Friday, September 25, 2009

Zuma Report: Marketing Strategy Applied To Christine Essel's City Council Campaign (How does THIS look?)

This post is about "Marketing Strategy" applied to the CD 2 City Council run-off election between State Assembly Member Paul Krekorian and Christine Essel.

How would this be for Essel to be saying during her campaign for the "tough crowds" she will face at debates and crowds like she saw during the primary?:

Hi, I'm Christine Essel. I know there were several grass root candidates that many of you supported and I know it's frustrating that the two candidates with the most money are in the run-off.

So hopefully, I can at least make people feel comfortable that I mean it when I say I am here to use everything I know and have learned in the real world as a long-time financial executive at Paramount to help facilitate the commuity to accomplish their goals.

It's the job of councilmember to balance the needs and goals of the city as a whole while maintaining the integrity of the neighborhood community spirit.

I am here to tell you that is what I am here to do. And, I only have a year and a half to prove it to you. So, if you don't think I am representing the voice of the community and improving constituent services throughout my first term, you can vote for someone else in a year and a half.

Remember, I (Christine Essel) made the run-off as an outsider, not from an elected seat. You can laugh at the notion that I am an outside candidate. But I am not an elected official and come from the ouside business community.

You may think I have all the inside money, but I raised it as an outsider. I didn't just run for State Assembly and make promises and committments to the people who supported me only to use it to run for City Council.

Look at all the time and expense the State and District just invested in Paul Krekorian getting his office set up and the knoweldge invested in him for the Assembly position. NOW HE WANTS THE STATE ASSEMBLY TO HAVE TO START OVER WHEN WE ARE FACING A HUGE CRISIS. IT WOULD BE NICE TO CONTINUE WITH THE TEAM ALREADY IN PLACE.

And unlike Paul Krekorian, who's real world business experience is that of an attorney, I have a long career working at Paramount Pictures in a very competitive and high stakes business environment, where it isn't just politicians who have the luxury of wasting endless amounts of money in the most inefficent way possible.
Hollywood doesn't play around with real money.
And as someone who started at the bottom of the ladder at Paramount Productions, one of the biggest operations in the City, State or Country...an international operation, I was continually promoted throughout my career in the financial departments, where I was responsible for making sure the numbers checked out and the budget was balanced.

So you won't be electing a career politician with a history of beuaracracy and waste. I'm the candidate who will bring my real life accounting and financial experience to the office.

Paul is a politician so he can only run the office like a poltician. I am from the business world, so that's how my office will operate.

And I took a lot of heat from "Zuma Dogg" when he called me, "Empty Vessle" Essle, because he was just a bitter candidate with no money or fliers, but when I started in the corporate offices at Paramount in the 80's, there weren't even any other women working in the department and it wasn't exaclty a smooth, paved road for women at the time.
So for me to be promoted all the way up the ladder in the finacial department should at least say something to the people of CD 2 that in these times of economic crisis and hard financial decisions that affect the community, you will have someone who has the understanding of the fundamentals and has proven, time and time again over my entire career that I can actually make it work at the office level. Not just talk about making it work.

Whenever you have a candiate running for office, people will always question their motives and wonder if they can trust them. I am here to tell you, I may have a lot of big friends and there may be a lot of big people who contributed to my campaign. But that's because I have a long career of doing business in this city with a lot of the movers and shakers. And I can work with these people to help deliver for CD 2 as it sometimes loses out to Downtown, Hollywood and other areas in the city. And I am letting voters know that if you do not feel I am continuously working with neighborhood councils and community leaders toward constant noticable improvement in my first year and a half in office, you can chose to elect someone else in a year and a half.

I hope the people following the election can get to know me a lot better than they did during the primary where there were ten candidates, not just two, so everything had to be answered in one minute.

And I hope you prefer your councilmember whose experience comes from the real world, where I was promoted by my bosses, time and time again for doing an outstanding job as a female executive in a man's world, in the most competive industry in the world -- over someone who is walking away from his expensive committment to voters that he just made as an elected official who's only achievement is being part of the team that put us in this finacial crisis.
CHRISTINE ESSEL FOR LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCIL