Political Consultants: Opening Up a New System of Political Power

Extract

I would like to address the question of whether having consultants opens up or closes up the political system. I am principally interested in the election of women and minority candidates. I work now for a firm where half of our candidates are women, which is a very high proportion. On the one hand consultants reinforce incumbency because there is such a strong relationship between money and being able to hire a consultant. By the same token I think that consultants have opened up the process of running for election.

Recruitment of Candidates

When everyone talks about the decline of parties that means there are alternative routes to power, there are alternative routes to the skills that you need to get elected, and there are alternative routes to information. This has caused a major breakdown in political machines. Consultants are also aware of the different traits that can make people electable. Consultants first understood that there are certain districts where women candidates run better than male candidates, where women start out ahead because of the demographics of those districts. That is something that a male-dominated machine, for example, might resist but a consultant would relish and approach pragmatically. You also see outsiders with personal resources who have the most access to an alternative way of entering the system. The Wisconsin Democratic Senate race is a prime example of what can happen when a candidate with tremendous personal resources can hire a team and become a front-runner against people who have been running and elected for a long time.