The runner's last lap: how Jim Ryun refused to go negative, lost a big lead, then recovered in the final week to win a U.S. house seat

Flashback to 1966: LBJ is in the White House, the Baltimore Orioles are dashing to a World Series championship, and Kansan Jim Ryun - an Olympic athlete and the first high school runner to break the four-minute mile - becomes a national hero by breaking the world record for the mile.

Flashforward to 1996: Ryun is now 49 years old and long-removed from the big-time track competition that made him a sports legend. He returns to the spotlight by declaring for the Republican nomination to succeed GOP Cong. Sam Brownback (who was vacating the seat to run for Bob Dole's Senate opening) in Kansas' 2nd congressional district.

Ryun had spent the last several years operating Jim Ryun Sports, a company that ran sports camps, and working as a motivational speaker at meetings of corporations and Christian groups around the country.

Many predicted an easy Ryun win, but in a district that had gone Democratic all but six out of the last 20 years, and with an opponent who was willing to dig deep into his own pockets, we knew it would be a tough race.

Ryun won a fairly comfortable win in the primary, garnering 62 percent of the vote in a three-way race against former Topeka mayor Doug Wright and Cheryl Brown Henderson, the daughter of the plaintiff in the historic Brown v. Topeka Board of Education de-segregation case.

Despite the convincing primary win over two able opponents, we learned enough about our candidate to realize we would need a sound strategy to repeat success on November 5. Furthermore, Jim made it clear that he would not engage in any type of "negative" (his term) or "contrast" (our term) campaigning. And damn the consequences. Ryun proved he was serious about this in the primary by adamantly refusing to respond when attacked by his opponents. Although he emerged in stride from the contest, we recognized that a drawn-out, unanswered negative barrage directed at us during the fall could prove fatal.

Understanding Jim's sincere aversion to even mentioning his opponent - let alone responding in-kind to attack - we tested the impact of Ryun proposing a so-called "Clean Campaign Pledge" on our August benchmark survey. We asked whether the following information would make voters more or less likely to vote for a candidate for Congress: "Jim Ryun has pledged that he will not participate in a negative campaign of any kind and will reject any third party groups that may try to run any type of mean-spirited, negative ads."

We were somewhat surprised that fully 65 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who took such a pledge. Even so, this pledge would greatly limit our ability to expose our opponent as an ethically-flawed, liberal Clinton Democrat. However, in order to fully respect Jim's beliefs, this was the best option. The pledge was a win-win from a strategic stand point. We knew our opponent, John Freiden, couldn't afford a no-attack strategy. Our mid-August benchmark showed us with a significant lead; Freiden's only hope was to go nuclear from Labor Day on.

When Jim signed the pledge, Freiden brushed it aside as a gimmick and refused to sign. Unfortunately, the press bought Freiden's spin and refrained from criticizing him for not signing. Nevertheless, it gave us the opening we would eventually need.

Charge from Behind

John Freiden began attacking Jim Ryun about six weeks out. At first, he adopted a cookie-cutter strategy that came right out of the DNC playbook: Jim Ryun wants to cut education. Jim Ryun wants to cut Medicare and Social Security. Jim Ryun will raid your pensions. And - again, like most Democratic candidates in '96 - Freiden attempted to set a record for mentioning both Newt Gingrich and Jim Ryun in the same breath.

These attacks were working for three reasons. First, they were messages that people were ready to believe about conservative Republicans. Second, when you put 2,000 gross rating points of TV time a points at week (meaning the average viewer will see the ads 20 times) behind any message, sooner or later it will cut teeth. Third, and most important, there was no response from the Ryun campaign.

It is important to note that, by design, Ryun could have responded to Freiden's charges without breaking his clean campaign pledge. By using paid media to highlight the fact that he had signed the pledge and Freiden had refused, Ryun could have raised Freiden's negatives without ever actually attacking him. This would have allowed Jim to stay positive by talking about his own candidacy.

But Jim Ryun held true to his conviction and let the attacks go.

Neck and Neck

We knew Freiden's ads were having a significant effect. After they released a poll showing the race had tightened, our campaign manager Deirdre Finn suggested we take a poll to determine just how much damage had been done.

The numbers weren't surprising: our substantial lead had dwindled to nine points. Furthermore, our unfavorable rating had risen eleven points from 18 to 29, and with women under 40 we had a 10 point net unfavorable rating - not an encouraging sign considering 60 percent of the undecideds were women. However, even though the race had closed dramatically, the internal numbers told us that if we could stop the erosion with women we still had the inside track to victory.

Then Freiden released his final attack ad.

Last Lap

During the course of the campaign, John Freiden had been relying upon word of mouth and earned media to tell the story of Jim Ryun's alleged "far right" views on religion, family and the rearing of his children. He talked about it at appearances, had supporters write letters regarding these issues and dropped hints and leads to local reporters. But these attacks on Ryun's personal views were not used in their paid media until the last 10 days of the campaign.

At about the same time, Freiden released a Cooper & Secrest poll showing he had moved into the lead, 49-42. Knowing these numbers were probably accurate, if we wanted to win we knew it was time to respond.

Kansans had always loved Jim Ryun. They simply needed to be told that he wasn't the radical, misogynistic, fundamentalist on a jihad from hell Freiden's ads made him out to be. We had to reassure the voters that this was the Jim Ryun they had always known. To put it simply, we had to expose Freiden's ads as false. It was time to respond within the parameters laid out in the pledge.

Second Wand

The first response, titled "The Ryun Family," set the stage for Ryun's retaking the lead. The ad featured Jim, his wife, Anne, and their four children sitting on stools in their living room. They each talked about the attacks and addressed the camera in turn.

This provided the voters with a positive image of the Ryuns as a close knit, attractive, and supportive family. It also took a sort of "shame on you, John" tone to highlight the fact that Freiden was attacking a family that made the Waltons look dysfunctional. It also set the stage for our last ad, "Kansas is not for sale."

The final ad informed the voters that Freiden was a millionaire trial lawyer spending his own money to attack Jim Ryun and his family. And it told the voters something not widely known: that unlike commercial advertising, federal law required stations to run Freiden's campaign attack ads, even though they weren't true.

The ads worked for two reasons. First, they helped discredit Freiden as a messenger. They created doubts about his character. It sort of said to the voters, "Remember that nice family you've been hearing about, The Ryuns? Well, this is the guy who has been attacking them." Perhaps most importantly, it allowed us to respond within the parameters originally set out by Ryun. Freiden's negatives went up.

Finish Line

The weekend before the election, on the McLaughlin Group (a weekly, semi-civil discussion of national politics), respected pundit Stuart Rothenberg used his prediction segment at the end of the show to make a single forecast for Nov. 5th: Jim Ryun will lose! Two days later, Ryun won with 55 percent.

No doubt, we would've lost had we not ended the campaign with our last two ads. Fortunately, we had enough media points to adequately push our final message over the last five days.

There were three keys to winning this race were:

1. Understanding the candidate. We knew Jim Ryun would never attack Freiden on personal matters, so we devised a strategy based on that assumption. The clean campaign pledge gave us an opportunity to draw a clear distinction between the two candidates without "going negative."

2. Anticipating the opposition. We knew that John Freiden would never sign the pledge. If he did, then abided by it, Ryun would have won by 20 points. We fully expected every single attack and we were prepared to respond in the end.

3. Having a solid closing strategy. We understood that this race would get close in October, due to the barrage of attacks. We were prepared to set the record straight. The decision was when and how to do it.

It is also important to note that had Deirdre Finn and the Ryun campaign not raised the amount of money necessary to carry our message in the final week, there would not have been enough media points behind the ads to make any difference.

Besides having a candidate with Jim Ryun's commitment and fame, this campaign is notable as a classic example of the proper integration of polling data into strategy and message. They were then merged and delivered in first-rate ads that allowed us to reverse the tide and cross the finish line with a victory.

                       RYUN CAMPAIGN        FREIDEN CAMPAIGN

Media Consultants    Welch/Norman Comm.    The Campaign Group
Pollsters           Fabrizio-McLaughlin     Cooper-Secrest
Spending                $ 400,216              $ 748,108
Votes                     130,927                114,051

COPYRIGHT 1997 Campaigns & Elections, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group