His take is there's plenty PR practitioners—political animals or otherwise—can learn from both presidential campaigns (and how the media covers them), if they'll take the time to observe and analyze the race over the next few weeks.

Fuscus should know. In addition to his previous work as VP of communications for the Air Transport Association, he was also deputy chief of staff to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, who later served under President George W. Bush as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to that, he spent nine years working in Congress as director of public affairs for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and asdeputy chief of staff and press secretary to Representative William F. Clinger (R-Pa.). In addition, Fuscus has managed numerous political campaigns and continues to serve as an informal adviser to several leading national politicians.

So what, exactly, are we to take from the presidential race and reportage—and how, exactly, can we apply it to our firms? We pressed Fuscus for the details here:

How do you communicate confidence in times of turmoil—like what we're seeing with the Wall Street meltdown and bailout?

There is really only one effective way to do it—and that is to communicate through action. You have to take definitive actions addressing the situation head-on. This goes far beyond coming out with plans and developing key messages. That said, you do, of course, want to make sure you build effective key messages around the action.

Can you give an example of communicating through action?

On September 23, John McCain suspended his campaign and called for a leadership summit to address the ongoing financial crisis. I'm sure he was motivated to do it in part because he was slipping in the polls since the crisis blew up. But generally speaking, he was communicating a message that said, "I am taking direct leadership action to address this problem."

How risky was that move by McCain—and was it effective, really?

It was quite an unconventional move. I've been associated with the Washington campaign community for a long time—and after he did that, we political junkies were on the phone and everybody thought it was unconventional and risky. But it represented an understanding that if they want to win this election, they have to undertake some game changing, high risk moves. Picking Palin was the first example. That was surely a high risk action that paid off — and I think this is another example of an unconventional move by McCain that was effective.

How is this relevant to agencies and PR people not in politics?

Emphasizing action over messaging is important in communications overall—not just in politics. It depends on the situation, but messages have to be built around your actions and not the other way around. For example, you have to take definitive action in the consumer field if something happens that will result in a loss of confidence. Take ConAgra (not a client). They had a major beef recall about three years ago. To ensure confidence, they went beyond and recalled much more product than was expected. That's real leadership.

How much of a response like that is actually driven by PR?

In any of these high risk situations, the decisions are made by a team of people that includes leadership, legal and the communications team. PR certainly has a seat at the table these days, if that's the question. I know that has changed, because I see it every day. We work on a lot of major news stories with clients and a lot of very big crisis stories. Communications always has seat at table.

What happens when it doesn't have that seat?

What happens are direct, negative consequences for the firms. For example, Firestone made the decision not to engage with the media years ago during the Firestone recall involving their tires on Ford Explorers. They didn't want to put themselves in a worse position for litigation. So, the lawyers ran that. Then Ford made the conscious decision to engage and define it as a tire problem. Ford carpet-bombed Firestone on it. In the end, Firestone was right: Sure, they were in better position regarding litigation. But the brand was in tatters and Firestone sales to this day are likely less than would have been the case otherwise. Conversely, Ford came out successfully by defining it as a tire problem.

How do you think communications were handled after the Los Angeles Metrolink crash?

It was the most ham-handed handling of a crisis I've ever witnessed. The PR person should have been fired (she resigned). They had no knowledge of NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) rules and procedures, for starters. And before anybody knew what was going on, she came out and admitted Metrolink's culpability—so the problem was already defined before a thorough vetting of the facts, and before NTSB got involved in the investigation.

I followed this closely, because I was the chair that helped write the rules and procedures for interaction with the NTSB in the mid-1990s. Based on that background, I can say that everybody should have a basic understanding of what the investigatory rules are around something like this—that's just doing your basic crisis communications homework.

In this case, the appropriate course of action—versus messaging—would have been something along the lines of full cooperation with NTSB, and showing commitment to the safety of passengers. For example, they could have announced at some point a total review of safety procedures, while also remaining open and transparent. That would have been an example of responsible, immediate action.

What can PR agencies learn from the communication styles of the two presidential camps?

Answering that is a tall order. Here's why: Political campaigns are unique animals in the way they are covered by the American media. First of all, a lot of agencies engage in activities to generate press. That's what we do. But that's not necessarily what a presidential campaign is about. It's instead about engaging in news management. There are so many journalistic resources applied to covering a campaign that your job is to have that news coverage come out as favorably as possible—and to be able to drive the news coverage with the messages of your campaign.

Fair enough—then which presidential campaign is better at news management?

The Obama campaign has done a good job of communicating the excitement and hopes a lot of Americans place in Obama. Everybody knows his supporters have that level of passion and hope for change. That message is coming across beautifully. On the negative side, the Obama campaign hasn't been particularly effective in handling negative news stories. Early stories about the senator's previous drug use and so on came out during the primaries and they just weren't effective at tapping those down. Similarly, they Reverend Wright story just went on and on and on. It did some real damage. He should have broken with the reverend much earlier—but that's just hindsight.

The McCain campaign has twice recently taken famous actions to drive the media and story—and to put the Obama campaign in a defensive position. The selection of Palin is an example. It was a week before the Obama campaign even figured out how to deal with that, and they still haven't managed it very well. The second action, as mentioned is McCain's suspension of the campaign to deal with economic issues. Those bold moves focus on his leadership, and both were very adroitly done. On the negative side, they frequently will not fully address negative issues in a way that puts them to rest quickly. An example would be when the media started covering Palin and the Bridge to Nowhere statements. There were five days to a week of news stories on how they were disingenuous about that issue in their messaging and ads. That eroded a widely held opinion that McCain was an honest straight shooter. They should have addressed that more quickly.

Those critiques aside, I want to say that I have been involved in or closely followed every presidential campaign for the last couple of decades—and the communications efforts on both sides this time around are the best I've ever seen.

What final lessons can agencies glean from this political season?

Don't use campaigns as role models for communications—because what campaigns and agencies do is fundamentally different. They're different playing fields. Even if you're in an agency and you're dealing with news management, it won't come to within a fraction of the coverage a presidential campaign receives.

However, there are elements of what's going on in the political season that can be useful. One example is the way campaigns move quickly and decisively to address issues. The best campaigns are about breaking a news cycle down to move on to other issues or to give their own issues legs. So my advice is to study this as a PR person. Recognize when you need to move quickly, and then have the fortitude to act quickly. That means convincing folks on the client side to move quickly—even if you have conservative CEO or legal departments standing in the way.

Another example is finding the touch points for your public and then finding simple messages to support that. Presidential campaigns are very good at identifying simple messages that touch us as individuals, not just as a society. That's powerful. For example, this financial crisis affects you, me, my mom, my dad and my kids. Check out your 401k from work and it's suddenly personal.

But there are also things to avoid from the campaigns. Don't make them your model of effective communications, but instead study the takeaways like message discipline and decisive action. Taking those pieces and working them into your daily work for clients can be very beneficial.

Brian Pittman