Crisis PR – How On Earth Can Rep. Joe Walsh Recover?

Jonathan Franks, LUCID’s managing partner weighs in on Rep. Joe Walsh’s PR Nightmare

There are times when even the most seasoned Crisis PR expert just shrugs their shoulders.  For me, Rep. Joe Walsh is one of those for me.  A tea party darling, the freshman Congressman from Illinois just doesn’t seem to have a clue when it comes to how his comments get perceived.  Now sure, the outlet I chose to highlight is MSNBC, and while they aren’t as out there as Fox News, I won’t argue that they are dead center either.  However, this one took my breath away.

This particular pundit has taken great pleasure in giving out an award for the craziest republican, and in balance, there are plenty of crazy liberal democrats as well.

Joe’s had a tough time in the press, but I would argue its entirely of his own making, and he really needs to start thinking before he speaks, or writes.  In the first example MSNBC cites, he comments that President Obama was only elected because he was black, and as the anchor points out, there is some evidence that suggests that part of the mystique and excitement around candidate Obama came from the fact that his election was in fact quite historic.  Where Joe’s claims fall apart is that they don’t take into account the real reason Obama won – he captured the attention of the youngest voters, many of whom don’t vote unless they care deeply and are engaged by the ideas of the candidate, so yes, many of us who swing a little left did like the idea of moving the nation out of the dark ages and getting past the hurdle of having our first non-white President, but the problem comes in saying that his election was due to white folks being excited about an “articulate” black candidate and “white guilt.” First, I don’t think there’s empirical evidence, other than what exists in the minds of tea partiers for that argument, and second, anyone in a high political office should just know better than to refer to a black leader, or a black person period as articulate – its a characterization steeped in a well known history of racism, and it’s just not good PR.

Next, the commentator reads from an editorial Joe wrote that indicates that American Jews sympathize so much with the Palestinians that they forsake the safety and security of Israel.  While there are some in the diaspora who would agree with that, they are on the ideological far right in the Jewish community, and quite frankly, right or wrong, from a PR perspective, a Jewish person can get away with saying that.  A Catholic Congressman cannot.  Just play the tape through a bit – how does one say with a straight face that Jewish people don’t care about the Jewish State? It just doesn’t make sense, and it provides a classic example of how the Christian right just isn’t helpful in the Israel debate.  The best PR move here to support Israel from Joe Walsh – “Israel’s right to exist is a moral imperative, and the commitment of the United States to Israel’s security is unshakable.”  Why enter the fray on the most complex problem in international relations, and not only flub the quote, but say something so obviously offensive?

Joe has a long history of these, from the fabled youtube video where he verbally assaults constituents at a restaurant, to his painful appearance on Chris Matthews show, during which he completely implodes, to calling Wolf Blitzer a liar, he can’t seem to get a break.  What’s interesting is that the reaction of the intellectual elite, which is best characterized by shock and amazement, may not matter.  His routine may well play fine with his constituents back home.

But the question is how do you fix this PR chaos? It’s doable, first, he needs serious media coaching, because he falls for every trick in the book, because the cable news networks like a meltdown – argue vision drives ratings share, and someone like Joe Walsh is a dream come true. He has to learn to be relatively calm in these interviews – passion is good, foaming at the mouth is bad.

The other thing I would do is put as much through a trained spokesman, if possible.  I don’t see a need for a freshman Congressman to do these kind of shows – the first rule of making a booking decision is you have to figure out what the media organization’s motives are, and what they are likely shooting for to get the best ratings.  Booking Joe Walsh, a freshman with little or no power, is ONLY interesting to a booker on the basis of his frequently hysterical tantrums.  So if he doesn’t do these shows for a while, the heat will turn down, and he will have the time to get through INTENSE media training to teach him how to check his emotions at the door before an interview.

Generally, mistakes like this are forgivable, but there would be a lot of work to do, and if you don’t believe me, google the guy’s name, and then google “rep Joe Walsh Crazy,” and you will see the volume of craziness associated with him.

Now, in pointing out how he might seem a little bit detached from reality to the intellectual elite, he may just be crazy like a fox, in that his tea party constituents likely feel that they always get a bad rap in the liberal newsmedia.  However, if I handed someone a sheet of paper with some of Joe Walsh’s quotes, I doubt many would be able to guess that the writer was a United States Congressman.  The solution to the problem here is for him to take a step back and let his spokesman carry the PR load for a while, and get Joe some serious media training.