Exactly what Trump’s impending victory said about the campaign business was the subject of much discussion among the flacks, pollsters, ad makers, strategists, and other assorted Svengalis and soothsayers who had gathered in San Juan. (Disclosure: I was a speaker at the conference.) Most insisted—perhaps a little too adamantly—that Trump was an anomaly. Some who had worked in developing countries said his presidential bid reminded them of strongman campaigns they’d seen abroad.
Jeb Bush’s super pac, Right to Rise, came up in many conversations too; it spent $104 million supporting Bush’s candidacy. Right to Rise’s steward, the celebrity consultant Mike Murphy, has been widely derided for the nine-figure debacle. In San Juan, though, his failure was cast in a more forgiving light: The consultants praised Murphy for a valiant effort in what they saw as an unwinnable fight. “Sure, they raised $100 million, but there’s only so much you can do,” a campaign-finance attorney named Dan Backer told one conference session. “They were trying to sell New Coke—a product people didn’t want to buy.”
But if the product was doomed from the start, one had to wonder what good anyone thought a $100 million marketing campaign would do. As the consultants lined up for hand-rolled cigars and traded stories about wrangling ornery clients, they left unspoken the question that hangs over their profession this year: What if their tactics and strategies simply don’t work?
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