– ‘Borrowed glamour’ –
For some, the hiring of the super-advisors with high salaries is little more than a publicity stunt.
“I don’t believe the three US consultants will have much of an influence or impact on this UK election,” said Aeron Davis, professor of political communication at Goldsmiths, University of London.
For Davis, the hires were a sign of “the professional political consultancy business that wanders across nations trying to drum up business for themselves” and party “sabre rattling”.
Axelrod’s involvement in the Labour campaign has been difficult to discern and his lack of involvement “widely remarked upon”, according to Bowden.
None of the three have commented much in public on the election — with only a few sporadic tweets.
However, Bowden credits Messina with influence on the Conservatives’ social media campaign and the decision for Cameron to give a major interview to new media company BuzzFeed rather than a traditional outlet.
More than anything, the hiring of the strategists shows that the British election is not being fought over major issues of principle, as it might have been in the past.
“It obviously illustrates the extent to which politics in the UK has generally become less pronounced in ideological terms and that Conservative and Labour are only really fighting over small technical details around the economy,” Bowden said.
“If anything, both the Tories and Labour feel like they’re hoping the borrowed glamour of Obama will inject their campaigns with some optimism and vision which are lacking in their own policies.”
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