ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how political scientists and campaign professionals look at the creation, distribution, and selection of messages. The message of a campaign is absolutely essential for the success of a candidate because it answers the most fundamental question driving any political campaign. A candidate's personal history shapes the creation of his or her message. The political environment and ideology can also help create messages for campaign teams, so long as the campaign managers keep both ideas in perspective. Ideological messages are often set up as simple dichotomies between liberal versus conservative or moderate versus extremism. The chapter looks at some of the main message definitions used in campaign politics and explores the best strategies to implement them, according to political scientists and managers. Finally, it also looks at existing political science and journalists' theories on message consistency and explains how consultants and political operatives behave in the field.
