Who Stepped In It: If it didn’t happen so often, it wouldn’t be so frustrating to watch. We in Hampton Roads are lucky enough to see two examples at the same time. We get to watch two once-popular ideas get battered into unpopular ideas on the local and national level.

Locally, light-rail enjoyed consistent positive supermajority support in poll after poll, especially coming off the $4 per gallon gasoline of last summer. A good political consultant would prepare the path from support to the light-rail launch with good polling, a grasp of the issues involved, and working with local media to keep the 65% idea from becoming a multi-million dollar punching bag.

Nationally, we’re watching an economic stimulus package from a new, very popular president go from majority popular support to weak minority support, with Independent voters turning their backs on economic stimulus, even in a recession.

How could either of these programs move forward without even the simplest political strategy? A school board candidate does more political preparation than the proponents of light-rail have done, and as a result, the message of light-rail as been totally lost for the near future.

Four months ago, light-rail was a reasonable alternative for high fuel prices. Today, it’s a mismanaged mishmash of cost overruns and incompetence of subcontractors when count of underwater pilings needing to be removed was 13 times higher than they counted.

Any poll taken today about the future of light-rail will be nothing more than the public’s opinion of the mistakes in Norfolk, and citizens, understandably, likely won’t have much confidence in things getting better.

A good political consultant knows polls don’t just take the public’s temperature. Polls lay out a road map for public relations. What messages move public opinion? What messages are effective? What attacks draw the most impact? Which strategy do we need to develop to benefit our message and protect against our weakest points.

Any good political candidate does this before he or she ever begins a campaign. Light-rail advocates risk waiting until public opinion solidifies beyond reasonable change while the media, usually on their side for transportation solutions, continues to make justifiable criticisms at what they’ve usually supported.

The Virginian-Pilot attacking light-rail is like Ronald Reagan attacking jelly beans. You have to be asleep at the political wheel to let things get that far out of control.

President Obama is learning the same lesson. Voters are supportive of government efforts to create jobs, but they have little patience for big payoffs that they easily understand will not create any jobs. Ask Bill Clinton how voters embraced midnight basketball as a way to fight crime in 1994, the year voters took Congressional control from the Democrats.

Obama let Congressional leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi manage the PR strategy of the stimulus package, and the bill is on the verge of collapse. Obama now has stepped in to stop the bleeding and save the bill.

How do you go from super support to low approval? Sit on your lead. Now light-rail and the stimulus plan have a much harder job of rebuilding lost support.

Who Stepped Up:  No doubt that November elections for local office mean higher costs, new demands for broader advertising, and a lot more commotion on the ballot.

Some candidates, like Virginia Beach’s Scott Taylor, are banking on the Internet, email, and social media like Facebook and MySpace to replace the traditional advertising sources of television, radio, newspaper and mail. Someday that political tactic may work, but in 2008 it won’t.

That’s why Virginia Beach mayoral candidate Will Sessoms’ 8-page booklet, which was recently sent as a Virginian-Pilot insert, was a great political strategy.  Its execution wasn’t perfect, but the printed focus amid all the hype of the Internet and all the cost of television was sound.

Here’s why:

- Four years ago, 175,000 Virginia Beach voters went to the polls in November.  Political experts are projecting that number to climb as high as 200,000 this year.  There is no way the Internet reaches that broad a voter pool on the local level.  Website hits are nowhere near that.

- Internet usage is still low among older voters, your most reliable voters.

- Print advertising still works best in local politics.  Voters read newspapers and read those political mail pieces that flood mailboxes in November.  Those mailers build name ID in a cost-effective way that television can only do with repetition (meaning cost).

- The idea of an 8-page booklet is a smart political tactic.  It’s meant to be kept and not tossed like a single piece of political mail or a political ad in the daily newspaper.

All is not rosy with the strategy, though.  In delivering the insert as part of the newspaper, a booklet can get lost among the coupons and other countless ad booklets in a Sunday paper, and that is a real problem.  Better to invest in directly mailing it than take that chance.

Who Stepped In It: In her current political campaign, Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf launched an attack on her opponent, Will Sessoms, on a $10,000 campaign contribution from Amerigroup. Her shot didn’t stick, but it earned a scathing editorial from The Virginian-Pilot, whose endorsement may prove crucial in this race. The editorial board questioned her judgment in attacking a major employer to score political points.

Oberndorf’s miscue was in her political strategy, and it serves a good lesson to political consultants and political campaign managers.

Oberndorf has three opponents — Sessoms, John Moss and Scott Taylor. Multiple-person political races are worlds different from one-on-one races.

Sessoms, the city’s former vice mayor, has raised almost half-a-million dollars and has been advertising for weeks. His name ID will be sky-high come Election Day. The last thing Oberndorf should do is give Sessoms more attention, and name ID, with careless political tactics.

Here’s why:

- Oberndorf benefits from higher vote totals for Moss and/or Taylor because they’ll be pulling away anti-incumbent votes from Sessoms.

- Moss and Taylor are mostly absent from the airwaves and the newspapers. Oberndorf needs them in the media so their name ID rises quickly.

- By attacking Sessoms, Oberndorf makes the race seem like a two-person race, which is exactly opposite of what she needs. It perfectly suits Sessoms needs.

- Moss and Oberndorf served on City Council together. There should be plenty for Oberndorf to say about Moss. A tactical attack on Moss would raise Moss’ visibility and put him in the center of the campaign conversation. The same goes for Taylor. Dig a little.

- A good political consultant would have adopted a political strategy for Oberndorf of strengthening the spotlight on the lower-tier candidates and developing tactics to accomplish that. That way, whether they raise money or not, they’re visible and viable.

In politics, decide early on what you need the playing field to look like, develop a political strategy to accomplish that, and implement tactics that move you toward that goal.