Frank Bellamy’s Masters Degree Capstone/Thesis Project “Masters of Applied Polit

[Frank Bellamy, MAP Masters of Applied Politics]

University of Akron
Department of Political Science

Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics

MASTER OF APPLIED POLITICS
CAPSTONE PROJECT





Spring 2008




Dr. S. Brooks, Advisor
Frank Bellamy, M.A.P Candidate





Table of Contents


I.   M.A.P. Capstone Introduction

II.   Chapter One (Strategy)

III.   Chapter Two (Finance)

IV.   Chapter Three (Communications)

V.   Chapter Four (Analysis)

VI.   Chapter Five (The Overall Understanding)



I.   M.A.P. Capstone Introduction

In considering all of the elements that are comprised in the make up of modern applied politics, one becomes captivated by a sense of future discovery in this rapidly evolving field.  The theories, notions, hunches, methods and practices in this field are all ripe for continued discovery.  The intertwining of the associated disciplines like Political Science, Public Relations, Psychology, Statistics, Finance, Advertising, Entertainment, Marketing and Sociology makes for a special uniqueness that is not seen in any other profession.  Many political consultants can often concentrate their entire professional practices in only one area of applied politics and they can expect to be busy nearly year round.  However, the academically trained political consultant has the advantage of being able to serve their client's needs but also have the ability to shape and cultivate the political horizon.  This ability can only be obtained through professional academic training that incorporates the blending of political strategy, analysis, communications and finance knowledge.  Without this level of professional training one can only expect to make gross speculations in the field of modern political consulting and electioneering.       
 
The cerebral element of applied political strategy can be fragmented into many encompassing subparts within itself but its affect will dictate the direction of the accompanying political elements like analysis, finance, and communication.  With that in mind, the political analysis of a campaign is tied to the strategic political objectives that are attempting to be realized. If the political strategy recommends a certain demographic or issues consensus pursuit angle then the political analysis must make the necessary adjustments in order to reveal the avenues for success. The same idea holds true for the important political element of finance, in that the political strategy is the driving force in determining all components and measures that involves the campaign financial concerns. The use of political strategy in modern or new style political consulting is not only useful and necessary for winning elections but also for directing the elected officials/candidates to the needs of the citizenry for proper governance.  Elected officials and political candidates are often vaguely aware of the wants, needs and desires of their constituency.  They also have a lesser clue as to how they should address the concerns of their constituents.  The academically trained political consultant can help the elected officials/candidates in providing good governance to its citizenry by discovering the proper strategies that will fill this vacuum. This model is also true for political analysis in being able to quantify the thoughts, moods and wishes of the voting population demographic of a region. This Capstone Project will detail the applied experiences of Frank Bellamy in two subject areas; 1). Individual Political Consulting experiences and 2). The Internship at the Mahoning County Republican Party Headquarters expereience.

My individual political consulting experiences are continual and varied.  This effort will take on a new dimension once my M.A.P. degree is obtained; at the student level status I have volunteered my services in order to gain exposure in political consulting arena.  However, as a degree holder I will be more aggressive in marketing my political consulting expertise as an academically trained professional.  As a student I have written extensively on several political topics and submitted them to numerous Internet Blog sites.  My political writings have always reflected my academic training that I received at the Bliss Institute by offering the reader something more than just my political gut feeling on a subject.  I have purposefully taken steps in my writings to always appear nonpartisan because I the field of professional political consulting is becoming non biased professional service and is diverting away from its present day ideological appearance.     

This internship experience reinforced my career goals by allowing me to implement the professional sales and marketing skills that I have acquired over the years.  And I must admit this internship program brought to life many of my classroom experiences.  The internship experience taught me that I have the natural inclination to seek out what needs to be done, without having been told exactly what to do.  My practice of being assertive is tempered by the realization that, some people may perceive assertiveness as aggression.  So my assertiveness is very evident however, it's been my practice to implement my assertiveness through finesse and respect. There were times during my internship that I could have taken advantage of idle time and sought to procrastinate.  In stead, I used my idle time to analyze the extent to which party candidates utilized this county headquarters office for their own political campaigns.  I would assess the office for candidate literature, Yard signs, Banners and through conversations with other party workers.  My personal evaluation of this internship and my graduate college experiences thus far leaves me very conscience of assignment dead lines.  More importantly, I find this subject of Political Science [Applied] very interesting to me and I have a self motivated thirst to know more [the how's and the why's] about this subject.  This college experience definitely has a professional career feel about the learning process associated with this subject aspect of political science. 

If it had not been for my class room experiences many of the internship experiences would have been under appreciated.  The system of party politics is very much like what I thought it would be and it offers many opportunities for creative marketing ideas.  My perception of Republican Party politics has crystallized into an acceptance; that political party ideology and aggressive marketing will be the enduring factors for winning elections.  The "something else", that I found going on was not a surprise but a reaffirmation of what I have read in some of the recent writings about political ideologies and party politics.  To actually be in the company of politically oriented people and to observe their individual personal differences play out as one unit in terms of their political ideology was very thrilling to me.  This was an area of party politics that I had not witnessed before outside of my academic readings.

The classes that I have taken did prepare me for this job and my past work experiences also contributed effectively as well.  The Campaign Management class is the class that I wish to have taken prior to my internship.  The university's courses in Campaign Management would have given me the advantage of taking a more critical view of the campaigns that I observed during my internship period.  The "Political Influence" class taught by Dr. Brooks that I took last Spring Term '06 helped me tremendously in my mental framing for this internship.  Before that class I had very little knowledge of the many components that effects and influences our political/electoral processes.  That class experience taught me how I could see beyond the superficial aspects of politics and I was able to apply these teaching to my internship.

My internship experience was very well rounded and my suggestions for Interns who are considering political work for a candidate or an agency will benefit greatly from working at a Republican Political Party Office.  My class room instructors were right in teaching that the American Political Parties are the major force in our political system.  My suggestion for the intern supervisors would be to create a general work flow/task outline that can act as a basic guide for interns.  A general work flow/task outline would help the intern bridge stagnate and idle time gaps that are a real part of the internship experience.  I do recommend my agency [Political Party Offices] as a place for future interns.  More specifically I recommend internships at Republican Party offices, not for ideological reasons but for exposure to state of the art political party activities.

The Internship and Political Consulting activities that are detailed in this project are related to the unique political environment of the Mahoning Valley of Ohio.  This county is an example of the hard hit Rust Belt region of the United States.  This county also maintains its hard core commitment to the values of the unionized workforce and an unyielding belief in the Democratic Political Party.  It is a very real political risk for a candidate not to broadly accept the fact that; if you run for an election as a candidate outside of the Democratic Party's umbrella you are almost guaranteed a political defeat.  This is interesting because this county dose not conform the general Democratic Party's belief in political, cultural or racial diversity.  The Republican Political Party of this county is associated with the voters in terms of indirect alliances that will not label them as Republican Party members but sympathizers.  In other words the Democratic Party voters of this county tend to be conservative in their practices but dislike the Republican Party label.   

The ideal for understanding Mahoning Valley politics is to give strong consideration to the impact of the institution known as the political party system. The political party system is not the controlling factor for politics in the county but it surly sets the political environment, especially for the political candidate who opts not to hire a professional political consultant.  The voters in this county want to hear apposing political views but they are very reluctant to vote for candidate who falls outside of the Democratic Party.   


II.   Chapter One (Strategy)

In a political campaign the strategy is defined as – How you position yourself [the candidate] and allocates your resources to maximize your strengths and weaknesses [or figuring out how you are going to win an election].  Authors have noted that there are "three main goals of campaign strategy as being reinforcement, persuasion, and conversion. To reinforce a campaign convinces its base voters to stick with the candidate and vote on Election Day; persuasion is the process of bringing swing voters on board; and conversion denotes the act of getting the opposition's voters to switch sides" (Shea and Burton 2001).  One of the greatest assets of a political campaign is its political party's involvement in the election. The political party is the major player in the campaign strategy plan for "reinforcement" because this is where the base of your campaign's voters will look for its direction. The political party will be able to offer direct access to the campaign for voter contact information of all sorts as well as office space and volunteers. Many political parties will also have a store house of established political campaign support materials like the all important "GOTV" Get of the Vote plan and area media contact information. The second campaign strategy goal of persuading is directed primarily towards encouraging the independent swing voters to vote for your candidate.  Swing voters can be determined by analyzing past general elections voting data found at the local boards of elections. This process starts with the total city voting percentages, look at the high and low percentage totals of a partisan then subtract these figures to get the total swing percentage for that election. Use this percentage to determine if each of the following ward districts is likely to swing above or below the city's total swing percentage. This is one of a few formulas to help the campaign not to waste its valuable resources of time and money by campaigning in low swing voting districts.  The final goal of the campaign strategy is the conversion of your opponent's voting base.  This pursuit can be risky in terms of the expected return on time spent but it's worth it because you can often find useful campaign information like, which voters are disgruntled about their candidate's past performance. This information can also be useful in the formulation of your campaign's voter messaging and themes.  Voter message development is comprised of these three elements; 1). The strengths of your candidate, 2). The weaknesses of your opponents, 3). The issues that of the highest concern to the voters in the district. The intersection of this triad of elements defines the political message and theme strategy for the political campaign.

The "Demographic Research for Political Strategy Campaign Plan"; See Appendix (1) details the voting district of Republican Chuck Blasdel and Democrat Charlie Wilson.  The republican candidate utilized the Mahoning County Republican Headquarters during the tenure of my internship. The unusual thing about this political campaign is that Democrat Charlie Wilson was forced to run as a write-in candidate because of a nominating petition error.  The choice to use this particular "Demographic Research for Political Strategy Campaign Plan" combination was due to the overwhelming consensus towards the domination of the Democratic Party at the local elections level. The idea was to give the Republican Party candidate the added advantage of understanding the issues that were most important to the voters in his district.

The analysis of this "Demographic Research for Political Strategy Campaign Plan" follows much of the three main goals set out as being important for a good campaign strategy.  The plan acknowledges avenues for reinforcing this district voting base demographic that has advantages for both the Republican and Democratic political candidates. This challenge does appear to be skewed in the direction of the Democratic candidate however the plan also indicates an established interest by the voters to be receptive to the Republican Party's core messages centered on family values.  At this point of analysis it also lends itself as being favorable towards the strategic goal of persuasion in order to attract the swing voter population. The necessity for converting voters from your political opponent has been primed by the voting habits of this district in previous elections. The success of this "Demographic Research for Political Strategy Campaign Plan" was not realized by the Republican candidate because of his unwillingness to do the unglamorous work of physically contacting the voters in person or through the U.S. Mail system.  Instead, the Republican candidate relied on getting his message out to the voters via TV advertising where his appearance was perceived as being somewhat plastic and artificial.  This "Demographic Research for Political Strategy Campaign Plan" was designed for the benefit of the Republican candidate but his reliance on TV advertising as his main method for contacting these voters resulted in the failure of this plan. The failure of this plan was not due to the fundamental goals of the political campaign strategy but the over reliance and single minded belief in the use of TV political advertising.  The outcome of this election was recorded as a substantial win for the Democratic candidate who out campaigned the Republican candidate at the grassroots level and spent nearly one million dollars in TV and other media advertising.  In addition, it is my opinion that if the Republican Party candidate had adhered more closely to the strategy developed in this plan he would have been able to capitalize on the procedural blunders of his Democratic Party opponent. The general consensus of voters in this district is that the Democratic Party has been in power far too long and that their votes are taken for granted by most of the party's candidates. Therefore, the voters are willing to strongly consider the rival party's candidates if they merely show some interest in the district at the grassroots level.   

This chapter on political strategy also includes an additional plan the "Democratic Party Analysis/Strategy Plan for 2008 Presidential Election" See Appendix (2), which gives further examples that incorporates the three main goals of campaign strategy that are reinforcement, persuasion, and conversion.  An analysis that examines the degrees of success or failure of this plan is presently unavailable because the political campaign that it refers to is still in progress.   
The strengths of this plan are in its ability to ease the selection choice in the general election for the highly partisan but disenchanted Republican Party voters and silent conservative swing voters by nominating a Democratic Party candidate that resembles the conservative mental image of voters in general. Conversely, the weakness of this plan in suggesting the nomination of a candidate that appears to be conservative would be tremendously unappealing to the Democratic Party's wealthy far left wing and this could result in dramatically reduced campaign fundraising opportunities for the party at all levels as a backlash effect to such a nomination.     

III.   Chapter Two (Finance)

This particular chapter of the Capstone Project is definitely the most important to have a detailed understanding of because the modern or "New Style" methods and practices of campaigning hinges on being able to raise money.  Most political and organizational campaigns that fail to realize their goals link this failure to the inability to get their message heard. The act of persuading voters, supporters and converting the impartial individuals costs money at all levels of campaigning. On one hand it seems so unfair and even unnecessary to have the burden of raising money in order to advance an idea or candidacy that would benefit its citizenry.  However without a step by step fundraising plan it's almost impossible to compete in today's political arena.   

Researchers and authors are giving continuous examination to the subject of fundraising and the financing of political campaigns.  There is an attempt by researchers to formulate a specific plan of attack for successful fundraising with the objective of not wasting valuable campaign time and expenses in order to raise money.  The idea is to identify and target potential donors with a structured approach for asking for their money support.  They examine the motives of the typical donor who supports political campaigns as being; Material Motives (These donors want political access), Solidarity Motives (These donors want political ideological unity), Purposeful Motives (These donors want a specific political change) for giving money to political campaigns.  Being aware of the donor motives for supporting political campaigns is not only of general importance but it leads to the construction of what type of approach should be implemented in asking for money donations.  More importantly, knowing who to ask for donations from your immediate circle of relationships is of paramount concern because it gives you a starting point for this exercise. An author details this method as; Have the candidate create a "FRANK List" of potential donors who are willing and able to give money to the campaign. The FRANK List means; F = Friends, R =Relatives, A = Acquaintances, N = Neighbors, K = Kids (Dr. John C. Green).  In addition, another important starting point in estimating the amount of money needed to operate a winning political campaign is to gain knowledge of what has been done in the past elections that are of similar size to yours. This chapter also discusses the creation of an optimistic, precise, and somewhat pessimistic political campaign budgets and these are detailed as; "Gold Plated Budget" Financial amounts should exceed projected campaign budget needs, "Middle of the Road Budget" Financial amounts should reflect 10% below projected campaign budget needs, "Bear Bones Budget" Financial amounts should reflect 20% below projected campaign budget needs. 

The following product appendices for the finance chapter of this Capstone Project are; 1). Fundraising Event and Event Presentation See Appendix (1) and 2). Candidate Centered Campaign Fundraising Plan See Appendix (2).  These products are presented as a completed presentation and event plans with an additional outline of a political fundraising campaign plan. The appendix (1) is created for The Dream Team Community Group of Youngstown, Ohio Henrietta Dixon-Collier, President.  This community based group is implementing a program to help bridge the digital gap by offering free recycled and new computers and Internet connectivity assistance.  Additionally, this plan includes donor solicitations Sample Fundraising Letters for: (Mass Direct Mail, Specific/Targeted Mail Letters, Mass Email Letters and Telephone Solicitation Scripts.  This plan was presented as a real project to this group and it was designed for easy implantation for them, however it now appears that this project may be a bit overwhelming and intimidating. I plan is to enlist an established institution or government entity to act as the anchor participant for this project and then re-approach these smaller groups in the future. This plan was originally designed to meet the needs of the community and not the individual community group and this may have been an incorrect approach to take. In the future this plan will be reformulated from the individual perspectives of the smaller group's expressed goals and directions. 

The Appendix (2) was created to be a detailed campaign fundraising and candidate grooming outline plan with the components of; Rehearsal schedule for candidate, Replicating comparative budgets, Large political donors contacting plan, Formulation of a campaign finance committee, Campaign finance budget planning, VIP Individual and Group Donor Solicitation Plan, Targeted Direct Mail Donor Solicitation Plan, and Fundraising Events Planning.   

IV.   Chapter Three (Communications)

This chapter of the Capstone Project is the most visible component of the political campaign plan because the methods used in this area has its applications directly towards voter contact and persuasion.  Political communication is not only the means by which the campaign connects with the outside world, it also encompasses the communication activates that act to develop, cultivate and disseminate the desired political messages to the voters. This chapter will discuss many different applications of political communications but the most cutting edge method appears as new media political communications. New Media communication is the use of the digital, cyber or Internet world for conveying your messages to this much targeted voting demographic.  At first glance one would believe new media communication as being limited to those who utilize personal computers.  However, the impact of new media communications is being felt in many traditional or main stream communications Medias.  In some cases new media communications takes on an air of being more exciting, intellectual, and more current than traditional media avenues.  It is often considered to be very legitimate and uncompromised by the corporate level influences that plague most traditional forms of media communications.  Because new media communications is not presently broadcasted to the largest voting population, it is recommended that this form of communication should be implemented and applied early in political campaigning.  Developing new media plans early can ignite a spark that the political campaign may desperately need to attract the attention of volunteers, supporters and financial donors. Creativity is an endless endeavor within the new media environments, with its many applications for the use of websites, blogs, banner ads, web videos, and data mining for micro targeting. 

The act of voter persuasion is not an inexpensive item in political campaigning and the cost of voter persuasion is rising in every election cycle.  The modern political campaigner should take full advantage of and seize every opportunity to reduce the expense of voter persuasion activities. One of the most cost effective methods of achieving low to no cost voter persuasion is to refine the use of earned media opportunities. Earned media opportunities can often be event driven with very short windows of opportunities for voter messaging.  Political campaigns are wise to keep abreast of current events and breaking news stories because reporters and the news media are interested in covering the reactions and comments of political candidates and their operatives during these periods.  Political campaigns should have an earned media plan in place and poised to respond at a very short notice because most news stories are unpredictable.  It is standard practice for the modern political campaigns to have prepared talking points that reinforce the campaign messages and generic press releases available for quick reaction to breaking news events.  The most traditional method of political communication is the use of paid media in the forms of direct mail, outdoor advertising, radio and TV advertising.  The cost of paid media is the force that is driving the political campaign budgets to new record highs with not an end in sight for the future. Therefore planning, budgeting, experience, and knowledge is crucial in this most expensive area of political campaigning.  Careful consideration should be given to the area of paid media planning not only because of its monetary expense but a poorly constructed plan could convey an incorrect voter message that will contribute to the defeat of your campaign. The modern political campaign should think in terms of targeting its paid media activates to insure that its financial resources are not wasted on voters who do not reside in their voting district of interest or voters who will not be receptive to the campaign's message.                     

   The following product appendix for the communication chapter of this Capstone Project is; "A Media Buy Plan Outline for a Political Candidate Centered Campaign" See Appendix (1).   This media buy plan outline encompasses the use of; TV [Network, Cable];Radio [AM, FM]; Outdoor Media; Print [Newspaper, Magazine]; Telephone [live, Automated] and Internet  [Local, Regional News, Web Site, Blogs, and Banner Ads].  This plan also stresses the use of coordination when implementing your media political campaign to help the voter in connecting with your campaign. The media industry specific nuances and practices are discussed in this plan to help alleviate the common pit falls of media buying.   This plan is created for use that begins at the county wide elections level and it has applications throughout the congressional races as well.  The suggested methods and timing presented for use in this plan reflects the need for the campaign to address voter issues and to give forethought to the applications of "framing and mounting political attacks/counter attacks".  This plan is far different than one needed for the typical local level elections that should concentrate on the "candidate name and political party identification" as well as the high interest elections like the senatorial and presidential races where the candidate's image is of extreme importance.       

V.   Chapter Four (Analysis)

This chapter of the Capstone Project will discuss the illusive voter indicator called "Political Trust" and how best would one determine who has it, where does it tend to reside in its geographical locations or is it in the individual indicators of ones personal practices or can it be measured or can it be developed in voters and so on. This attempt to discover measurable and reliable levels of political trust has its benefit pointed squarely at the field of applied politics simply because of the astonishing growth of the need and use of money in winning political elections in today's campaigns.  The buzz terms "Political Targeting and Micro Targeting" has transformed many of the methods used in political campaigning and the main idea behind this is to reduce the likelihood of wasting money on voters or demographics that are not respective to your campaign or political party's messages. The same ideas should hold true with the need to pinpoint political trust and how best to quantify this is important. Interestingly, hints of political trust are surfacing in unusual places and people that were previously written off as being politically disinterested and somewhat untrusting of political and governmental institutions.  In recent elections and in political discussions younger people have started to exhibit interest levels in politics that were once reserved for their much older counter parts. Political discussions are now generally perceived as being acceptable and interesting at any gathering or at any occasion both formal and casual. Political discussions are now considered be open and frank without having stigmas attached to disagreeing views.

The quantitative research paper hints and toys with presently measurable variables that are surveyed and recorded from the National Elections Study just to formulate an idea that political trust can be guessed at somewhat. This surveyed data could be missing vital indicators that would give more precise measurements if more or different questions were asked in this survey. So the question then becomes; how do we discover what are the right questions to ask in attempt to measure for the presents of reliable political trust?  Our research proposal suggests that an intensive qualitative research inquiry will be needed to seek to understand the culture of the voters who exhibit political trust and in turn develop the results of that study into variables that can be quantified and applied to the electorate. Admittedly, an attempt to measure for reliable political trust could be as revolutionary as voter targeting has been to political campaigning and even applicable to consumer branding trust in targeting consumer product marketing for business campaigns.     

The following product appendices for the analysis chapter of this Capstone Project are; present two academic papers that are seeking to discover and understand voter political trust.  The first paper is an ethnographic research proposal that was submitted to Dr. Lucinda M. Deason of the University of Akron-Department of Public Administration and Urban Studies, Qualitative Research Methods Course 3980:710:801, the central research question is: What is the cultural make up of the American voter who exhibits political trust in their political institutions and the political process of democracy? See Appendix (1).  The research significance this study is to the direct benefit of the field of Applied Politics. This ethnographic qualitative study should create a core structure and direction for an expansive quantitative report that can be extrapolated over the broader demographic of the voting population.  It is the aim of this study to remove much of the guess work out of determining; who are the voters that have political trust in the political system and its institutions?  The second paper is a quantitative research study that was submitted to Dr. Daniel Coffey of the University of Akron-Department of Political Science, Quantitative Research Methods Course 3700:601. See Appendix (2).  This paper is entitled, Voting and Attention to Political Campaigns as indicators for "Reliable Political Trust"; An Examination for targeted measuring of Political Trust in a non-culturally biased Framework.

The implementation of the resulting measure to be known as "Reliable Political Trust" should be marketed and promoted as a means for political targeting of voters who will be more receptive towards political issues and actions that would require the voter to have faith in government and its leaders. The voters that rank high in reliable political trust should be targeted for political messaging that implies patriotism, loyalty, and a commitment to widely accepted American cultural values. Entities that would use this measure of reliable political trust would be multi-national corporations, political parties, all government administrative levels, polling groups, interest groups, elected officials and political candidates. The use of this measure should be considered an item worthy of monetary value and it should guarded and up dated annually because it could exhibit a tendency to be fluid because it may be influenced temporarily by unpredictable events. The methodology for quantitatively determining "Reliable Political Trust" could rise to the level of being a patented design that is worthy of recording with the U.S. Patient Office. I my opinion this could be a five year project that will require the resource intellect of an American university with an established degree discipline in applied political education.   

VI.   Chapter Five (The Overall Understanding)

This chapter of the Capstone Project will discuss the overall understanding of my applied political academic experience at the Ray C. Bliss Institute in terms of pulling all of the knowledge together.  My present approach to applied politics is clearly different than my original thinking prior to my course work and research.  My original thinking in this area was influenced and even dominated by my personal hunches and notions of what it would take to win an election and that often ended with me wishing, hoping, closing my eyes and crossing my fingers.  Today, I am empowered by the knowledge of having the ability to shape, analyze and implement a winning political plan that is reinforced by academic research and experience.  The most important lesson of this academic experience was to determine where to start in creating a plan for winning elections. Of course most of the political tactics were very familiar to me but the importance of examining the context of an election gave me the direction that would allow me to position the following campaign components to their proper places in this puzzle of winning political elections.  The context of an election sets the tone for the strategy creation which is the lead indicator for all following campaign components. Without careful consideration and examination of the context of an election one could never hope to create a winning strategy plan. The context is the one thing in an election that is completely out of your control and you will always be forced to operate within that established context. In addition, the context of the political election sets the direction of the political strategy but also determines the level of intensity and influences the financial, communication and analysis chapters of this Capstone project.  The context will affect who will be receptive to your campaign's pleas for financial donors and how aggressively you will have to communicate with voters to get your political message heard. The analysis chapter is also not immune to the election context because it can reflect a certain level of voter contentment for the status quo and conversely it can reveal an overwhelming desire for change based on the voter's perception of the context of the election.  Once you accept that fact, your political creativity and training will begin to reveal the needed strategy to win the election or to better position yourself to win future elections.  The political strategy needed to win an election is not dictated by the level of financial strength or weakness of a campaign.  The strategy tells the campaign that in order to win an election we need a certain amount of money and the fundraising financial arm of the campaign creates a plan of action to raise the level of money needed in order to have the campaign strategy to be realized.  This revelation alone sets the hierarchy of priorities in political campaigning and it relates to all other campaign components with only one objective and this is to win the election.  The hierarchical importance of the context of the election to that of the political strategy will assist in formulating different strategies that may be more doable than others; the context of competing against an incumbent candidate might force your campaign to attack the incumbents record while in office however, it may become more effective to tie the successful record incumbent to his embattled political party which harkens the use of an entirely different campaign strategy.  After a winning political strategy is determined all other campaign components will relate back and forth to the winning strategy with an assistance to help the strategy tweak itself but never to change the general direction of the strategy. The relationship between the winning strategies is intrinsically created from the context of the election.  The political analysis of a campaign does affect components like political communications and political tactics however; the political strategy that is needed to win an election will give directions to the type, method and interpretation of the political analysis to be used in a campaign.         

My applied political education at the Ray C. Bliss Institute at the University of Akron has been the most personally rewarding academic endeavor of my life thus far.  Admittedly, I thought that my political knowledge and experience was important prior to my education at this university and I was so wrong. The political knowledge that I now possess gives me a great advantage over many of the highly paid professionals in my field.  I am humbled by my applied political education and I am excited about the future professional and financial prospects in my new field.
Additional appendences; See Appendix (1) Final Paper, Government & Politics Internship/Summer 2006 and See Appendix (2) POLITICAL INFLUENCE AND ORGANIZATIONS 3700:672, Spring 2006, "Internet Users at Public Libraries and On Line Political Participation".