Steven Levy Quotes

Companies have long gathered data to break down their customer base into specific segments. Now political parties have become adept at micro-targeting, too, using data on shopping habits, leisure activities, voting histories, charity donations, and so on, in order to pinpoint likely supporters and the type of appeal most likely to win them over.

You can't show up at a church every 4 October and say, 'Vote for me,' and call that persuasion.

Memo to White House: Calling voters stupid is not a winning strategy.

Campaigns fail if they waste resources courting voters who are unpersuadable or already persuaded. Their most urgent task is to find and persuade the few voters who are genuinely undecided and the larger number who are favorably disposed but need a push to actually vote.

My focus as part of the leadership is to keep talking about the independent voters, independent voters - how do we get the independent voters back?

During the last 20 years the advent of radio changed all the old rules of political campaigning. Now the successful advent of television, available for the first time this year in a presidential campaign, must again influence the planning of the campaign. Television, with its triple advantages of sight, sound and motion, can make or break a candidate, a party or a platform. In my opinion television must not be considered as supplementary media but as the heart of your program to “win friends and influence people.”

When you run a campaign the idea is not to appeal to pundits but to appeal to people.

To win [elections] in this country these days you've got to campaign down to a 13-year-old's level of mental development.

Campaigns are about adjustments.

Anybody else who's gotten the president of the United States elected, tell me you are better than I am at it.

Most people don't understand what the RNC ground game is.

Influencing voters is the crux of all poll campaigns.

If you're a Texas Supreme Court Justice hopscotching across 254 counties, trying to tattoo your name onto the noggins of millions of voters, you must find creative ways to raise visibility and build awareness. Twitter, Facebook, etc. are low-cost but high-yield ways to leverage the support of key influencers and opinion leaders.

The Conservative Party have got to ask themselves, 'How do we persuade people who at the moment are voting Labour and Liberal Democrat to vote Conservative

I think you have to be careful. You have to know exactly what is going to resonate with voters. And you can't get ahead of that. You have to be very careful with your approach.

I think any good government will target on the finishing date, that is, the polling day and make sure that their strategy is strong and in place to get them successfully re-elected.

A lot of our Democratic consultants have fallen into the self-defeating prescription that the candidate that runs the most negative ads wins. I have a new theory: Positive is the new negative.

Some of the reasons John McCain lost in 2008 were his lackluster campaign, his refusal to showcase Obama's extreme liberalism and, thus, his failure to demonstrate why he would make a better president than Obama.

You're really earning the support of New Hampshire voters, and you've got to do that one-on-one grassroots campaigning here, even if you have the most money.

In New York, we had primary elections for mayor. To improve their chances, all five candidates changed their name to Rudy Giuliani.

During an election, it's like they're doing my job: they're going around banging the drum for their party and selling their movie. You know, it's the same thing.

If you can’t run against a political candidate, run against his campaign manager.

Anybody who says negative commercials are wrong and shouldn't be used doesn't know anything about politics. The fact is people respond to those commercials.

The reason I lost the Governor’s race to Patterson is that I was out niggered. No one is ever going to out nigger me again.

Trace out also individuals in every region, inform yourself about them, seek them out, secure that in their own districts they shall canvas for you, and be, as it were, candidates in your interest.