Cygnal’s Director of Research & Analysis, Victoria Waddail, joins Brent to kick off this episode. Victoria joined Cygnal along with the team from Harper Polling in September. They discuss how Republicans can get back on track in rebuilding the Republican coalition – It comes down to principles. Our guest this week on the Cygnal Pulse Pod (Ep. 19) is Wesley Donehue, CEO of Push Digital.
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Cygnal’s Director of Research & Analysis, Victoria Waddail, joins Brent to kick off this episode. Victoria joined Cygnal along with the team from Harper Polling in September. They discuss how Republicans can get back on track in rebuilding the Republican coalition – It comes down to principles.
Our guest this week on the Cygnal Pulse Pod (Ep. 19) is Wesley Donehue, CEO of Push Digital. A difficult childhood led him into the world of politics seeking a way to change things for the good. A political consultant, digital marketer, and investor, Wesley has served as a digital advisor for numerous campaigns including Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Tom Cotton, Senator David Perdue, Senator Marco Rubio, Congressman Trey Gowdy and more candidates, PACs and issue advocacy groups than we can count. He has advised numerous corporations on branding and/or crisis communication including SeaWorld, Kmart, Sears and HSN.
Mentioned in this episode:
What you will learn:
- What got Wesley into politics?
- Which races put Wesley on the map?
- What was one of the hardest lessons Wesley learn?
- What advice does Wesley have for campaigns today?
- What are campaigns going to do if Facebook continues its ban on advocacy and political bans?
- What out-of-the-box tactics can campaigns use to be successful?
- What political trend do practitioners need to pay attention to 2022?
- What is the best piece of advice Wesley has ever been given?
- What would Wesley be doing if he wasn’t in politics?
They said what?
- “There is a fine line where help becomes a trap.” – Wesley Donehue
- “The Republican Party needs to change its mindset a little bit.” – Wesley Donehue
- “If Jesus Christ were alive today would he be a Democrat or Republican? – Wesley Donehue
- “Democrats have cornered compassion…From a messaging standpoint we seem so cold-hearted right now. The old Bush compassionate conservatism seems to have faded away…That’s a message that we really need to regain. ” – Wesley Donehue
- “It really comes down to logic vs emotion. We have the right logical principles that are most beneficial for those to to get a hand up and to rebuild their lives, but we definitely don’t message it in a way to show that we care.” – Brent Buchanan
- “Caring is getting people out of the system and giving them some sort of hope and prosperity. Not just getting them stuck in the system for literally generations.” – Wesley Donehue
- “Go scream at the President of the United States and I can raise a bunch of money for you.” – Wesley Donehue
- “When I first got into politics, I thought that you won and you got your way just by steamrolling over everybody…I made way too many enemies in the first decade of my political career.” – Wesley Donehue
- “Stop focusing on the small minutia…You are not going to win because of someone’s reply to your tweet..Focus on those 1,2,3 big picture things you have to right everyday and ignore the noise.” – Wesley Donehue
- “I think Facebook is overplaying their hand…and it is going to be a big mistake on their part.” – Wesley Donehue
- “The riches are in the niches…We like to use data and we try to hyper-target certain segments of voters.” – Wesley Donehue
- “It is a lot easier to get into an existing group than it is to create a group one. Find a tribe, as opposed to start a tribe.” – Brent Buchanan
- “The days of just putting up a TV ad state-wide are going away.” – Wesley Donehue
- “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.” – Wesley Donehue
- The real world chargers are those who are not in their comfort zone.” – Brent Buchanan