A Method in the Madness: Mel Martinez’s Campaign Strategy in Florida
Chris Pratt-Dannals, ‘05
November 14, 2004
Election seasons are often characterized by intense media coverage, sensationalist stories and partisan attacks that bombard voters with information. The past few months have been no exception in Florida’s Senate race between Republican Mel Martinez and Democrat Betty Castor. Each candidate spent around $9 million flooding Florida’s media markets with competing political messages and accusations.
From a strategic perspective, candidates need a clear, concise message that cuts through the massive amount of information confronting voters. Mel Martinez’s campaign did precisely this by articulating a personal narrative upon which to base his campaign identity. His personal statement on his website begins: “When I fled communist Cuba and arrived in Florida all alone at the age of 15— I found freedom— freedom that provided me the opportunity to realize the American Dream.” Martinez sold this background, a Cuban immigrant who achieved success through hard work, as the basis for his conservative worldview and the motivation behind all of his policy stances.
Amidst the many complicated policy issues, partisan rancor, and the endless spots promoting and attacking each candidate, this identity held Mel Martinez’s issues stances together and connected them to a larger narrative. While emphasizing security and terrorism as his central policy concern, Martinez made sure to stress that his personal experience living under communism led to his strong desire to protect American freedoms from terrorists. He stated that he wants to protect conservative values “so that all people living in Florida have the same opportunities I did.” When describing education policy, his website emphasizes “the importance of education in realizing the American Dream.” Martinez’s narrative— his identity as a self-made immigrant— provided a stable base from which to campaign on contentious and complex issues. It allowed voters to connect his policy positions to his personal identity, forming a single, integrated campaign message.
From a normative perspective, however, this strategy can lead to problems. It is rare that a person’s identity can be adequately summed up in two sentences. In so far as this is true, an identity-focused campaign can often lead to distortions or omissions of parts of a candidate’s history that contradict the stated identity. Mel Martinez made his living as a personal-injury trial lawyer, yet that information never appears on his website, where he pledges to fight against frivolous medical lawsuits. One would hope that the competition implicit in democratic elections would encourage facts such as these to emerge. But as this election in Florida has proven, that is not always the case, and Mel Martinez is now the junior Senator from Florida.
This page is part of an undergraduate class assignment for POL 318: Strategies and Ethics in Campaigns, and is governed by the Davidson College Honor Code.