Chin Straps On

What PAC professionals do in periods of political turbulence. A candid conversation on the state of play in campaign 2024 from the #1 PAC Podcast in America.

Transcript

David Schild:
Events on the ground have altered the calculus. What do you do? How do you make sure you're adaptive?

Micaela Isler:
Welcome back to the Facts about PACS podcast, the number one PAC podcast in America, and I'm your host, Micaela Isler, president and CEO, and I'm joined by none other than David Shield and Adam Belmar.

Adam Belmar:
Well, it is wonderful to be back on the microphone with all of you, and I hope everyone in our audience enjoyed the July 4th celebrations and the holiday weekend.

David Schild:
Adam, I treat this show like the podcaster in paradise at the end of the week. If McKayla gives me my rose and I get invited back for another episode, that's my goal.

Adam Belmar:
Well, it has been a love of mine to podcast, but never have I had such a long-term commitment to an audience and to a group as I've had with the facts about Pax. And with that, I don't mind saying that. Boy, oh boy, there was enough news and intrigue of the political kind over the last two weeks that we're going to have to talk about it today. Fireworks of a completely different sort.

David Schild:
All of the explosions were not in the sky, and I would say that democracy is messy. And for the people listening to this show who are professional political practitioners, put your chin strap on. These are challenging times and we're going to try to walk you through some of those specific challenges today.

Micaela Isler:
So coming up in just a minute, a conversation about the roiling waters of Campaign 2024 and the actions we can all take to serve our mission's best.

Adam Belmar:
The facts about PACS podcast is produced, especially for the members of the National Association of Business Political Action Committees. In every episode, we recap this week's NABPACtivities, share actionable intelligence and best practices, all while connecting the PAC community.

Micaela Isler:
Thanks so much, Adam, and as we always do on the pod here, we like to read out our NAB pack activities. We have a few to touch on and dive into. In fact, I just got off our July Let's Talk where we talked about how to utilize your data and making the case for all things PAC related and even GEO TV related. But just yesterday, Adam and Dave, we were still adding events to the calendar. There's so much going on this month in July. I just want to flag for folks, we do have our July luncheon really trying to get a jumpstart on developing and refining your PAC budget as we go into a new election cycle. I know there's so much to talk about with just this election cycle, but we're already thinking ahead and getting you planning and preparing for the next cycle.
But we also, I'm really excited about this, you guys. We've been doing a lot of research and education on just general campaign finance issues and differentiating PACS and Super pacs and how we're the most regulated, transparent form of giving in the political process. And I'm really excited that on July 25th, we will have our first ever policy briefing on the hill, and that was just added to the events calendar last week. I'm hoping that we're going to have a really great broad base support from not only our members, but also all of our friends from the House and Senate, all the staffers on the hill. So really excited about that. And then we're moving into August. I know most people are going to be thinking about recess and maybe last minute vacation plans, but we will be doing a couple of events with our round tables that are so popular. Adam and Dave,

David Schild:
A really full calendar for NABPAC. That's great.

Micaela Isler:
Okay, so let's take a minute to consider everything that has occurred over the last 14 days and how it's impacting our listeners programs and the employees and members that they serve.

Adam Belmar:
Alright, let me put on my former news hat in, try and share some of the key moments that have occurred since last we were on the air altogether on June 27th at 9:00 PM Eastern Time, the first general election debate, which was sponsored by CNN, was attended by Presentive nominees, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The 90 minute debate was moderated by CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, and it took place at the Network's studios in Atlanta without a studio audience. The candidates microphones were muted until it was their turn to speak. Then on July 5th, 8.5 million Americans tuned in to watch Joe Biden sit down for an interview with George Stephanopoulos to explain his debate performance. Fast forward five days this week, July 10th in the New York Times, George Clooney mega Hollywood star and enormous democratic supporter and donor called on President Biden to step aside in an opinion essay in the New York Times. And that leaves us on the air, David, with an understanding that every best plan, including our PAC budgets and the way we see the world, are really not written in stone. They're written in sand.

David Schild:
Yeah, Adam, I think we know as PAC professionals that what happens at the top of the ticket in presidential election years is not the main focus of our plans and strategies, but we have got to make sure that we can adapt to what happens in politics, right? Your PAC budget should be a living document, right? As my grandfather used to say, I want my PAC budget to be like my trousers, flexibility is important. And so this is just the kind of thing where you have to ask yourself, maybe I set this budget 18 months ago, maybe I had a long process with many people at the table to build a plan and a strategy based on specific criteria in compliance with my bylaws, with inputs from many stakeholders. And we came up with this great PAC budget, this wonderful plan. Perhaps it was disseminated amongst my leadership, amongst my contributor base, but now things have changed. Events on the ground have altered the calculus. What do you do? How do you make sure you're adaptive? Because sometimes that's what's needed to serve our mission.

Adam Belmar:
I think that that is accurate. And I think one of the, that I enjoy most about the membership at NAB Ppac and broadly employee funded and Business Trade Association, pacs, is that we are very stalwart supporters of policies that drive our business, that make sense for our communities that are solutions oriented. And no matter what those prevailing winds that change due to news like we're talking about or experiencing, it doesn't change the fundamental drive of every coworker that we have or every member who's giving to know what is going on in our political process. Are we still aimed in the right direction? And every question that's asked as an engagement, as important as a donation, and when you're in a place to answer back and say, yes, we too are looking or we believe strongly because McKayla, that is the interaction that matters and it leaves an impact on all of us that we're moving and pulling in the right direction.

Micaela Isler:
Yeah, I was going to say too, it's one of those points in time. I mean, look, it's been a lot to digest and to see happen to our sitting president these last 14 days. And I think that's where as PAC directors, we have to remember that we are the trusted source internally. I think it's a time to remain calm and focused on the mission at hand. Dave, we talk a lot about staying focused on that North star. What is the mission of your pac? You have that set criteria, and I think being agile and fluid and able to navigate, again, most of our pacs aren't giving to presidential candidates, but there's no doubt that what is happening at the top is going to impact down ballot. No doubt about it.

David Schild:
Yeah, McKayla, it's really difficult to pick up every paper, log onto every site, watch every broadcast, and there are really only two candidates dominating that news cycle. But guess what? We got 435 folks up in the house. We got a third of the Senate up in the coming election. Those are typically where you see Federal PACS engaged because those are policy makers, right? Those are the candidates who are going to make the policies that affect us the most. And let's be honest, that's where PAC dollars have an influence at the district and the Senate level, not in national presidential campaigns. So stay focused on those house races, stay focused on those Senate races regardless of what happens at the top of the ticket. We're going to have a Congress get seated in January and we want to affect the outcome of that election.

Adam Belmar:
You bet. And that is the critical element. I mean, I have always shared with our audience the fact that my first career was as a broadcast journalist, I have produced presidential debates. I have also worked for a president as a communicator, and I've been at national conventions. So many of you, and it just made me think as I saw some of this occurring about our last episode with Amy Adams, who I always jokingly remind our audience is the political expert, the human at the other end of the npac Health hotline. Well, David likes to say, don't forget to say thank you for every contribution and make a contact with people. But thinking about that last episode with Amy, I'm thinking, what are all these scenarios that might happen and what does saying thank you mean? I think it means being on the other end of the phone when somebody has a question and wants to reach back out to you and David, these are the times when conversation is absolutely everything because you're there to pick up the phone and say, yeah, let me share with you where I'm at, what we're thinking, how we see it, how do you see it?

David Schild:
Yeah, Adam, this is a time when, as McKayla said, emotions run hot in the political realm and it bleeds into the body politic. And so you've got to be ready to be responsive to your members. A great way to make sure the other important conversations are happening is to make sure they're scheduled and they're on the books. And here's what I mean by that. Many of our members may have sat down at the beginning of this cycle and come up with their PAC budget. Did you have a quarterly, a bi-annually session with your leadership to review that budget and make sure that it's current? It seems simple, but you don't have to seem reactive or panicked if you say, Hey guys, the Q3 budget review's coming up. Given what's been going on in the news cycle, given the changing political wins, probably time to look at our budget again and do a reassessment. Do you have a regular member call member Zoom, right? Member town hall already on the books? Hey, there is a lot going on. We're going to make sure it's addressed at our next PAC Town Hall, our next pizza and politics luncheon, whatever it might be, pre-schedule, all of these communications so that you don't miss that opportunity to respond to what's happening, to show that you are watching the political wins.

Micaela Isler:
I think that's a great point in being proactive in addressing some of these things head on. I love the idea of the town hall just anecdotally, even before this last 14 day sort of craziness of the news cycle, we've been hearing that there's been a lot of interest in just getting the real facts about what's going on and how that's impacting the organizations. And so I think for our listeners, rather than waiting for people to pick up the phone and call you and say, Hey, what does this mean? I think this is a fantastic opportunity for your entire government relations team to showcase why they're so needed and why it's so important that they're engaged here in Washington, and how can they sort of sift through the noise and talk about not only what's really going on, but also what does this mean for us as an organization longterm?

Adam Belmar:
I like to think about the commonalities that we all have as people who are invested in advocacy and politics in our organizations. Sometimes we joke around and we say, oh, this is the Super Bowl of politics. Well, look, the national conventions are an amazing thing that every American I wish could either really tune into, maybe even get to. The energy is great if you're a professional. You might be at both, of course. But I have to say that as I think about those smaller races, those down ballot races, those races and those champions and candidates that we're all looking at in our states with our people who are working there, there's great advocacy going on at every level. I see bipa out there doing GOTV work with so many NPAC members, and it makes me feel like the more people wake up and are really paying attention to politics, it's a great time to be a PAC manager. It's a great time to be a PAC Professional. I'm happy to tell you about what I do, and I really care about what it is that you want to share about what's important to our team, our group.

David Schild:
And Adam. I think it's difficult when everyone is focused on one topic, right? And so you as a PACT director should be able to say to your contributors, to your eligible class, what happens in Missouri's fifth district, because that's where our corporate headquarters is. That is what matters to us. Our mission is driven much more by that race, or who is going to be the head of the Energy and Commerce committee That might mean a lot more to the thing we have in common here. The thing we have in common in our organization is very often not who we would vote for at the top of the ticket. It's the shared business interest. We work for the same organization. We are manufacturing the same thing. We are servicing the same industry, and you can probably find a race much closer to home with a greater impact on that mission. That's where your messaging should be.

Micaela Isler:
Well, guys, there you have it. Facts, faithful. If it's not already buckled, get those chin straps on. This is going to be another bumpy ride. Dave Shield, Adam Belmar. Thank you both, and thanks to everyone listening. Subscribe and meet us right back here for more facts about Pax.