Steve Schale, the local strategist who ran President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign in Florida, sat next to me, poring over results as they came in on his waterlogged tablet.
Just as a local strategist may use familiarity with their culture to inspire brilliant ideas, your experience as an outsider arms you with a set of skills that are equally valuable in the workplace.
Some local Republican strategists expressed frustration that Mr. Romney had not already taken the state out of competition, given that North Carolina's unemployment rate is the fifth-highest in the nation and Mr. Obama's margin of victory in 2008 was the slimmest of any state.
For instance, Mr. Palmer said, when the news staff arranged for a local Republican strategist to record editorials for newscasts, he told Ms. Michaels to either add a Democratic strategist as a counterweight or scrap the editorial segments altogether.
His work on campaigns gives him access to both top Republican strategists and local operatives who know what is happening county by county, Mr. Unger noted.
Alejo Costa, chief strategist at local investment bank Puente, said the new government's policy move was bold and had good chances of succeeding.
Other panellists included academics, a think tank strategist and local MPs Chi Onwurah and Guy Opperman.
Mo has also been a key communications strategist for local and statewide candidates across the country including Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M ., former Virginia Govs.
There are plenty of Vietnam echoes in America's Iraq adventure, especially in the corrosive effects on domestic comity, the use of false or distorted intelligence to create a sense of immediate threat, and the arrogance, combined with ignorance of local realities, of many senior strategists.
