A historic 24 million people reportedly watched the GOP’s August 6th presidential debates. A few screen captures from news websites will tell an amazing tale in just seconds, and then look at what this American political shakeup could mean to the manufactured housing industry.

What are some of the headlines that have Americans clicking through on mega-popular Drudge?

 

Think, aren’t these headlines above routinely the same topics driving the political conversations?

What does the Time magazine online (and “unscientific”) post debate poll say about who won Thursday nights Fox/Facebook debate?

 

Examples of common headlines:

 

The Fox moderators were so “tough,” that Trump complained. So did large numbers of regular Fox viewers, as the cable news network themselves reported.  Fox News’ rising start, Megyn Kelly shared a common network defense by saying they framed their pointed questions for Mr. Trump and each of the Republican candidates in the ways that candidate would face from a Democratic nominee in the 2016 general election.

Others took a different view, with talk radio sprouting conspiracy theories (eg: Rush Limbaugh), or alleging a Fox sell out to the left (eg: Michael Savage/Savage Nation).

Ohio Governor John Kasich was correct when he said during the debate that Donald Trump has touched a nerve for Americans.  Mr. Trump is energizing people who could be labeled ‘the silent majority’ that feel politicians are talking, but are failing to change what’s wrong in the nation.

We posted the following about The Donald’s gravity-defying, conventional-wisdom-breaking campaign before the big debate. We’re looked at this Trump insurgency in part through the lens of marketing, take a look, linked here.

To say that The Trump name has been good for the audience that Fox/Facebook had for their debate and the pre-and-post-event hype about first GOP debate is a huge understatement. Only some major sporting events have done better.  So what can it mean for manufactured housing pros?  Some quick bullets…

• The Donald – real estate mogul and businessman, a political insider who gives money to both Democrats and Republicans – is seen as boldly telling it like he sees it, and the public is responding.  He is also rationally explained his shift on positions from Democratic to more Republican views, and why he’s keeping ‘leverage’ so that the Republican Party establishment doesn’t try to unfairly derail his campaign, just as some in the media (examples, above) believe they are trying to do.
• The public is clearly ready for different.
• The public wants some entertainment value – Reality Political Theater if you will – in what they’re seeing in the race, while also wanting to hear from the various candidates.
• Please note that almost all of the media observers are blown away by the sheer size of the Fox audience Thursday. Even the “happy hour” debate of the 7 lowest polling GOP candidates at 5 PM Eastern – that Carly Fiorina is widely reputed to have won – had over 6 million viewers, which would have made it one of the biggest television debate audiences of all time.  Freeze-frame on those two realities.  The ‘winners’ – in the public’s vs. the pundit’s views – of the debates were non-politicians.  Not strangers to politics, to be sure, but they are not career politicians.
• Then note that 24 million figure, mindful that manufactured housing and pre HUD Code mobile home owners represents roughly 22 million people. We’ve been saying on the Masthead for years, that our industry must learn to better tap into our own huge MH home owner ‘audience’ and make it a key to advancing our mutual causes.

Political strategists call tapping a very specific group micro-targeting.  Our MH residents are of a size that could tip an election from Candidate A to Candidate B in a numerous local, state or national race.

MH has a great story to tell. We are a ‘different the is good’ tale too.  Mr. Trump isn’t the only one able to tap into the American anger and angst.  We MHPros must learn the value of those stories, how to market them, tout them, praise them as we are on MHLivingNews.com!

Then we must leverage that with the mainstream media, the general public and politicians. We’re already seeing good feedback from the media, are giving more coverage and favorable attention to what we’re doing.  The feedback from politicos staff in DC and at the state/local level – even from those who are often opposed to our finance/regulatory issues such as S 682/HR 650, has been positive too. The public likes what they see too. What is needed next is to scale what we’re modeling.

Let’s rephrase.  We must learn to properly define ourselves or others will define us, often to our detriment.

We must have a compelling message and we must have a powerful 1-2 counterpunch when we are challenged.  The Donald is fighting back when attacked.  Duh!  The MH Industry must do the same when we are challenged on some issue that we’re right on, but the other side just doesn’t get it.  That’s OUR jobs, individually and collectively, to make our MH case.

We’ve started the ball rolling, thanks to the support of others (see link here). More Fuel for this effort is what is needed.  We too can Trumpet our MH Industry’s many success stories, tales from home owners as well as professionals. As one of several industry pros said,

‘Tony, you’re onto something big here.‘  ##

 

By L. A. ‘Tony’ Kovach. Click  both the name AND the photo to learn more, about what others say…