When a politician takes a tumble à la Humpty Dumpty, it calls for more than all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put his public persona back together again. It requires an expert in reputation repair, like Michael Murphy, managing partner of Impact NJ, a lobbying, government-affairs and crisis-management firm based in Trenton. Murphy, a former Morris County prosecutor and one-time Democratic gubernatorial hopeful (in 1997), is the stepson of the late governor and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard J. Hughes. Murphy offers these tips for our hard-shelled chief exec:
1. Be Candid. “Absolute candor goes a long way in this business. Christie built a reputation for straight talk; he can’t afford to lose that.”
2. Be Humble. “The public respects and will forgive someone who acknowledges mistakes.”
3. Avoid Monday-Morning Quarterbacking. “What-if’s don’t help the present or future.”
4. Don’t Assume. that things will quiet down “He needs to see how things shake out.”
Ultimately, says Murphy, every politician should remember Dick Hughes’s Cardinal Rule of Politics: “With every decision you make, everything you do in public life, just ask yourself how would it appear if it showed up on tomorrow morning’s front page.”