NYT: While developing the campaign, the environmental advocates closely examined the messaging tactics of the same-sex marriage efforts — particularly the message that the issue affects individual lives beyond the gay community.
“On gay marriage, it was that everyone has a friend, a neighbor, a sibling who could be impacted,” said Joshua Dorner, a strategist at the Washington political communications firm SKDKnickerbocker, who worked on the same-sex marriage public relations campaigns ahead of the Supreme Court argument. The same message could be applied to a campaign on climate change, “showing how it directly impacts people’s lives,” he said.
To that end, the environmentalists will deploy several mayors, like Dawn Zimmer of Hoboken, N.J., who will speak at news conferences over the coming months in support of the climate rule.
“After Hurricane Sandy, we had senior citizens stranded in their apartments who couldn’t get medicine,” she said. “Substations were flooded, and we were without power for two weeks. The threat to Hoboken from climate change and rising sea levels is very real, and the predictions are it’s getting worse.”
…