|
GlyphGryph posted:I was basically going to say the same as that guy just said. You should definitely go and volunteer. Just go to your candidate's website of choice and click the volunteer button. Look for a field office near you. Unless it's for one of my opponents. Then you should stay home.
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2014 13:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 02:30 |
|
|
Dante Logos posted:I'm going to get laughed at but might as well try anyway. If you are going to volunteer, set a day/time for yourself that you know is going to work. Consistency is key here because campaigns have a lot of internal goals they want to hit (shift hours, body count, calls made, doors knocked, ect). If they know you will volunteer after work every Tuesday and Thursday they will get to know you and what you do. If you are erratic, they may not be able to pin you down. You'll look even better if you can start bringing in friends. Thank god you said you want to do voter contact, most people think they will be policy people or help in "other ways." Unless you can bundle some decent money together, voter contact is the most important part of a campaign. You may not get to know the candidate but you will get to know the people around them which is just as important. They will have sorts of contacts that will help you out in the future, no matter what you decide to do. By no means does that mean they can just get you a job out of thin air but it does mean they will put you in touch with the right people.
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2014 23:28
|
|
|
Mooseontheloose posted:Thank god you said you want to do voter contact, most people think they will be policy people or help in "other ways." Unless you can bundle some decent money together, voter contact is the most important part of a campaign. I'm rather curious now. What are your experience with the sorts of people who want to be policy wonks or want a job? I can understand where they are coming from to an extent. I have a variety of skills that might prove useful for a campaign. Keyword: "might". It sounds more like they want to advise on policy when the core focus is getting people out to vote, and nothing else. Is this interpretation correct?
|
|
#
?
Jun 18, 2014 23:40
|
|
|
Dante Logos posted:I'm rather curious now. What are your experience with the sorts of people who want to be policy wonks or want a job? I can understand where they are coming from to an extent. I have a variety of skills that might prove useful for a campaign. Keyword: "might". It sounds more like they want to advise on policy when the core focus is getting people out to vote, and nothing else. Is this interpretation correct? The problem with people who want to do policy is that policy rarely wins campaigns. Sure, you want to keep your candidate informed and have their own opinion on how to do things but really people aren't policy wonks at the day. Even your hardcore activists are driven by concepts than concrete policy ideas. Take single payer for instance, lots of people on the left LOVE the idea of single payer. But really, you don't have to say much more than that. You want to have some statistics and studies handy but it's not worth having more than a two or three people on policy. And this is if you are new. If you already are an elected your policy shop IS your elected office. They do your policy, they set your policy. They don't need a campaign policy person. Now, this is generally broad, I was on a Senate campaign that had a few policy people. But again, most were unpaid interns trying to get someone who only had AG experience to Senate. You need a few people doing research. Most people who want to do policy have higher degrees and don't have much political experience. While I am sure they are smart people, policy can only get you so far. You need to be able to articulate (press/field) your policies to people. As someone who works on the left, sometimes we can infatuated with our idea that we can convince anyone of our amazing policy positions that will convert the Randiest of bootstrapers. As for "other" generically things like getting into communities you can not otherwise access are important. Condo Commanders in Florida are a great example. Or being able to get into groups that the campaign might not of thought of before. Host a house party, get in with community leaders, do intel, all sorts of things. But at the end of the day voter contact rules the day.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2014 01:48
|
|
|
Mooseontheloose posted:The problem with people who want to do policy is that policy rarely wins campaigns. Sure, you want to keep your candidate informed and have their own opinion on how to do things but really people aren't policy wonks at the day. Even your hardcore activists are driven by concepts than concrete policy ideas. Take single payer for instance, lots of people on the left LOVE the idea of single payer. But really, you don't have to say much more than that. You want to have some statistics and studies handy but it's not worth having more than a two or three people on policy. And this is if you are new. If you already are an elected your policy shop IS your elected office. They do your policy, they set your policy. They don't need a campaign policy person. Friendly lobbyists are also key to campaign policy shops. It's not at all rare for a Democratic candidate to have a labor lobbyist weighing in on their labor/business questionnaires and for a Republican candidate to have a business lobbyist doing the same. Similar with issues across the board. This is especially mutually beneficial for non-incumbents who don't have established policy shops - they don't have to pay policy staff to get facts from and the lobbyist gets their hooks in early.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2014 05:15
|
|
|
I work as an event production manager and through literally being "a guy who will do a 6 month out of town gig on 6 days notice" ended up working on the 2012 DNC. It was one of the coolest gigs I ever worked on, at least the parts where I was allowed to leave my desk and escape endless budget estimates. It was really interesting working around "political" people that closely. They are so close to rocknroll tour rats, but more drinking and less loving I guess. That 6 months stands out as then most hung-over period of my life. What I really got out of it was that doing campaign advance work seems like exactly what I want to do, the same frenzy as event work, the same travel as touring, but nicer hotels and less having to climb lighting truss on 3 hours sleep. Sadly none of the contacts I made really do that sort of thing anymore but I am still trying to worm my way into it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2014 05:35
|
|
|
Dante Logos posted:I'm rather curious now. What are your experience with the sorts of people who want to be policy wonks or want a job? I can understand where they are coming from to an extent. I have a variety of skills that might prove useful for a campaign. Keyword: "might". It sounds more like they want to advise on policy when the core focus is getting people out to vote, and nothing else. Is this interpretation correct? I dunno if it's hostility to folks who want to do policy it's just that there's not always a recognition that campaigning is a poo poo-ton of hard work and long hours talking to voters and corralling volunteers. It just seems like there are a lot of people who watched the West Wing or whatever and want to pull a 9-5 where they spend all day talking like Sam Seaborne and wandering uninformed through meetings like Josh Lyman, bang a starry-eyed college intern in the copy room, and then spend their evening schmoozing with bigwigs. They don't realize that (a) Sam and Josh worked 90-hour weeks, and (b) you really only need like 1-2 of those sorts of folks in an entire campaign, the other 90% of it runs the gamut from Donna/Ginger (work ridiculous hours doing paperwork) on down to spending all day knocking on doors or calling. And even if you get a policy-related position on the junior level you're still gonna be the dudes that Frank Underwood locks in a conference room for 4 days straight until they hand him a massive document. Generally there's a frustration with folks who think that voter contact and volunteer coordination (or fundraising) are beneath them, because that's like 90% of the gig. bunnielab posted:I work as an event production manager and through literally being "a guy who will do a 6 month out of town gig on 6 days notice" ended up working on the 2012 DNC. It was one of the coolest gigs I ever worked on, at least the parts where I was allowed to leave my desk and escape endless budget estimates. It was really interesting working around "political" people that closely. They are so close to rocknroll tour rats, but more drinking and less loving I guess. That 6 months stands out as then most hung-over period of my life. What I really got out of it was that doing campaign advance work seems like exactly what I want to do, the same frenzy as event work, the same travel as touring, but nicer hotels and less having to climb lighting truss on 3 hours sleep. Sadly none of the contacts I made really do that sort of thing anymore but I am still trying to worm my way into it. The problem is that there's not a whole lot of these jobs, from what I've seen. Until you're at like the gubernatorial or Presidential level you're just not drawing the kinds of crowds that justify hiring folks specifically for advance work. In a smaller campaign like House of Representatives or whatever you might wind up with a Deputy Campaign Manager or someone in Fundraising (depending on event) handle some of those duties - when your District is an hour or two's drive end-to-end, you don't need a whole lot of hotels. But I could be wrong, I used to work concerts/events but nowadays I'm too busy in field that I don't really worry about events much. The flip side of that is that political work in general pretty well replicates the frenzy of event work and if you have any supervisory experience you could try to get in above entry level where the jobs suck slightly less. While there's not a lot of travel, you can work on campaigns in other parts of the country - lots of the folks I met in 2012/2013 were coming to Virginia from other states and had worked in different states in prior years. You're probably crashing in someone's guest room instead of in a hotel, but you're still going out drinking with a bunch of 20-somethings (disproportionately women if you're a Dem) after hours. If you want to do pure advance work, I'd suggest maybe trying to hook up with consultants that work at the state/presidential level and try to get hired on there.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2014 15:33
|
|
|
Jackson Taus posted:If you want to do pure advance work, I'd suggest maybe trying to hook up with consultants that work at the state/presidential level and try to get hired on there. This is more or less what I have been doing, but everyone I know is national so it will still be a while until things start ramping up again. Pretty much every large event in DC has a political presence and I keep meeting people that way as well. In general I am happy with event work but would love to dip my toe into directly working for a campaign.
|
|
#
?
Jun 19, 2014 18:25
|
|
|
Concerned Citizen posted:You should definitely go and volunteer. Just go to your candidate's website of choice and click the volunteer button. Look for a field office near you. Heh. Okay, then, I'll do it. I could probably commit to one or two evenings a week and all day Saturdays, so hopefully I'll have the consistence appeal Mooseontheloose says is important, and I'd definitely want to do actual voter contact rather than "policy", because I'm not sure what that even means and actually talking to people seems like it would do the most good. So the only issue now is finding a candidate to actually support. I am so not tuned into the political process here yet, despite having lived here for a couple of years now, and even where I used to be I generally didn't find out about who was running until either just before or even after the primaries. It doesn't look like there's anything interesting happening in my district on the national level this year, I suppose I could campaign for the guy who's running unopposed but that seems like a waste of effort. So I guess it's state level or... even city level? Do city level campaigns have volunteers doing stuff? I want to help someone win that is less crappy than someone else, but who? I honestly don't know how to find out this early on in the process! Edit: Actually,I've realized I am not just limited to races in my district. Volunteering is not voting, I can probably volunteer for any campaign I can physically reach. That opens up a few things. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jun 20, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2014 20:24
|
|
|
What are some "cheap tricks" or underhanded poo poo that any of you have personally seen in campaigns? I'm always interested in stories of political bad behavior.
|
|
#
?
Jun 20, 2014 20:35
|
|
|
GlyphGryph posted:I suppose I could campaign for the guy who's running unopposed but that seems like a waste of effort. So I guess it's state level or... even city level? Do city level campaigns have volunteers doing stuff? It depends on what you want to do but yes not only do these places want volunteers, often they need more volunteers because people ignore local races. quote:What are some "cheap tricks" or underhanded poo poo that any of you have personally seen in campaigns? I'm always interested in stories of political bad behavior. Doing a robo call at 2 am saying your oppositions name as the first thing to make them look bad comes to mind. Smearing a female candidate using her sexual past of hooking up with someone at the state house against her.
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 01:50
|
|
|
I'm looking at applying for some coding jobs at the DNC. Their web descriptions don't really seem to have a lot of information in terms of like job conditions and if the pay/benefits are competitive etc. Like is that sort of while collar HQ work the same sort of deal as organizing where you're underpaid for 90 hour weeks, or is it industry-comparable? I mean I'm happy to make some trade-offs to do in my day job something I really care about, but I don't know if that means double work and half pay, etc. Anyone have any idea?
|
|
#
?
Jun 21, 2014 21:58
|
|
|
Hey I don't want to hijack the thread with my own things but since this thread has the attention of some people in actual political office, I wanted to mention this thread that I made also in this board in the hopes of getting further information: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3621607
Love Stole the Day fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Jun 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jun 22, 2014 07:43
|
|
|
Thanks to this thread the bug to work on a campaign bit me again, having last volunteered for Rush Holt like, 8 years ago when i was still in high school. And today, during a hellish adventure, i stumbled past Rick Weiland's little ramshackle campaign office that's not fully set up and spent half an hour folding donation letters. and signed up to phone bank all this week. It's a sissyphean battle to pit anyone against Rounds, but hey, I'm doing my part to see another democrat in the senate, especially from here. We had Daschle, we can have Daschle's protoge as well. Queue the next few months of my boss and I escalating to...something sit-com-ish, since he's a huge tea party type backing Gordon Howie (which means I get to help produce campaign poo poo for him. It's actually fun to produce classy, slick poo poo for crazy nutjobs) and...Weiland is a pro-labor, pro-equality, head of a global warming thing, democrat, running on a platform of raising wages, and since it's south dakota, cutting bloat in government. (which is something every politician says and then proceedes to fail at. I'm kinda surprised, really, that someone with lots of DC experience between Daschle's chief advisor, running FEMA etc that he's pitching "cut government bloat" is the core of his platform, because it's going to be one of those things that if he somehow manages to defeat Rounds will promptly backfire on him when bloat is not cut and he votes in favor of more bloat.) Phone banking and canvassing, ahoy!
|
|
#
?
Jun 27, 2014 06:33
|
|
|
Do you guys have any resources that you use when finding office space in a city that you're unfamiliar with?
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2014 19:58
|
|
|
CobwebMustardseed posted:Do you guys have any resources that you use when finding office space in a city that you're unfamiliar with? Craigslist will give you a basic idea. Find out the part of town you want to be in, look for empty office space and give a call. See if you candidate has any connections to real estate broker and see if they can help you.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2014 02:01
|
|
|
Mooseontheloose posted:Craigslist will give you a basic idea. Find out the part of town you want to be in, look for empty office space and give a call. See if you candidate has any connections to real estate broker and see if they can help you. Also ask past local candidates if they know of a sympathetic real estate agent who might cut members of your party a deal.
|
|
#
?
Jul 8, 2014 22:43
|
|
|
So, I never did find a place online that listed local candidates, but I followed the lawn signs until I found what seems to be a campaign office, and across the street hidden in a nook is another campaign office for a different guy (that did not have lawn signs), both of whom seem to be running for the same spot? But both offices are always empty. There's no web address, no phone number, I can't find any way to volunteer for either of them online. To be honest I did not expect this part of the process to be so difficult, I'm guessing most people who get into this do crazy stuff like "already knowing people that are involved somehow". Still, though! I think I'm almost there!
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 19:28
|
|
|
GlyphGryph posted:So, I never did find a place online that listed local candidates, but I followed the lawn signs until I found what seems to be a campaign office, and across the street hidden in a nook is another campaign office for a different guy (that did not have lawn signs), both of whom seem to be running for the same spot? I've been thinking that a person with a moderate understanding of social media would be able to kick the crap out of a local election like this. With a simple website, facebook page and an email address you'd probably have a real shot.
|
|
#
?
Jul 9, 2014 20:18
|
|
|
GlyphGryph posted:So, I never did find a place online that listed local candidates, but I followed the lawn signs until I found what seems to be a campaign office, and across the street hidden in a nook is another campaign office for a different guy (that did not have lawn signs), both of whom seem to be running for the same spot? Have you contacted your state, local, or county party yet?
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 00:10
|
|
|
Mooseontheloose posted:Have you contacted your state, local, or county party yet? I guess I'll do that if this doesn't work. Wouldn't have thought of it on my own.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 03:57
|
|
|
GlyphGryph posted:I guess I'll do that if this doesn't work. Wouldn't have thought of it on my own. Honestly, call them first instead of trying to find the Hogwarts field office.
|
|
#
?
Jul 10, 2014 04:11
|
|
|
At the last Legislative District meeting there was a discussion of getting a website. I'm the only IT person but I'm more helpdesk than web development. That said, gently caress helpdesk, let's learn a new skill. Anyone have some resources on how to make a functional website that can allow one or two users to post announcements and a calendar? Edit: Playing around with WordPress. Any ideas on whether or not this will work? Disabled comments and it actually looks decent. Dr. Arbitrary fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Jul 13, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2014 05:02
|
|
|
Dr. Arbitrary posted:At the last Legislative District meeting there was a discussion of getting a website. If you don't have anyone that really knows what they're doing, Wordpress is probably a good bet. It's used all over the place, does a lot of work for you, you can host it yourself or any number of wordpress hosts, and there's all sorts of themes and extensions you can buy to customize it to your liking.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2014 14:53
|
|
|
Ok, I've got a calendar and some basic stuff. Now, what's the most economical way to do this? This is what I'm looking at now: Domain name for $10 a year DigitalOcean for $60 a year Is that about right or am I going overboard?
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 06:26
|
|
|
Dr. Arbitrary posted:Ok, I've got a calendar and some basic stuff. Now, what's the most economical way to do this? That sounds fairly reasonable. Any cheaper on the hosting and you're in "tiny shared computer in some teenage nerd's mom's closet" territory I feel like. In addition to WordPress, you'll need to set-up a mail server and mailing lists. You also need an ActBlue (or whatever the Republican equivalent is) site if you raise any money ever. It's DEFINITELY not worth trying to do this in-house unless (a) you're a web programming/admin Zen Master and (b) you're going to be raising poo poo-loads of money. Getting SSH certs costs money, dealing with the paperwork hurdles so you can accept credit cards, proper record keeping, an order of magnitude more security work, blah blah blah seriously just use Act Blue. If you want, you could probably get MYDISTRICT.STATEDEMOCRATS.ORG for free (saving you $10 on a domain name) depending on how the tech guys at the state-level are. If you're running a campaign or something you need your own domain name, but if it's just the general webpage for a Legislative District party, you may not need your own domain name.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 06:52
|
|
|
Jackson Taus posted:That sounds fairly reasonable. Any cheaper on the hosting and you're in "tiny shared computer in some teenage nerd's mom's closet" territory I feel like. In addition to WordPress, you'll need to set-up a mail server and mailing lists. A private host for wordpress might have been overkill, but if I'm going to do Email, lists and donations then yeah, that would justify it. Hopefully I don't gently caress this up because this'll be a nice thing to put on my Resume.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 09:13
|
|
|
Dr. Arbitrary posted:A private host for wordpress might have been overkill, but if I'm going to do Email, lists and donations then yeah, that would justify it. GMail business services is usually good enough.
|
|
#
?
Jul 14, 2014 12:14
|
|
|
Whoo, I'm canvassing for the first time this weekend! Looks like it's just three hours, but it's a start. Mooseontheloose, thanks for reminding me there was a state party I could contact and not just individual candidates, I signed up on the state website right after you pointed that out and just heard back about it. Looks like I'll be canvassing for Ed Markey, who (from what I know of him) seems pretty good as far as politicians go. Any... advice, I guess? I'm pretty sure I'm going to botch this up, somehow. Learning experience though. I'm too old to feel this excited about three hours of volunteer work, but I can't help myself.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 21:50
|
|
|
I did some volunteer work yesterday. I signed up for a phone bank and when I showed up, all they had were a few cricket mobile phones because the guy who knew how to set up the real phones didn't show up or something. I spent six hours making cable and wiring up a call center and I feel great. One of the phone bankers told me that she had contacted someone to volunteer and they said "I don't want to do a phone bank on those crappy little cell phones again. Call me when you get real phones" the phone banker replied "You're my first call on a real phone, they just put them in!" 
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 22:05
|
|
|
tyler is a joke posted:I do opposition research and have worked for campaigns, major Super PACs, and non profits at every federal level. Are you still in the PAC game? We might work together(or be in a blood feud across town). tyler is a joke posted:I do opposition research and have worked for campaigns, major Super PACs, and non profits at every federal level.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 00:29
|
|
|
GlyphGryph posted:Whoo, I'm canvassing for the first time this weekend! Looks like it's just three hours, but it's a start. Relax! Also, do you want to email me. I can give you some advice about where you are right now. Mooseontheloose fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Jul 17, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2014 00:33
|
|
|
First time canvassing went well, I think! Got a handful of pledge cards and had a bunch of conversations and it was actually really cool seeing and talking to people with lots of diverse positions on the scale, from folks who honestly seemed more enthusiastic than the canvassers (the old folks loved the fact that one of the candidates regularly visited the retirement communities they were involved in especially) to folks who honestly weren't all too keen on voting at all but would support your candidate if they did to people who outright stated things like "I'm not gonna vote for any of those communists!"
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2014 16:56
|
|
|
Dr. Arbitrary posted:A private host for wordpress might have been overkill, but if I'm going to do Email, lists and donations then yeah, that would justify it. I'd like to recommend the company I work at, NationBuilder, for all your campaign website, people database, social media, email, and community organizing needs. I think we have a really strong product and would be happy to answer some questions about it, though I'm not in sales so if you're interested you should just hit up our sales line.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2014 21:03
|
|
|
Aquila posted:I'd like to recommend the company I work at, NationBuilder, for all your campaign website, people database, social media, email, and community organizing needs. I think we have a really strong product and would be happy to answer some questions about it, though I'm not in sales so if you're interested you should just hit up our sales line. If my Legislative district was swimming in cash, I'd consider it, but I'm basically paying for this out of my own pocket so I want to use it to get some job experience. I think you have a pretty awesome product. I'd definitely recommend it to larger organizations and campaigns. Here's a local politician who's using your site, I think it looks great: http://www.aaronmarquez.com/
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2014 22:16
|
|
|
GlyphGryph posted:First time canvassing went well, I think! Got a handful of pledge cards and had a bunch of conversations and it was actually really cool seeing and talking to people with lots of diverse positions on the scale, from folks who honestly seemed more enthusiastic than the canvassers (the old folks loved the fact that one of the candidates regularly visited the retirement communities they were involved in especially) to folks who honestly weren't all too keen on voting at all but would support your candidate if they did to people who outright stated things like "I'm not gonna vote for any of those communists!" Any more updates Glyph?
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 02:32
|
|
|
Things are going well working for the superPAC. The one thing I'm on the fence about is that my work cell is the listed contact number for the state website and our lit, so I'm looking forward to getting a bunch of strange or hostile calls. We had a person harass and follow an organizer that was canvassing this last week, to the point he was going up with him to the doors. That was great.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 07:40
|
|
|
Tim Pawlenty posted:Things are going well working for the superPAC. The one thing I'm on the fence about is that my work cell is the listed contact number for the state website and our lit, so I'm looking forward to getting a bunch of strange or hostile calls. We had a person harass and follow an organizer that was canvassing this last week, to the point he was going up with him to the doors. That was great. What's up superPAC buddy?  I was just coming here to grip about how much it sucks to have friends on the other side of the firewall and not being able to hang out with them, despite being in the same city. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 08:49
|
|
|
CobwebMustardseed posted:What's up superPAC buddy? One thing that is nice though: my supporter housing through the election and some is pretty much a mansion.
|
|
#
?
Aug 6, 2014 11:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 02:30 |
|
|
Not sure at what point this becomes a necro, but what are folks impressions with using an auto-dialer for persuasion calls? I've seen it used effectively with GOTV, but it seems a lot less effective with persuasion - yeah you're getting more contacts, but because it's coming from an out-of-district number and there's a delay when they pick up that makes it sound like you're a telemarketer, they basically hate you before you've gotten two words out. Has anyone had similar experiences or better ones?
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2014 01:42
|
|