GOP strategist Kevin Madden on PR and ‘Weinergate’

Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
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“Communications is sales,” says Republican strategist Kevin Madden. And having worked for prominent politicians like Mitt Romney, Tom DeLay and John Boehner, he would know.

As a communications specialist, Madden urges press staffers to keep an open mind when dealing with the media. “If you see every single hostile question as a personal attack on you [or] a personal attack on the candidate, then you’re missing an opportunity,” he explained during our recent conversation.

When talking about the PR disaster that was “Weinergate,” Madden was quick to point out where Congressman Weiner when wrong from a PR perspective.  “You want to leave your audience with one message,” Madden explained, saying that Weiner’s recent and penitent press conference had “twenty sound bites in there with twenty different problems and twenty different messages.”

You can listen to our full conversation here. Or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Matt K. Lewis