Archive for the ‘Political Standard’ Category

June 15, 2017   7:30 am – 11:45 am

Sponsored by the Center for Political Leadership in Partnership with
Fox Valley Technical College, Bordini Center for Innovation

Date & Time: Thursday, June 15, 2017   7:30am-11:45am
Location:
Bordini Center for Business and Innovation, Room BC112

Download the PPT: Advancing Effective Leadership Practices in Business, Industry, Community, and Government

“It’s important that we all understand the impact that public and governmental leaders make on our economic environment. Business and industry leaders will come together to discuss their industries and the potential impact of the first 100 day agenda on growing jobs and improving our economic outlook. I’m pleased that our team at the Center for Political Leadership was able to focus on the need to support jobs and economic growth in Wisconsin,” said Terri McCormick, President, Center for Political Leadership.

Review event panelists and get more details on this event here.

This study presents a model for understanding political leadership based upon the processes that influence and thereby shape political leaders’ types, as captured in their own words and behaviors on digital recordings, official documents, press releases, the media, and twitter on the public record. Read the rest of this entry »

March blog

Today, more than at any time in our nation’s history, the people have the opportunity to turn off the noise and research their own issues, candidates and political parties.

The American people now have the wherewithal to demand the news from credible sources from all mass media forms.

Whether you get your news from television, radio, Internet blogging or electronic news media, being informed is up to you.

The quality of our government depends on it.

1. Print Medium

Consider the source. Please look at a news story with an eye to ensuring that the basics—who, what, where, when, why—are there. You may be shocked and surprised to find that many journalists do not cover basic elements of the story.

Fewer use the required two sources of information when writing their stories. Be sure that source information is quoted so that you may “consider the source.” Finally, if the news story editorializes or uses shock news, know that you are about to read a biased article.

2. Television News

Use the television station’s Web site to verify all news with credible sources and the same rules as above. The rule of thumb of most news stories, particularly on television, is “If it bleeds, it leads” on the evening news. The thirty-second sound bite is considered too long for a television news program.

Be wary of the news anchors who do not read credible news stories in a professional tone but who instead present the news with an “Aw, shucks, that shouldn’t of happened; that was mean” demeanor. Real journalists on television speak with appropriate syntax and diction, and they read well-researched and sourced news stories to their viewers. Watch the comedy channel if you want to be entertained.

3. Radio News

Real news on the radio should not be confused with “shock jocks.” When a talk-show announcer or radio newsperson is a journalist, he or she will share sources, credit those sources and have the ability to understand complex issues. He or she will be so clear in the intent to report the news in a credible, reliable and meaningful way that you will understand the who, what, where, when and why of the story.

A shock jock’s job, on the other hand, is to sway you and sometimes manipulate your way of thinking. Don’t be fooled or suckered into believing that shock jocks are giving you an unbiased news story. These entertainers on the radio have a personal or professional agenda.

4. Blogs and Internet Stories

Use credible news sources if you are researching the news on the Internet: Reuters, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, major news publications and research institutes would be my first pass. Local network news may work for a local slant on the news, but be sure that the local journalists understand the difference between opinion and credible journalism. On the very bottom of the journalistic totem poll is the blogger.

This is not a worthy source for your news. Bloggers are in the opinion business, with no apparent ethics or professionalism required. Often, bloggers vent from the shadows and attack others for sheer enjoyment. On rare occasions, you may find a blogger who has credible things to say, but overall, stick with Reuters or the Wall Street Journal as credible news sources.

Remember to consider the source of the information, and when it doubt, please use the Society for Professional Journalists Code of Ethics as your guide (it can be found at www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp). Journalists must abide by the same conflict of interest and ethics codes as public officials. Personal bias and personal agendas are not acceptable. Marketing departments should not reward political candidates during election time with dollars to buy air time. Pay-for-play politics can pollute our free and appropriate press, just as assuredly as it pollutes public policy.

…To continue reading this book, get your copy of “What Sex is a Republican” in paperback or Kindle edition on Amazon.

Campaigns, Dirty Tricks & Election Engineering

Posted by Terri McCormick On January - 27 - 2015

Terri McCormickCampaigning is tough business. It takes someone with a lot of inner strength, a lot of community connections and a bit of money to make a solid run for office. Those of us who run “grassroots campaigns” understand just how difficult the road is for those who play by the rules. Yet there exists a breed of politician who does not follow the same road. This chapter is not about political corruption as an ending. Rather, it openly discusses old-style politics as a beginning, reveals the tactics of dirty campaigns and offers voters a strategy to determine a good candidate. It’s an appeal to all of us to do something about it!

STAKEHOLDER POLITIC

The political class would have you believe that it is all about ideology—left/right or liberal/conservative—but is it? What if I told you that the political class in both major political parties is only interested in reelection in a quest for power and control? What if I told you that political elections are all about energizing their respective bases by evoking emotional-social issues to signal a particular voting response. Wake up, America, lest we all turn into Pavlovian voting dogs.

Modern interest group politics posed by the political class in both the Democrat and Republican parties represent a stakeholder politic that serves two purposes. First, it provides the campaign cash needed to guarantee the majority party’s position in power. And second, it guarantees access to government for interest groups invested in one political class’ line of thinking over the other. The voters, in many instances, are just obstacles that need to be charged up, like a battery, and then spun in a cylinder, so to speak.

Are there checks and balances to curtail possible abuse of power in public office? Yes, there are constitutional checks and balances, and there are public servants who freely self-limit their terms and walk away from power. Former representative Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.) commented on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on April 1, 2008, “Good government needs two things: term limits and the healthy friction that comes with the constitutional separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches.”

There is no question: healthy and open debate is preferred to topdown vertical stakeholder standoffs. Silo or vertical politics has resulted in political rancor freezing legislatures across this country. Democrat and Republican unwillingness to put the public’s interests first is an old political culture that must be transformed to a new culture of solving problems.

Politics, in its simplest form, is the distribution of scarce resources. It may represent dollars or gasoline, and it involves two sets of diametrically opposed people engaged in intellectual battle. It may involve interest groups and politicians working to solve great problems for the public’s behalf. In the old-style politic, it was reminiscent of a sixth-grade dance, with one group lining up on one side of the room, and the other group on the other side.

DEMOCRATIC VOTING BLOCKS

Democrats are, in large part, supported by voting blocks of women, minorities and trade and professional union members. From a social perspective, Democrats tend to be pro-choice, pro-environment and pro-government programs. Democrats typically favor a noblesse oblige philosophy, supporting the case that “nobles” (or people of means) must provide for the less fortunate. Southern Democrats throughout the 1800s carried this philosophy from their plantation economies into the Civil War. President John F. Kennedy altered these attitudes in the 1960s.

REPUBLICAN VOTING BLOCKS

Republicans are generally supported by a voting block consisting of older white men and, to a lesser extent, women and minorities. The Republican groups who tend to be fiscally conservative are farmers, builders, realtors and business groups. Social conservative groups who are more likely to be Republican are pro-gun rights, pro-family, prolife and pro-military. The origins of the Republican Party date back to the Civil War and the party’s first president, Abraham Lincoln. The Republican platform’s main objective at that time was to preserve the…To continue reading this book, get your copy of “What Sex is a Republican” in paperback or Kindle edition on Amazon.

The Politics of Policy: How Leadership Influences Implementation

Posted by Terri McCormick On October - 31 - 2014

This is the Formal Proposition Paper provided to the Midwest Academy of Management. This document is a work in progress and as such is the copywritten property of Terri McCormick. Please write for permission to cite the document at cpg@mccormickdawson.com. We would like to know how you will be applying this work citation in your research.

This presentation examines the theoretical propositions that emerge from the literature review – establishing what is known about policy decision making, leadership, and education reform. The paper focuses on the “Black Box of Politics” as it intersects with public policy. The setting for the dissertation to follow is on the legislative committee hearings, documents, testimony, social media, press and other archived documents – during the Common Core State Standards Debate and consideration of REPEAL of the CCSD policy.


Terri McCormick honored for excellence in government relations by Cambridge's Who's Who industry experts