labeled the party's mid-term election swoon, a "shellacking."
But while most Democrats ran for cover, at least one of their members refused to see the defeat as, well, a "defeat."
Nancy Pelosi, -- the Democrat answer to Dick Cheney in terms of polarizing the electorate -- decided to maintain her leadership in the House.
No matter that no Democrat in the universe wanted her to stay, Queen Nancy held her ground; thus providing the Republicans with their best ammunition to win back the White House in 2012, despite neither standing for much or even having a candidate for president.
The soon-to-be former Speaker's unbridled chutzpah in refusing to allow someone else to lead Democrats in the House would have made Marie Antoinette blush.
- Aging Whine(r) of the Year Award
And if the American public needed a reason, beyond Speaker Pelosi, to drive Congressional popularity down below its 11% level, there was everybody's favorite Korean War veteran, Charley Rangel.
The 20-term Harlem congressman, who set a new indoor record for "feeling sorry for oneself," was found guilty of two things:
1. Refusing to acknowledge cheating on his income taxes, grabbing multiple rent control apartments, and using his position to shake down contributors to a school in his honor, and
2. Refusing to stop whining about it!
Rather than "manning up" to accept his punishment, Rep. Rangel seized any and all microphones to rue the ignominy, protest his colleagues' lack of consideration for such a loyal fund-raiser, and moan as to how a "war hero" shouldn't be subject to House censure.
Rangel's embarrassing, self-pitying parade succeeded only in ensuring that henceforth and forever, the remorseless representative's name will be prefaced by one word, "disgraced."
In its hour of need, Chrysler had its legendary Lee Iacocca, Microsoft its genius Bill Gates, GE its take-no-prisoners Jack Welch, and BP…
Well, BP had Tony Hayward, a leader who would rather have been sailing off the coast of the Isle of Wight than wading through the muck in the Gulf of Mexico.
The problem with CEO Hayward was he admitted he'd rather be elsewhere, just as he acknowledged that it was "a big ocean" and the "U.S. is a litigious country" and that all things considered, the havoc BP wrought was little more than a "modest spill."
The nonsensical natterings of Chairman Tony doomed an otherwise laudable PR damage control performance, in which BP stepped up quickly to accept blame for the Gulf spill and to pay for the damages and cleanup.
But in a PR crisis, as in war, "loose lips sink ships." And in few modern-day crises have lips been looser than those attached to BP's chief executive. No wonder our CEO of the Year is now heading BP's operation in Siberia.
- Worst Reaction to Medication Award
And if BP's Hayward was afflicted with terminal "foot-in-mouth disease," Hollywood's Charley Sheen suffered from a far more mysterious ailment.
Charley's neurosis apparently revolved around hookers and hashish and hotel rooms trashed within an inch of their lives. At least those were the general ingredients that led to the Two and A Half Men star being hauled in for observation, after New York City cops received a frantic call from a Plaza Hotel closet inhabited by a potential partner panicked by an out-of-control Charley.
While one had to feel for the closeted lady in question, the more sympathetic figure turned out to be Charley's poor publicist Stan Rosenfield, who was obliged to explain that the real reason for his naked client's bizarre furniture-breaking, chandelier-busting behavior was simply "an adverse reaction to some medication." Oy vey.
And you want to work for celebrities!
- Not Knowing When to "Fold ‘Em" Award
And speaking of "letting it all hang out," where is Kenny Rogers when you need him?
The country singer used to caution that gamblers ought to "know when to fold ‘em," but evidently nobody mentioned that to Brett Favre.
Not only didn't the 41-year-old beloved but battered quarterback agree to retire when his considerable skills started heading south, he compounded his waning performance on the field by turning positively Sheen-like in his off hours.
Specifically, the formerly loveable and currently married Favre was charged by a statuesque model/TV personality with sending her suggestive voice mails and even more suggestive emails, including a photo of an appendage not his throwing arm.
The embarrassing revelation not only caused consternation for the NFL, it also put pressure on Favre's conservative corporate sponsors – Sears, Hyundai and Wrangler – to explain how their wholesome products could be pitched by an apparently less-than-wholesome aging quarterback.
Why, one might ask, would a hero the likes of Bret Favre risk his credibility by sticking around too long and showing up in all the wrong places? (Hint: The clueless Minnesota Vikings guaranteed him $12 million to play this year.)
This one was unanimous.
Who is the most hated man in the world, a terrorist who despises the U.S., and roams from safe house to safe house, attempting to evade the law?
No. Not him. He's last year's "most hated." No, we're talking about Wikileaks Leaker in Chief, jovial Julian Assange.
The wacky Wikileaker, born in Australia to space aliens and now residing at London's festive Wandsworth prison, has cornered the market on repugnance. Even First Amendment supporters at Assange's extradition hearing for sexual assault seemed hard-pressed to say anything positive about the eerily strange Assange.
Assange's release of a tsunami of 251,287 secret cables provided the New York Times with a treasure trove of page one stories and everybody else – from PayPal and MasterCard to Twitter and Visa from the Austrailian prime minister to the U.S. Congress – with a new Public Enemy No. 1.
As the Internet noose tightened around his organization, Assange was unrepentant, vowing, in the greatest traditions of James Madison and the American Revolution, to continue to publish the truth.
Presuming, that is, the slammer in which he finds himself residing has Wi-Fi access.
And speaking of social media, who could have guessed that by year-end the most prominent Internet hero would be a tough-talking, slow-moving, 300-pound Republican.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's YouTube videos – confronting a California loud mouth here, rebuffing a Garden State teacher there – are the stuff of cyber legend.
And while those YouTube videos may be edited and refined to demonstrate vintage Christie, even his critics don't deny that the governor is that rare politician who leaves nothing on the cutting room floor.
The 2010 PR Winner of the Year tells it like it is, whether you want to hear it or not. And if you don't like it, as they say in Joisey, "tough noogies."
And if you ever expect to see this particular politician "whining," as they also say in Joisey, "Fuggedaboutit." |