Changing Conversations in Policy and Politics
Cato Podcast
Cato Institute
4.5 • 979 Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2016
⏱️ 27 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Kato Daily Podcast for Thursday, May 12, 2016. I'm Caleb Brown. |
| 0:07.0 | The PR firm founded by Rick Berman operates a little differently. |
| 0:11.0 | Often, instead of seeking seeking clients the firm seeks issues |
| 0:14.4 | around which to build a campaign and then seek clients. To hear Berman tell it |
| 0:19.5 | it's easier to fight before a new liberty-killing law goes into effect. |
| 0:23.7 | We spoke in April. |
| 0:26.2 | Your company is fairly unique. |
| 0:29.5 | It's particularly sarcastic in taking on causes that at least in Washington DC often are |
| 0:37.5 | considered to be unfavorable. So how do you decide whether or not you're going to take on an issue or a client? |
| 0:46.0 | Well, it's fairly easy. |
| 0:48.0 | I have a lot of people who believe that we do have an ability to manage public opinion. So we start out with a group |
| 0:57.7 | of fans, if you will, and that's been built over time. And then I'll see an issue, which I think has plenty of hype and hyperbole built into it, and not a lot of science. |
| 1:11.0 | It could be in the energy field, it could be in the energy field it could be in the food field it could be in the |
| 1:15.8 | labor field and I'll see what the proponents are proposing and I see it as an extreme overreach. I see it as people throwing the baby out with the bath water or some other metaphor you can think of. |
| 1:30.0 | And I will go to potential funders. think of |
| 1:35.0 | and I will go to potential funders and say listen this is wrong I'm offended by it if you know as much about it as I do you'll be offended by it. If you know as much about it as I do, you'll be offended by it. And we can actually |
| 1:45.8 | put the brakes on this by getting public opinion on our side and getting the public to understand |
| 1:51.6 | that they're being led down the wrong path, they're being |
| 1:53.9 | given junk science, they're being given poor economics that justify these crazy |
| 1:58.7 | outcomes, and if you'll support me I'll create a public opinion environment that's counter to the ones that these people are trying to generate. |
| 2:09.0 | And you can generally find people who will support that if they believe you're credible and if they |
| 2:16.0 | believe that you have a path forward that makes sense. |
... |
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