If you’ve ever wondered how to actually break into politics, the path is more straightforward than you might think — and it starts with something anyone can do. In this video, political consultant Jay Townsend walks through five ways to get involved, build your reputation, and put yourself on the radar of the people who can advance your career.
A good campaign slogan is a short set of words — like the title on a book cover — that compels people to pick it up because they want to know more. It should create curiosity, the kind that makes a voter want to know more about you: some compelling thing you’re going to do for the electorate, something you’re saying that no one else is talking about, something that makes them want to know more about you and what you stand for.
Every day we’re inundated with messages that say buy me, look at me, what about me, come over here, buy this, do this, this will change your life. After a while, we block it all out. Unconsciously, we filter out the avalanche of messages until we happen to see something — on Facebook, on Twitter, or in a political campaign — that actually makes us curious. We want to know more. We see something that helps us solve a problem, or something that we think might make us feel better, and then we click. We stop to look, to investigate. That’s what you want your campaign slogan to do: curiosity, mystique, whatever the words are, should interest the voter in you, your agenda, or your platform.
The first consideration for your slogan is the political environment you’re running in. If it’s one of those election years when one particular issue is dominating all others — like 1992, when nobody wanted to talk about anything except how to get the economy on the right track — and your slogan has nothing to do with fixing or solving that problem, you’re going to be irrelevant. So the first question to ask yourself is: is there some dominant issue in the dialogue this year that compels me to somehow address what’s on the mind of the electorate?
The second thing to consider is your agenda. Is it unique? Is there something compelling you’re offering voters that they believe would improve their quality of life, their standard of living, or bring business activity and wealth to a rundown area? Are you giving them hope? Sometimes your agenda, and how you position yourself on particular issues, is what sets you apart.
Here’s an example. Many years ago I was working for a very young man — only 29 — running for mayor of a city, where the party he belonged to made up a very small part of the voter registration rolls. He was running in a city where another party completely dominated things, against an unpopular incumbent who had run into hard times, and there was a sense among voters that the city was headed in the wrong direction. His slogan became simply this: Cleaner parks, safer streets, more playgrounds. Why did that message resonate? Because voters thought the parks were filthy. They noticed rusty playground equipment. They thought the streets were dangerous, and he was offering them something they didn’t have but felt entitled to. They immediately latched on to him and said, who is this guy? Because that’s what I want. That slogan worked like magic — he won, becoming the youngest mayor ever elected in that city.
Another factor to consider as you’re developing your slogan is the demographics of your jurisdiction. Is there a particular demographic profile of voters who feel like they need someone who’s going to pay more attention to them than the other candidate you’re running against?
Here’s an example, from a race in New York City. Someone was running for Congress in a neighborhood going through very rapid demographic change. Caucasians had dominated the politics of this congressional district for a long time, but it had also become a magnet for Asians moving in by the droves. This smart candidate paid attention to the demographic trends. He was Asian, and his slogan became Our Time, Our Turn, with his picture on it. His people knew exactly what that meant, and it hit a resonating chord with them. They turned out in mass. That’s a good example of targeting a piece of the demographic universe in your district with a memorable slogan.
One more factor that sometimes comes into play is what I call your unique selling proposition. It can be very useful, and I’ll give one example of where it was used. It was a seven-candidate field in a very hotly contested primary in a race for Congress in New York’s Hudson Valley. They were all really well-qualified people with great resumes — six of them were men — and there was one female that no one took seriously because she hadn’t been part of the political apparatus. I was working for her, and one of her unique selling propositions was obvious: she was the only female in the race. But I wasn’t going to give her a slogan like “vote for the woman,” which is really pretty insulting to voters.
There wasn’t much difference in the candidates’ ideological beliefs — they were all fairly conservative — so we came up with this: If you think all the candidates for Congress sound the same, you haven’t heard Sue Kelly, with her picture on it. We used that in every piece of literature. We also found other things that were unique about her through opposition research: she was the only one who actually lived in the district, and the only one who hadn’t moved there just to run for Congress. Put together, it’s perhaps the best-remembered slogan of any campaign to this day in the Hudson Valley, because it stressed her unique selling proposition in the race. She didn’t need 50% — all she needed was more votes than whoever finished second. And she did.
If you’re interested in even more examples of different slogans and how they’ve been used in political campaigns, there are hundreds of them in the video linked in the description.
Q: What makes a campaign slogan effective?
A: An effective slogan creates curiosity — it makes a voter want to know more about you, your agenda, or what you stand for, the same way a good book title makes someone want to pick it up. It should hint at something compelling you’re offering that no one else is talking about, not just describe your campaign in flat, generic terms.
Q: How important is timing and the political environment to my slogan?
A: Very important. If there’s a dominant issue driving the conversation that year — like the economy in 1992 — and your slogan doesn’t speak to it in some way, you risk becoming irrelevant to voters no matter how catchy the phrase is. Always ask whether your slogan connects to what’s actually on voters’ minds right now.
Q: What’s a unique selling proposition, and how do I find mine?
A: Your unique selling proposition is whatever sets you apart from every other candidate in the race — it could be your background, your position on a specific issue, or some aspect of your moral code or your rationale for running. Look at your opposition research and your own biography for something true about you that no competitor can claim.
Q: Should my slogan target a specific demographic group?
A: It can be one of your most effective tools if your district has a demographic shift or a group that feels overlooked. A slogan like “Our Time, Our Turn” worked because it spoke directly to a community’s sense that its moment had arrived — just make sure it’s paired with a real record or message, not just an appeal to identity.
Jay Townsend has spent more than 40 years advising candidates at every level of American politics, including races decided by a single, well-chosen phrase. If you’re working on your own campaign message or slogan, Jay sets aside time each week to speak with prospective candidates — click the link in the video description to get in touch. Browse the full resource library at JayTownsend.com or subscribe to Jay’s YouTube channel for new campaign strategy videos every week.
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