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Azuth0667 posted:Have you ever worked on a small state level campaign like a state legislative representative and if so what was involved? I was political director and deputy campaign director for a state delegate race in a major metro area. I didn't touch the money side of things because I also had a Federal job at the time and the Hatch Act said I couldn't do that. We mostly spent hours thinking of people and groups that may be willing to endorse and supply volunteers. We wrote a bunch of letters to groups like local chapters of the Sierra Club, unions, some immigrant rights groups, chambers of commerce, etc. Spent a lot of time on the phone with the same groups. Usually they'd want to meet and chat, but rarely did they come out of it endorsing us, since we were well-connected but very unknown. Our candidate was a personal friend who had spent most of their career as Executive Assistant to a Very Important Political Figure from the world of political media and had spent some time working for a lobbying firm as well. It was really going well for about a month, and we had endorsements from 3 major county officials, one current state delegate serving in the seat next door, and one retired state senator who had also been mayor of a city in the district. The cornerstones of our pitch were universal pre-K funded out of a slight increase in the estate tax and women's issues. Then a candidate who'd worked for a former governor and been an LA on the hill for a then-current Senator jumped in with 3x the money in the first month and we stopped getting endorsements. Unions stopped talking to us and even sent guys to volunteer at the polls on his behalf against us for the primary. It was pretty soul crushing to watch 2 months of hard work to get out in front and make a real go of it come crashing down. There was no issue we really differed on. Really it was just an issue of being more connected. We were connected to people, but just not the ones that were big players in the state capitol. I don't live in that district anymore, but I lost a lot of respect for the candidate we were up against in the primary throughout the race. He never said anything in the open, but it was pretty well-known in local party circles that he mockingly referred to our candidate in pitches to donors we'd spoke to as "basically nothing more than a career secretary," which was real classy for a "progressive" male who was going up against a woman in a primary election for a legislative body with a lower-than-average number of women in it. I think we did the best we could. Our candidate was young and unknown but still got some good endorsements and won 35% against a bigger campaign that had union support and the resources one comes by working for a governor. My friend who ran has thought of running again for a county office, but she also recently got a dream job, so she may not any time soon. I think having a bigger cash haul early on would have been more helpful in getting people on our side, but most big donors were assuming someone bigger would get into the race and held their money. We impressed a lot of people, but sometimes you just can't expect miracles I guess. So what came of my career? Well, I tried applying for jobs on bigger campaigns the next year, but since I'm married I couldn't travel as widely as may have been necessary. I was only willing and able to work in my home area, which had a couple competitive federal races, but also brought in more experienced and flexible kids. I moved on after that. Moral: do all this stuff before you're married and be willing to go anywhere.
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Feb 4, 2014 05:02
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Azuth0667 posted:Did you ever run into ballot access problems? No. It was a geographically small district and gathering signatures wasn't much of an issue, especially since the primary was in summer and we did the signature gathering in Spring. I was completely inexperienced on this side of things as well. I started out doing it as a favor for a friend and it turned into more. Prior to this, my campaign experience was all issue-based and limited to my time in college. I'd been out of college 4 years when I did this.
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Feb 4, 2014 16:00
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