Top consultants from the US and Europe including IAPC president Tom Edmonds as well as the rising stars among the internationally active campaign pros gave insights from their practice in recent elections. And, in the much acclaimed final panel, tech gurus Micah Sifry, Marko Rakar, Peter Kruse, and John Aristotle Phillips showed the way for sparking emotions in the Web 2.0 and through mobile technology.

The presentations from the conference will be edited for a book publication to be published in fall 2010 at Prestige Books. EAPC members will be able to download the presentations at www.eapc.eu.

The EAPC will debate "Targeting in the 21st Century: From Door2Door to Web 2.0" from June 2 to 4, 2011, in Madrid at the 16th EAPC conference (www.eapc2011.eu).

The 15th EAPC Conference "Emotions in Politics and Campaigning" is sold out!

We sincerely appreciate the interest it has aroused the great panel of speakers for this conference and we are looking forward to welcoming the participants to the Vienna Conference.

See you in Vienna!

Two years of preparations will culminate in the finest event of 2010 for anyone interested in campaigning. These will be the top 10 highlights of the 15th EAPC Conference "Emotions in Politics and Campaigning" starting in a week from now (May 7 and 8):

1. Hearing from best selling authors George Lakoff, Ted Brader and Hans-Georg Häusel about the crucial role of emotions in running a successful campaign
2. Enjoying to a political sightseeing tour while riding in a 100 year old tramway to the famous Heurigen vine garden area in Grinzing
3. Getting the newest technology trends in campaigning revealed by the pioneers in the field
4. Listening to classical music and to the band "Rich & Famous" when making new friends at the traditional Gala Dinner in a Viennese palace
5. Learning from consultants on the inside about emotional highlights in USA, UK, Germany, Turkey, Croatia and Spain
6. Hearing about the history and the political agenda of City Hall and Parliament when guided through these spectacular Ringstrassen buildings by members of their assemblies
7. Benefitting from the experience of the business' hard-boiled masters when they share the secrets of successful campaigning at the Master Class on May 6 at the University of Vienna
8. Mingling with an amicable crowd of high ranking professionals from 23 countries in an atmosphere where it is easy to connect and to share the secrets of the trade
9. Getting inspired by presentations about special issues like humor in campaigns, fighting xenophobia and the connections between soccer and politics
10. Exploring Vienna, the city with the highest quality of life worldwide, with one of the finest hotels in central Europe as starting base

We are counting the hours to enjoy three days of inspiration, discussion and networking with you.

Register online here!

See you soon,

Christoph Hofinger
President, EAPC
Director, SORA.

In 1977, John A. Phillips became known as the A-Bomb Kid while attending Princeton University as a junior undergraduate when he designed a nuclear weapon using publicly-available books and papers. Phillips published his story together with a co-author, David Michaelis, as Mushroom: The True Story of the A-Bomb Kid. In 1980 and 1982 he ran for the United States House of Representatives as a Democratic Party candidate in Connecticut's 4th congressional district. The experience he had gained during his campaigns obtaining the voter list from the state and using it for campaign purposes led him and his brother Dean to found Aristotle, Inc. in 1983, a non-partisan technology consulting firm for political campaigns which John Phillips has since led as the CEO. It specializes in enriching voter lists with personal data from other sources (such as income, gun ownership or church attendance) and data-mining, to assist with micro-targeting of specific voter groups; as of 2007, its database contained detailed information about ca. 175 million U.S. voters and it had about 100 employees. Aristotle has served every occupant of the White House since Ronald Reagan, and consults for several top political action committees.

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The specific policy features never embarrassed to Magyars, but this time it presented all of the attributes of a typical protest election. Fidesz-KDNP obtained in the first round 206 out of 386 seats, the absolute majority, - a one-time political success in the still young Hungarian democracy. Since 2002, the ruling left-liberal political establishment has been sent by the voters in the desert. The Socialists (MSZP) received 19.3 percent and they lost more than 1.2 million voters (from a total of around 8 million voters) since 2006. The political completely drained Liberals (SZDSZ) ran together with center-right Party MDF, but they clearly failed with just 2.65 percent to achieve the 5-percent mark.

For the neutral election observers it is particularly interesting - besides from the relatively modest turnout of only 59.28 percent, that  non-voters are in Hungary the largest "political camp" - the fact that one for each four voters in Hungary that gave his vote in this election Sunday to a political formation that has not yet existed in this form a year ago. This concerns in particular the National Radical Jobbik party, which was with a vote of 16.7 percent pretty close to the sensational success of the EU-elections last year. A veritable surprise was also the left-alternative LMP, concentrated basically on the Budapest metropolitan audience, with a 7.4 percent of the votes. Thus has changed dramatically the political landscape in Hungary since 2006.

The Christian Conservative Fidesz-KDNP has gained at least the simple majority in all polling districts nationwide in the first round, with the exception of two classic Budapest Workers districts (MSZP) - that in the economically advantaged western Hungary traditionally strongly anchored Party Alliance is now finally developed to a veritable people's party. East of the Danube, on the flat Hungarian Puszta-State, however, the Socialist Party (MSZP) has lost - weakened by corruption scandals and internal grave fighting - its decades-old of political strongholds almost everywhere in the hands of the right-wing nationalist Jobbik - in these many places marked by poverty, economic hopelessness and crime regions in the north, east and south of the country moved Jobbik to the second place behind the Conservatives.

Indeed, the MSZP has hold the second place nationally, just before Jobbik. But it seems clear that the old Budapest Workers' strongholds and the formerly red bastions on the flat land are lost in the hands of the conservatives and the right-wing populists. The traditional left-wing voters have moved in droves into the right-wing nationalist Jobbik camp. This, equipped with a possible thin staffing political formation that has set the election campaign on personal appearances and a strong visibility on the Internet, and contrary to the superficial analysis of foreign reporters, it’s less a classic neo-fascist party than the current virulent reservoir of protest voters of all of kinds - even and especially young and first-time voters disappointed by the system. And a surprising number of academics and intellectuals profess now openly to the radical nationalist movement.

The left-alternative Newcomer LMP, coming from a juvenile unused appearance creates a classic American campaign, and it shows in style, in content and staffing large congruence to the politically precisely failed Liberals (SZDSZ). Significantly, this party is on the Hungarian flat land virtually not represented at all. Jobbik may possibly secure one-two seats in the second round. That is largely excluded for LMP.

Micah L. Sifry is co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum, a website and annual conference that covers the ways technology is changing politics and TechPresident.com, its award-winning group blog on how the American presidential candidates are using the web and how the web is using them. In addition to organizing the annual Personal Democracy Forum conference with his partner Andrew Rasiej, he consults on how political organizations, campaigns, non-profits and media entities can adapt to and thrive in a networked world. In June 2008, his latest book, Rebooting America, an anthology of writing on how the Internet and new technology can be used to reinvent American democracy, co-edited with Allison Fine, Andrew Rasiej and Josh Levy, was published. He is also an adjunct professor at the Political Science Department of the City University of New York/Graduate Center, where he teaches a course called “Writing Politics.”

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Krunoslav Vidić (1973) after almost 12 years as a journalist, decided to change sides and get involved. From objective observer and reporter, he became communication adviser and strategy consultant. With formal education in social sciences, theology, and natural sciences, mathematics, and experience with electronic media, radio and television, Krunoslav was adviser, consultant and manager in campaigns on municipal, parliamentary and presidential elections in Croatia. Krunoslav brings to his clients his great knowledge and experience, first of all as a great professional and an experienced connoisseur of the media stage and a versatile person that has exceptional knowledge of the media industry and the segment of public relations in the whole region of the Western Balkans. He can grasp a broad social and political picture and transform it in bite size chunks that can be used as starting points for defining campaign objectives that can, for many reasons, be blurred or creating public policies and political stand points. Krunoslav Vidić speaks English fluently, before PR times, he did some book translations and business consulting. His last position has been as the executive director at PR firm MAKSIMA komunikacije, Zagreb, Croatia.

Marco is an expert in political marketing, public affairs and issues management. He has been a political consultant since 1994, one of the first in Italy, and gives strategic advice to parties, candidates, public administrations, interest groups and labor unions. He has adviced more than 40 campaigns at national and local level.

He teaches “Political marketing and public affairs” at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Milano and at Master Maspi of IULM University of Milan. General Secretary of Aicop (the Italian Association of Political and Public Affairs Consultants), he is founder of "Public - strategie per il consenso", network of professionals and firms specialized in public interest strategies, communication and research.

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Dr. Thorsten Hofmann studied economics, psychology and management sciences and graduated from the German national academy for security policy. He worked for several national ministries in Germany and advised numerous members of the German government. As executive manager of the consultancy firm PRGS GmbH, Hofmann is one of the leading experts in political consulting and campaigning in Germany. On the academic level, Hofmann heads the department “Politics and Public Affairs” at the Quadriga University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. Moreover, he is academic director of the “Institute for Political & Crisis Management” at the Steinbeis University Berlin. Besides various publications, Hofmann is co-author of the standard work „Krisenkommunikation“ (crisis communication) published by UVK.

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