PR 101

Here’s a scenario for you: you are a businessman from another state, or perhaps another country. Your company is doing enough business in a particular U.S. state that you feel you should open a facility there. So, you fly in to check things out. You land in the state within the last month – the peak of the elections season.

In your hotel that night you turn on the television. For the next three hours, you see political invective spewed of that electronic box. The ads you see tell you how bad the business climate is in that state – poor education, high crime, high taxes, lousy facilities, and a government that doesn’t care. You know it might not be true, but you figure why take the chance? So, you pack your bags and go looking for another state to locate your facility and the jobs it will bring.

Too far-fetched? I wonder.

I live in Wisconsin. We are one of the key states in the 2010 election cycle. Our governor’s office is open. Republican Scott Walker is slugging out with Democratic Tom Barrett. Our incumbent senator, Russ Feingold, is fighting it out with newcomer and businessman Ron Johnson. Plus, there are several key races for House seats and the state Legislature.

We in Wisconsin are being inundated with television advertising, most of it negative. Let’s leave aside the personal attacks the candidates are making on each other. I do have say that if these candidates were five-year-olds, they would be sent to their rooms for the tantrums they are throwing.

The majority of the rest of the advertising talks about how bad things are in the Badger state. Our taxes are too high, our healthcare costs too much, our education is system is falling apart, and there is too much government regulations. Both sides say if the other side is elected, Wisconsin has roughly the same change to prosper as the Titanic did to float after it hit that iceberg.

As I said, if you are a businessperson, would you put your company here after seeing those ads?

It bothers me when one of our own does this. If I am that businessman, I am going to tend to believe the people who live here. If they tell me things are bad, who I am to argue?

Plus, if you are like me, you are cynical about any elected official’s ability to accomplish anything. So why take the chance that things might get fixed?

What particularly frosts me is the outside groups coming in and ripping my state. These are groups run by people who cannot tell you why Wisconsin loves the Packers so much, or what the difference is between a six-month-old cheddar and a six-year-old cheddar. The closest they have ever come to the Dairy State is when they land at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to change planes.

They don’t care about Wisconsin, its business climate and what they might be doing to it. All they care about is winning. Once the election is over, they are going to forget about us until 2012.

Everyone involved in the election will justify their tactics by saying what they did is for the greater good. They remind me of the Army officer during the Vietnam War who was quoted as saying “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”