Harvey Englander says the world of influence peddling is changing. It's no good to lobby from the top down anymore, says Englander, a senior vice president of The MWW Group in
Los Angeles. You have to work from the bottom up, whereas old school a PR consultant would line up thought leaders to talk directly with elected officials in order to push a vote
one way or another. No more.
These days, political PR is all about the grass roots. "We don't ask someone to support a landfill unless we can show that support for that landfill already exists in the
community, and why the alternatives don't make any sense," Englander says.
Englander has built a reputation for reading the political winds over the years, having created successful communications campaign on behalf of airport expansions, urban
redevelopment efforts and scores of other controversial public issues.
Englander says the best approach to political grass roots efforts is to get down in the weeds. "The people I hire all have great reach into various communities, and we maintain
a very high profile in those communities," he says. "The staff at this office is involved in community activities, we are all out at events. So when we are asked to take on a
project, we have already done our due diligence. We know what these communities are about, before we even walk in the door."
That inside knowledge has helped Englander steer client JAN Development toward a successful land-development bid in Marina del Rey, Calif. The county had asked for bids for the
development rights to a piece of county-owned property, but Englander's inside knowledge of the town told him county officials would prefer to see two parcels developed, rather
than just one. He therefore brokered a meeting between his client and the private owner of the parcel adjacent to the county's lot. They agreed to a joint development effort, "and
we ended up with a bid that did not look like anyone else's," he says.
That campaign turned out to be a slam-dunk, but even Englander has taken his lumps, too.
Take, for instance, his work on behalf of a developer who wanted to turn an abandoned train yard in downtown L.A. into industrial space. Englander knew the community wanted
sports facilities, so he made sure the plan included soccer fields. But that just wasn't good enough. "We lost because the people who wanted an urban park were motivated much more
than the people who were in favor of jobs and development," he says. Lesson learned? "Even the best compromises will not win over the true believers."
Still, such losses can be offset by remarkable wins. In 1998 L.A Mayor Richard Riordan said he wanted to take $50 million out of L.A. International Airport and use the money to
hire more police. Could anything be more popular than putting more cops on the beat? Well, The Air Transport Association didn't like the plan and it hired Englander to sway the
city council.
Englander went after the strongest constituency he could find. "I convinced the major airlines to give us their files of frequent fliers who lived in the city of Los Angeles,"
he recalls. Now, these are not lists the airlines like to share. "I had to sign every kind of confidentiality agreement you could think of, but we finally merge-purged them and
ran that list against the City of Los Angeles voter records."
He then started a mailer campaign to these voters, a "frequent flier alert" explaining how the mayor's proposal would impact the quality and safety of the airport. The alerts
included reply postcards asking the recipients to contact the city council, the mayor, and also members of Congress representing the area. The council vote eventually swung 14 to
1 against the mayor's plan.
In the last few months, Englander has interrupted his PR plans more than once to field calls from the media. As a well-connected Democratic consultant, he's been quoted in
practically every California publication on the subject of the recent gubernatorial race. His verdict? The former governor's PR plans fizzled, assuming there ever were such
plans.
"He did not have a consistent message, he changed messages every few days. He didn't take the recall seriously enough or soon enough," Englander says. "Gray Davis did
everything wrong."
Swaying Political Opinion
When James Thomas of The Thomas Properties Group wanted to put up a large office project in El Segundo, Calif., local residents gathered enough signatures the force a vote on
the project. That made it a political issue, so then Thomas turned to veteran political opinion-shaper Harvey Englander. Here's how Englander won the vote for his client.
- He dug up data on the need for recreational facilities, which Thomas has planned for the project, then used that research to sway voters. "Research always works, and not
enough money and time are spent on it. Most clients don't think it's important, but it is." - He held his ground, pushing the project's virtues and refusing to be sidetracked. "At no time did we ever get off message. Everything we said, no matter what we were asked, no
matter what we were attacked with, we had our message." - He insisted that his client give face time, and plenty of it. "The client here was the man who is responsible for most of the Los Angeles downtown skyline, yet we had him at
pancake breakfasts, we had him walking precincts. Make the client a visible spokesperson for your campaign. Make the client a friend. Make him someone who is approachable, someone
who is there."
Contact: Harvey Englander, 213.486.6560, [email protected]