Campaign Messaging 101 – Vote and Pay Your Taxes

A mentor for whom I had the highest respect once told me the baseline for running for elected office is pretty low. There are really only two disqualifiers – not voting and not paying taxes. Everything else, he believed, can be overcome. (And if the rumors that Eliot Spitzer is contemplating a run for New York State Comptroller are true, we will get the chance to test that hypothesis.)

Why do I mention this? It turns out Steve Pagliuca, who is running a consultant-laden campaign for Senate, pretty much forgot to vote for the decade of the go-go 90s and Christy Mihos has now committed the other disqualifying gaffe not once, but twice.

Yes, I believe voters are pretty angry at Beacon Hill right now. But I think what they might resent even more is a guy who pulls a hamstring bending over backwards to avoid the sales tax on a $475,000 boat.