Celebrity Apprentice politics -- and how to beat Trump
Editors of a student publication asked me: "If you were hired to take attention and support away from (Donald) Trump in the presidential campaign, what would you do? And how would you go about doing this?" Across my career, my engagements in political PR were minimal. Most of my corporate and not-for-profit clients had little political interest. But the editors' questions made me wonder: is taking away Trump's bluster and strong-arm tactics the best path forward? Tom Selleck photo by Alan Light [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Here's what I shared with the editors: The challenge with “taking interest away from Trump” is that it’s impossible. He spent years cultivating his personal brand through his Celebrity Apprentice TV series and phoning news-talk shows on radio and TV. So the entire country believes it “knows” Donald Trump. In other words: Trump's campaign is not based on ideology, GOP d...