Flip Flop - Meaningless Phrases & Meaningful Networks

“Flip Flop.”

It's a phrase that came into being in the 2008 elections to discredit John Kerry for changing his mind on issues. I have to admit to the people who created it – it was shear genius.

The fact that there is not a candidate alive – republican or democrat – who has not changed their position, or their mind, on an important subject at one point in their career, let alone their candidacy, is absurd. Yet, with the right network of media relationships, this term helped turn an election.

In the 2008 election, the term “flip flop” is still being bantered around from time to time. It seems like an effort to ill-brand a candidate, but it hasn’t stuck yet. Perhaps even the media has begun to realize it is a meaningless term - something that cannot be a defining label to any campaign because every candidate has “flip flopped” at one time or another. Or perhaps it’s because nobody has been able to energize a network like the inventors of “flip flop” were able to do in the 2004 elections.

And maybe that’s the key. Maybe what you say is not as important as how you say it or who it’s said to.

Think about that the next time you spend hours perfecting your message before you figure out how you're getting it out to the audience you want to reach...