Campaign Staffers and Political Consultants Essay

Campaign Staffers and Political Consultants - Essay Example The manager would be responsible for any aspect not covered by the candidate and would often be the lead strategist. In larger campaigns, for example, a Presidential campaign, there are a lot of workers in the campaign staff to help with the required tasks. They hire consultants to devise a strategy and the manager simply has to co-ordinate all of the workers and the consultants together. Below the Campaign manager are the departmental directors who look over specific areas of the campaign. Below the departmental level, the campaign staff tends to vary in structure in accordance with the nature of the campaign. Various coordinators might work under a single department sometimes. For example, within the fundraising department, there might be a staff member who focuses only on direct mail fundraising (Political Campaign Staff, par. 5). The very bottom of the campaign staff structure consists of interns and volunteers who look over the less publicized yet important tasks like data entry, responding to various queries and speaking on behalf of the campaign to a large number of voters. Political consultants do not work for a campaign full-time, but provide help in the shape of advice and creative expertise (Political Campaign Staff, par. ... President William McKinley's closest political advisor Mark Hanna is sometimes described as the first political consultant (Wikipedia; Political Consulting, par. 2). The idea of political consulting grew from 1930's onwards as Political Consulting firms emerged and the increased use of television advertising for campaigns gave a big boost to political consulting. This business has grown rapidly over the years in its importance and influential powers, and has extended itself to campaigns at all government levels. Except for working for political campaigns they also work for political organizations, public relations and research work for companies and governments. These consultants are often criticized for putting their own interests before the clients, have been involved in scandals and some have gone on to become media celebrities after acclaiming wide approval. The successful political consultant, James Carville comes to mind who took advantage of his fame to become an expert appearing on televisions shows and writing books (Political Consultant, par. 3). Its critics have a point when they claim that financial interests are put ahead of the client when firms take on too many clients to build a reputation. Firms are often accused of transferring campaigns themes and plans to different campaigns, even if the actual context of the political campaign is different from the theme that is transferred! The American Association of Political Consultants regulates this business and has published code of ethics and gives awards as well. In spite of the criticism, consulting is always an integral part of a successful modern election campaign. Without a consulting firm to advise and strategize a campaign, and a campaign staff to effectively

Unit 9 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Unit 9 - Assignment Example There is a basic difference between management accounting and financial accounting. While the former provides necessary information to the management so that they can make right decisions for the company, the latter provides financial data to the shareholders, creditors and other stakeholders so that they can get information about past and present conditions of the company. Management accounting provides information about future trend of the company as managers need this information to make long term decisions while financial accounting provides factual data to shareholders and creditors so that they assess the performance of the company as their funds are in stake. One major purpose of management accounting is to provide cost information about products and services. Costs are classified into five broad groups – behavior, traceability, controllability, relevance, and function. Behavior costs can be fixed, variable or mixed. Fixed costs do not change with increase in the volume of production like rent, variable costs can increase with increase in the volume of production like wages and cost of raw materials, and mixed costs are combination of both fixed and variable costs. Traceability costs can be direct costs that are incurred specifically for production like wages of factory workers, and indirect costs that cannot be specified as specific cost of production like salaries of office employees. Controllability costs can be controllable like wages of workers since number of labors can be reduced with proper management, and uncontrollable costs like house rent has to be paid irrespective of the volume of production. Costs of relevance can be sunk, out-of-pocket, and opportunity costs. Sunk costs are those expenses that have been made and cannot be recovered like costs incurred in installing a machinery which turns out to be unproductive.