What should you do in an election campaign: emphasize your own strengths or neutralize your weaknesses? In most cases, it’s a smart combination of the two. An important factor in this respect is time because it takes time to change public opinion and neutralize weaknesses. The less time you have (or during a crisis), the more you should just harp your strengths. If you approach election day, double down on what is working. In the long run, however, wise politicians and candidates work on neutralizing their weaknesses. In the campaign jargon, we call this “inoculation” strategies and my working hypothesis is that any weakness can be neutralized.