Patrick Dorton, Rational360 | Know Your Value and Your Audience

Patrick: The ability to absorb and move quickly is on the job training that largely you get in your 20s and early 30s in this town. The Washington learning experience around difficult situations, around scandal, around high stakes, legislative fights, those are the moments that make you great. ANNCR: Behind every major policy decision, every corporate strategy, every Washington power play are the insiders shaping the game and the new rules to win it. The deciders with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Brody Mullins and veteran DC strategist, Lisa Camuso Miller. Brody: Welcome to The Deciders, where we speak with the insiders, rewriting the rules for effective advocacy in Washington. Today, our guest is Patrick Dorton, the founder and CEO of Rational 360, one of the top public affairs firms in Washington. Patrick, thanks for joining us. Patrick: Thanks. Happy to be here. Lisa: Patrick, let's talk a little bit about your backstory. How did you end up in Washington? Patrick: Well, I went to Middlebury College. I didn't have great grades, honestly, coming out of mid. So banking and consulting weren't options for me. Came down here, got a job working for Richard Shelby when he was a Democrat. I actually changed into a suit in a metro station on my way to the interview behind a pillar and was hired by Trisha Primrose, who's now the head of communications at Marriott to be her deputy press secretary. So that was my first job on the Hill. I got paid $22,000. I lived in a basement in Mount Pleasant and that was my start in politics. Brody: So back then you mentioned Richard Shelby was a Democrat. He switched to become a Republican. Tell us about your political evolution from then to Patrick: Now. I reached a conclusion as a communications director in the Senate that the last hurdle in politics was really getting a job in the White House. So I managed to persuade my boss at the time, Tom Harkin, to defend President Clinton during impeachment. I would put out a statement every day from Harkin and I would fax it to every senior White House operative. Rahm Emanuel would take my call every morning. That shows you how desperate they were. So I became known at the White House and when they had a job opening, they called me up and said, "Hey, Patrick's a guy who helped us on the Hill last year." And I ended up working for Gene Sperling for the next two years, kind of in a closet in the NEC. Lisa: Did you hear that Patrick said, "Facts press releases." We're amongst friends here. Patrick: Exactly, exactly. I mean, in those days you'd sit there for 45 minutes and fax press releases to reporters, but that's how I got my job in the White House. And I just took a moment on the Hill when the White House was in need and tried to show value. There was a famous Senate caucus meeting where the resignation of the President was potentially being debated and certain senators like Diane Feinstein were very critical of President Clinton. And I did leak the contents of that Senate caucus to the Washington Post to the great chagrin and unhappiness of Diane Feinstein. I guess Brody: The question is, what was the strategy? What was the media play right there? Patrick: The strategy was very much twofold. It was one, to expose the Democrats who were being critical of President Clinton behind closed doors and two, obviously always to put your boss in my case, Tom Harkin, in a positive light as a champion of the president and both worked. It definitely caused some ranker between Feinstein and Harkin and Daschle, but the White House certainly was appreciative. Lisa: If I can interject for a second, you've just described to me my favorite part of when we were doing communications, how you could use the media as a tool to get people to line up and be saying the right things. You could tell a story. We never do that anymore. It doesn't happen Brody: That way. So you're also the chair of the Edward Kennedy Institute in Massachusetts. We all know the differences between Richard Shelby and Ted Kennedy. How are they similar? Patrick: Well, I really had kind of the privilege of being around all these Titans of the Senate when I was young in the 1990s. So Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Tom Harkin, Tom Daschle. It was really kind of the last lions of the US Senate is how I look at it. Joe Biden, it was just kind of this incredible experience and they were all different in their own ways. I would say one thing that was very true then that's probably less true now is there was a lot of collegiality across the aisle in the Senate then. And you're 25 years old, 26 years old. I mean, there's probably no other part of the economy where a 26 year old gets to hang out with the titans of the profession that you're in. And they were around every day. It was pretty incredible. And so one of the things I'm proud of is I became the board chair with Joe Kennedy III of the Edward Moore Kennedy Institute, which is right next to the JFK Library in Boston. And it is the only full size replica of the US Senate that exists anywhere in the world. We're going to put it on the American political landscape going forward. Lisa: Talk to us a little bit about Rational 360. When and why did you start the firm? Patrick: Well, I was in the Clinton White House until the last day. I mean, literally it looked like the fall of Saigon. There were helicopters almost coming in. People were taking things out. There was all kinds of cars and moving vans around there till the last day. My next job was as the spokesman for Arthur Anderson, which if you would remember, melted down in the Enron scandal. I was the spokesman in kind of a global scandal. Gave me a lot of confidence and I talked to different people and no one gave me any advice other than to set up a PR consulting firm. So I jumped in and did that and it was very much one client hiring one person at a time. I went to a guy named Ed Connort, who's one of the founders of Bain Capital, an absolute genius. And he said, "You need to start investing in senior people. That's how you're going to grow your business. It shouldn't be the Patrick Dorton Show anymore." And so in 2016, that's what we did. Brody: Let's talk about scandal. From the media side, when you see a politician, a president, a House member in the middle of a scandal, you think it's bad for everyone involved. But so many of the top communicators in Washington became the top communities because they went through a scandal. How does dealing with a political scandal help prepare you for crisis communications work for companies? Patrick: Well, I think one, the ability to absorb and move quickly is on the job training that largely you get in your 20s and early 30s in this town that actually sets Washington experts apart from people in all other parts of the economy. The Washington learning experience around difficult situations around scandal, around high stakes, legislative fights. For me, being in and around impeachment, being the spokesman for Arthur Andersen as they melted down and having literally 170, 180 phone calls from media around the planet every day was kind of an unbelievable experience. Those are the things where you really learn how to help an organization, how you kind of gain confidence in your ability, how to speak to a board, how to counsel a CEO. Those are the moments that make you great. Lisa: A lot of firms in Washington cater only to Republicans, others cater only to Democrats. You have deliberately made your firm one that is bipartisan. Tell us about why that was the choice. Patrick: Well, first and foremost, we think it's better for clients. We think it's better to have a bipartisan strategy. Things change in Washington. You better have a Republican strategy, but tomorrow you might need a Democratic strategy. So what you really need to do is figure out all the levers. The most recent lever that's important is conservative media, different than regular media. Actually, advocates for this administration and they'll say it. Their goal is to be advocates for the Trump administration. Reporters have the cell phone numbers of the president and vice president. Conservative reporters are making a very viable case that they're much more important than think tanks in Washington. So a whole new sector right there that is important to talk to, to build relationships with, to have a substantive discussion with. Brody: Patrick, the midterms are approaching Democrats expected to win the House, could win the Senate. Have you seen firms start to adjust for Democratic control? Patrick: Only a little bit. Democrats are about to be relevant again. The new sources that Democrats read have largely been left alone over the past two years. Companies are behind the curve on that. They have not hired the right talent. They haven't really developed public affairs strategies focused on kind of the left outlets. Hakeem Jefferies said there is going to be an extinction level event for Republicans in the midterms and he may well be right. And that is going to just totally shuffle the deck for what's really been a Republican leaning K street for a number of years. Brody: What does Democratic control of the House or Senate mean for your clients and what should they be doing now to prepare? Patrick: Certainly more hearings. And one thing that's happened is the hearing preparation business has largely dried up over the last two years. Republicans are not interested in holding hearings that put the feet to the fire of American business. And that is very much going to change under Democratic controlled chambers. Brody: We'll be right back on the deciders. ANNCR: For all it takes to be a property owner and the prosperity that comes with it, you have an alliance working for you. The American Property Owners Alliance, real estate experts, financial professionals, and community leaders standing together to support, protect, and represent millions like you. Homeownership is the American dream. We're here to keep it that way. Lisa: Welcome back to The Deciders. We're here with Patrick Dorton from Rational 360. Patrick Lobbying has changed so much under Trump, but there's 15,000 lobbyists registered on K Street. With the focus only being on him, do we really need that many lobbyists in this town? Patrick: I would make the case that lobbyists should get paid more. I think lobbyists create a lot of value for companies. There are amazing things and innovations that have gotten fueled by lobbying in Washington DC and that lobbyist should probably be paid the same as investment bankers or super lawyers or whatever other parts of companies that tend to be higher valued. Brody: There's lots of headlines about how much money spent on lobbying. Very few stories talk about what the return on investment is, which is always enormous. Patrick: That's very true for companies. I think again, it's a lot of times compartmentalizes, oh, that's our Washington agenda. And the truth is it's as important part of a company's engine of growth as many other parts inside a company. And I think if lobbyists were smart, they would figure out some way to get together and enhance their value somehow. Brody: The lobbyists need a lobbying campaign Patrick: Too. Yeah. I think they do. I think lobbyists do need their own lobbying campaign. Lisa: Patrick, the advocacy industry itself has changed so much. Can we talk about that shift a litle bit? Patrick: Absolutely. There's really been two big developments kind of over the past 15 years, I would say, in Washington on the kind of lobbying public affairs side. One is President Obama came to office and for the first time used the internet to organize people around the country. Totally changed the equation for companies. Every company all of a sudden was like, "Wait, what's our campaign that we need in addition to lobbyists?" Totally created really almost overnight the public affairs industry in Washington. And then the second is President Trump came to office in 2016 speaking directly to his base on Twitter. Completely changed the game. All of a sudden everybody realized, "Hey, the name of the game is not talking to the New York Times. It is communicating directly to your decision makers." Brody: Yeah. I sort of feel like in the next few years, no matter who controls the House or Senate or White House, both sides were to coming after corporate America. The rise of populism means that while it's harder for companies, the strategy is more public affairs and less lobbying. You're trying to get the American people to side with you and then you get the politicians to follow. Do you agree with that? Patrick: Absolutely. And so what's very much happened is grassroots strategy that influence Washington or influence state governments as well, but influence Washington are in vogue targeting of influencers around particular senators when they're at home or House members when they're at home with content with your arguments has become kind of one of the common tactics that we use in public affairs. It's very much an outside in game to influence Washington. So we are in a different era. Lisa: Patrick, you have a Washington DC footprint, but you are building a nationwide profile. Tell us a little bit about what's making that growth possible. Patrick: We will always be a hardcore kind of public affairs from running integrated campaigns, but we are very much also turning into a tech company. So out of our 130 people, maybe 55 are digital, they have created the most advanced digital ad targeting available on the market in the US and actually in the world. It has a patent on it. It's called pinpoint targeting. Something we invented in Trump won because there were all these new people who came to town and they were in the Trump administration. They didn't consume the regular news diets. They weren't reading Politico. They weren't reading the New York Times. We had to figure out other ways to get to them. And our people said, no, there's no way to get content on the phone of five regulators in the Trump administration. And we just kept at it and kept at it and we figured out a way to do it and that ultimately became pinpoint targeting. Pinpoint targeting campaigns have a 60% plus recall rate. The average digital campaign is 10% or less, whether it's in the White House, Capitol Hill, governor's offices and states, state legislatures, really across the board we can put your content onto the devices of the decision makers that drive revenue for American companies or determine a particular policy. Lisa: On your website, you say that Pinpoint is quote, the most advanced decision maker targeting tool on the market. Why do you think that superlative is justified? Patrick: Well, the entire ad industry is very much focused on spray and prey, running campaigns to black box audiences that are expensive that give you kind of the metrics they give you are really impressions, which every CEO in America is tired of. We just turned that absolutely on its head. We want a 100% transparent audience. You should know exactly who you're targeting with your digital ads. I'll give you an example. In Trump won, we had an FCC spectrum decision. It was a four year campaign worth billions of dollars and it was an entire campaign focused on the chairman of the FCC, four of his top staffers. The very first thing we do is we map every influencer around those five people and then we build a strategy around those influencers. And then you figure out an online and offline strategy to communicate your message to all of those people around the FCC leadership and also directly to the FCC leadership. Ultimately, the FCC kind of made the decision in the way that our clients wanted and actually cited facts that were in our Pinpoint ad campaign in the press release announcing the decision. We have lots of anecdotes from Capitol Hill where lobbyists are walking in the room and a member is saying, "I've seen your ads, they're everywhere." Well, in fact, it's not a nationwide campaign, it's really a more targeted campaign, but it gets a different kind of conversation going when the decision maker kind of has a sense of your substance. Brody: So there's a lot of concern in America about people's protecting individual privacy of regular Americans. What are the privacy rules and how do you stay on the right side of them? Patrick: So we comply with all the privacy protections that are in kind of US law and also kind of the enhanced privacy standards that companies really have. So we've gone through stringent compliance processes with general counsels at the most serious American companies. Brody: So many of your competitors and so many other firms in DC, lobbying firms, public relations firms, public affairs firms are being bought or invested in by private equity. Is private equity good or bad for K Street? Patrick: Let me just say this right now. We will never sell to private equity. We want to be nimble. We want to determine our own destiny. We have sold part of our firm to an ESOP, an employee stock option plan, which is something that was developed during the '70s, which is actually a great solution. We will likely only do more of that, but we don't want our strategy as a firm and a company to be determined by private equity. I have seen so many great Washington firms fall apart after either a holding company or a private equity investment, people scatter to the wins. It just hasn't worked as a model. We're out to build a great company here and we're going to get big and we're going to stay independent. ANNCR: We'll be Lisa: Right Brody: Back. ANNCR: It's about what's happening on this end of Pennsylvania Avenue. ANNCR: If it's important to the 535 members, it's important to us. You're watching 535. ANNCR: You're watching 535. We're live on Capitol Hill and 535 starts right now. ANNCR: Live every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, three hours a day. 535.news. Brody: Welcome back to The Deciders with Patrick Dorton. Patrick, we ask each guest the same three questions. The first question is, what's a decision from the past year that you're especially proud of? Patrick: One is very much I'm proud to join my college board, Middlebury College Board. Two is I'm really happy to be chairing the Edward Moore Kennedy Institute. And then probably the last thing that I'm proud of is that we've developed and launched Pinpoint Targeting, really using kind of this environment, this time and government in Washington to launch a cool tech product. Lisa: Patrick, what's one thing you wish you could do over? Patrick: I do wish that we had invested in senior people at an earlier stage. The company rational would be much bigger, much more successful. It would've helped our growth. So that's kind of number one. Number two is I have college aged kids. I wish that I had spent more time with them when I was younger, so that's a message to everyone in Washington. Brody: And what's something in Washington that people are not talking about but should be? Patrick: There's really a couple things. I think the rise of conservative media still is kind of under invested in by American companies. There's still a little caution. People want to make sure every single thing they do is derisk and brand safe and sometimes you just have to add new voices into your strategy. And then the last really is there has not been near enough thinking around Democrats being relevant again. And so companies need to start grappling with that and get ahead of the curve. Lisa: Patrick, thanks for joining us on The Deciders. Patrick: Thank you. It's great to be here. Brody: Thanks. Lisa: We'll be right back. Brody: Welcome back to The Deciders. That was Patrick Dorton. Lisa, what'd you think? Lisa: It strikes me that in DC we are slow to adapt to innovation. In so many ways, communications always seems to have a lag and it's impressive to me that Patrick's trying to change that with the development of pinpoint targeting. Brody: But he also talked about the rise of Trump influencers and conservative media to get to Republicans now that Republicans could control the House and Senate and the White House. But in just a few months, we all know that Democrats are going to have more control. They're going to have the House, they may have the Senate, yet there's not been a focus on progressive media or on Democratic media. I've never heard of a Democratic influencer in Washington. That's all going to change in the next few months and it seems like a lot of people like Patrick are trying to think about how to get ahead of that riht now. Lisa: Yeah, there's no doubt about it. They're thinking ahead. Brody: Thanks for joining us on The Deciders. ANNCR: The Deciders is hosted by Brody Mullins and Lisa Camuso Miller and produced by Dave Toby. 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