How the politician should behave during re-election campaigns

Abstract

Reverence and respect for the voter may be difficult to manage at times, but nothing else will do in an age in which deference to superiors (and, indeed, the very idea of “superiors”) is a thing of the past. But make no mistake, a re-election campaign is a battle for votes, with no quarter given and certainly never asked. With the coming of social media, much has changed, but much remains the same: how a candidate uses words can still have a powerful impact—both positively and negatively.

War is a very rough game, but I think politics is worse.

Bernard Montgomery

Attributed, 1956, The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, Anthony Jay, ed. (Oxford:1997), p. 265. I selected this epigraph as I found it gratifying to know that politicians are not the only professionals given to hyperbole.