PR Disaster
April 19, 2011 - by
I was out of town this weekend and had difficulty following news about the tornados and their aftermath. But that was nothing compared to the difficulty untangling the PR disaster surrounding Governor Perdue’s whereabouts Saturday.
An obliging TAPster summed it up this way:
“Governor Perdue should fire her entire communications team after their shabby performance on Saturday when the governor was out of town when disaster struck. Their message about her whereabouts was not only unclear, it was untrue and an amateurish disservice to the governor of one of the nation’s largest states.
“There was no need to obscure or lie about the governor’s weekend plans. She wasn’t on an Argentina beach with a lover or hiking the Appalachian Trail. She was on a weekend visit with friends, visiting a colleague and watching a horse race. What’s wrong with any of that? The governor is not a firefighter … she doesn’t have to sit by her phone and wait for disaster to strike. The deadly tornadoes swirled through North Carolina on the weekend before spring break for many public school students, so plenty of folks were understandably on vacation and out of place. That’s why they’re called emergencies … they don’t make appointments.
“Governor Perdue apparently returned to the state as quickly as possible (she had the good sense to fly commercially and not summon the state jet to come get her) and, by all counts, did a good job when she got into the communities on Sunday to survey the damage. Frankly, during the time she was traveling back, the event was unfolding and the true scope of the disaster wasn’t completely known until Sunday morning anyway.
“It’s the oldest PR lesson: The lie gets you in trouble quicker than the truth. Perdue’s staff turned nothing into a big something, gave her political opponents more unneeded fodder, and further weakened her in the eyes of the public.”
Posted in General, North Carolina - Democrats
PR Disaster
April 19, 2011/
I was out of town this weekend and had difficulty following news about the tornados and their aftermath. But that was nothing compared to the difficulty untangling the PR disaster surrounding Governor Perdue’s whereabouts Saturday.
An obliging TAPster summed it up this way:
“Governor Perdue should fire her entire communications team after their shabby performance on Saturday when the governor was out of town when disaster struck. Their message about her whereabouts was not only unclear, it was untrue and an amateurish disservice to the governor of one of the nation’s largest states.
“There was no need to obscure or lie about the governor’s weekend plans. She wasn’t on an Argentina beach with a lover or hiking the Appalachian Trail. She was on a weekend visit with friends, visiting a colleague and watching a horse race. What’s wrong with any of that? The governor is not a firefighter … she doesn’t have to sit by her phone and wait for disaster to strike. The deadly tornadoes swirled through North Carolina on the weekend before spring break for many public school students, so plenty of folks were understandably on vacation and out of place. That’s why they’re called emergencies … they don’t make appointments.
“Governor Perdue apparently returned to the state as quickly as possible (she had the good sense to fly commercially and not summon the state jet to come get her) and, by all counts, did a good job when she got into the communities on Sunday to survey the damage. Frankly, during the time she was traveling back, the event was unfolding and the true scope of the disaster wasn’t completely known until Sunday morning anyway.
“It’s the oldest PR lesson: The lie gets you in trouble quicker than the truth. Perdue’s staff turned nothing into a big something, gave her political opponents more unneeded fodder, and further weakened her in the eyes of the public.”
Posted in General, North Carolina - Democrats