How to conduct a press conference as a grassroots candidate — 21 pointers (and a VIDEO)

This is magnificently done work. Impressive and worthy of emulation by anyone running for office.

Kari Lake has 3 decades of media experience. Not everyone will feel comfortable conducting a press conference exactly like this, but everyone can learn from this 28-minute video. Below is a collection of details that I observed about how well Lake handled this particular press conference.

1.) Tone of authority. You don’t have to know the words or even the language to be able to hear and feel that Lake has a tone of authority in her voice

2.) Sense of being in control of the press conference rather than the press conference being in control of her.

3.) Strict with time — starting time, ending time, question duration, answer duration, and how speedily things move along.

4.) Invite media and give them something they will feel like they need to cover.

5.) Talking points prepared on paper. Speech prepared on paper. Even if candidate is good off script, it helps the candidate to have a document to always come back to.

6.) Having supporters behind you. It makes you look more popular than someone sitting up there alone. Those people are literally showing they “have her back.”

7.) Keep talking through the sound of protestors. Keep talking calmly and authoritatively. You can tell the sound of protestors gets into her head for a moment and disrupts her, but she keeps pushing toward the next word and gets it out then keeps going. You can tell she is just trying to focus on getting the very next word out. Very impressive focus.

8.) Calling people out by name who did wrong. In this case her opponent, the head of the university, the journalism school, and PBS.

9.) Drawing a line, “I am showing up next Tuesday.” There is an ultimatum to her saying she is still showing up Tuesday no matter what.

10.) Asking people watching to take concrete action. Providing them ways to take concrete action. In this video she specifically lists three names and provides 3 phone numbers to call. They are written out on paper clearly.

11.) “We have a racist running against me and you are covering for her.” That’s a powerful, compact talking point.

Another hard hitting one, “We are not gonna let the coward decide how the debates go out, either you show up to debate or you don’t.” She’s not mincing words and that is refreshing.

Or chiding the journalists: “The people are on to it . . . Why are you not writing the headlines accurately.”

12.) Start with a prepared statement, then move on to high energy question and answer.

13.) Before anyone from media is allowed to speak and ask a question, she asks “name and organization? Is that print or online?”

14.) Not being afraid to blackball dishonest media by saying to them “I don’t take questions from the Arizona Republic” which she really says as “I’m not answering questions from The Repugnant.”

15.) Lecturing the media about what they need to be doing better. This attitude makes it hard not to have the upper hand in any press conference. The media you are lecturing know they are wrong and you know they are wrong. It makes it much harder for them to go into attack mode in front of you and for you to put up with the attack mode.

16.) Sticking on your 3 or 4 most important talking points. This includes sticking on them no matter what the questions really are. This Kari Lake does very well here: no matter what you ask her, she is mostly going to talk about what she wants to talk about.

17.) Saying, “You need to go” (to a repeatedly disruptive journalist) and then directing security to remove him.

18.) Insulting the previous fake news reporter that you just shot down and interrupting his question with “Any other journalist not get a question?”

19.) Not being afraid to say, “One question only.”

20.) Answering in crisp, clear sound bites that last no more than 30 or 40 seconds, allowing the entire answer to be quoted while also allowing the press conference to move quickly and answer many questions.

21.) Calling on the Fox reporter (from her former employer who refused to cover her campaign) by saying this “The guy in the mask.”

Plus 7 Bonus Observations

+1.) Telling him this kind of thing when he proceeds to ask the question while still in the mask: I’m sorry, I can’t hear you in the mask, I have a hard time making sense of anything people in a mask say.

+2.) Telling the guy in the mask, “. . . are you still wearing a mask?” with a tone of ridicule. Like lecturing the media, mentioned earlier, being unafraid to also ridicule the media helps her keep the upper hand in the press conference.

+3.) “You with the beard in the back.” Calling people by their physical characteristics unashamedly is beautiful anti-PC behavior.

+4.) “The blond in the back.”

+5.) Bringing photo-opportunity-worthy visuals and covering the entire background space with them sufficiently enough that no photo could have been taken of the press conference without mentioning the visuals, while also forcing any honest reporter to then mention the visuals if any video or photo footage of the event is captured. In this instance, she has big checks, big checks of state payouts to settle racial discrimination cases that Katie Hobbs (her opponent) was involved in.

+6.) Being relatively well-disciplined with only letting people ask questions after they answer “What’s your name and what organization are you with?” While I mention this example again, I want to focus on the discipline aspect. You’ll see in this video that Lake clearly has some clear rules in her head that she has determined are the right ways to conduct a press conference and that she is disciplined enough to follow those rules she has made for herself.

+7.) Being disciplined with the time. It goes less than thirty minutes. She is already in her next place, on the way to her scheduled activity, on the phone with the next person, sitting down with the next person, when the clock hits the 30 minute mark. It isn’t a 33 minute long video. It is a 28 minute long video. There is a big difference in finishing under time and finishing over time. That discipline shines through in this press conference.

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We are a month away from the November 8, 2022 midterm elections in the United States and some fantastic candidates are running who are cruising for a major loss. Many candidates I speak to have no campaign worthy of mention. It doesn’t have to be that way. Even at this late hour, a candidate can turn his campaign around and beat a 100 vote lead, a 1,000 vote lead, or even a 100,000 vote lead. I am making my years of political experience available to grassroots candidates at a fraction of what it would cost to hire me as a full time consultant. I’m doing for candidates whose values I agree with.

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That program is called “There Is No Substitute For Victory.”

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Allan Stevo