The perfect PR window: Does it exist?
Anyone who has worked in or around the Capitol knows the challenges of trying to unveil a big initiative while navigating the Lansing news cycle. You’ve got the legislative calendar, budget proposal, budget completion, State of the State address, Consensus Revenue Estimating Conferences, election deadlines, ballot initiatives - and this is just working around what’s planned. A reporter on the Capitol or statewide beat will tell you that when a routine week of coverage is planned, it ends up being anything but.
Gaining traction in the Capitol press is hard, no matter the date. But is there a window of time in which you’re more likely to get the attention of lawmakers, the Governor’s administration and other stakeholders?
Buckle up, ‘cause we’re heading right into it.
Legislative leaders and Governor Whitmer will likely (hopefully) soon finalize the FY22 budget, consuming everything in its wake. On a parallel track, more than 1,000 of Michigan’s most influential residents converged on Mackinac Island, competing with each other to get their own slice of Crain’s coverage. A reinvented version of the auto show, Motor Bella, just wrapped.
If the budget gets done by the Oct. 1 deadline, we’ll roll into October with the Governor and lawmakers doing some messaging of their own to claim fiscally moral victories. If not, the budget blame game will begin, as the state hurdles toward fiscal shutdown and the media covers every moment of the political theater.
With the Fiscal Year covered, we can also just chalk up most of 2022 to politics, seeing as it’s a gubernatorial election year in Michigan.
But until then – behold, the magical window of opportunity. From the second week of October until roughly Thanksgiving, the field is wide open.
If there’s a message you want to get out or an initiative you’re hoping can gain some legislative support before the political maneuvering begins in earnest, let us know so we can help. The window is closing quickly.
Infrastructure week, anyone?
