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Captain Bravo posted:And if you do accept the Republican or the Democratic apple, they are going to want some concessions, or they'll drop you like a hot potato. Eh, I mean it's not like at the lower levels there's some sort of doctrinal certification exam. If you're running for school board or even State Attorney General or whatever nobody gives a poo poo about your opinions on foreign policy (so long as you're not openly racist) and it's not like it'd come up anyhow. But yeah, I think there's a realistic expectation from the guys who campaigned for you and fundraised for you and voted for you that you're going to vote generally in line with their values. But on the flip side, once you're in like a state legislative seat, you're fairly high up in the state party itself. So for something that's not a canonical issue like abortion or whatever, you can help decide the party's policy - there are a lot of issues where you as like one of the few guys in your caucus who cares about it can have a huge impact, especially if you can get other legislators to generally agree it's a good idea. Get a few guys from across the aisle to see it your way and suddenly it's a bipartisan effort and you're one or two newspaper editorials away from getting it done. This even scales up to the Congressional level. I mean there's only like 19 folks out of 435 on the House subcommittee for scientific research, probably half of whom skip most of the meetings. So you get 9 of those guys to generally agree with your reform on how grants are allocated or how psychology ethics boards or whatever work and it'll probably be in the bill when it winds up on the House floor. Get on the conference committee (or convince someone on the conference committee) and the change will probably become law. Won't make the news, but you'll have made the world a marginally better place. Captain Bravo posted:Since the county level is the most basic building block of politics, (County conventions send delegates to state conventions, which send delegates to the national convention.) it's also generally where the party starts creeping in. Almost all county positions will hold a primary election, to determine the parties' candidates for the general election in November. Unless there's already an established Independent movement in your area, this usually means that the one or two people who already have an intrinsic advantage will get a few months head start on independents, who will have to sign up halfway through the year as write-in candidates. County positions include everything from County Judge, to Justices of the Peace, to County Commissioners. Primaries are not a large advantage. There's usually nothing stopping independent candidates from starting their campaign around when the primaries start. Heck, there's usually nothing stopping you from starting the year before the election. Also the presence or absence of primaries depends on the area and how safe the seat is in the general election - if it's a deep-blue seat with a full-time job and salary there will be a half-a-dozen Democrats fighting for it in a primary while the local Republicans will be looking anywhere and everywhere to find a non-crazy candidate. And vice-versa obviously. For instance, in my home state of VA, there were about a dozen people running for VA-8 in the primary because it's D+15 so the general election's a cakewalk and they're there for life while down in VA-7 they spent months casting around and finally got a professor at a third-tier school who writes erotic vampire fiction or whatever as their candidate, and he was less crazy than the alternatives, because the seat is R+10 or something so victory is unlikely and any winner would be crushed in the next Republican-trending year. This scales all the way down to County Board - you'll get a primary in a winnable seat against a weak opponent, but you'll struggle to recruit for a race in a really tough seat. Primaries are also often less about ideological purity (Cantor vs. Brat) than they are about campaigning and organizing skill (VA-8). Don Beyer won in VA-8 despite being one of the more conservative Democrats because he was a previous Lt. Governor and owned the local car dealerships. He beat out the real liberal state senators for the seat because he could raise more money and recruit more volunteers and get more endorsements. Even in the case of Cantor vs. Brat, Cantor basically didn't campaign. The real advantages of political parties in my mind are
Ofaloaf posted:Local politics can seem foreboding, but it's pretty easy to dive into that if you're willing to just take the plunge. I filed to run for local office (township supervisor) just because a friend visited me and nonchalantly suggested it. If you have the endorsement of your party (and it sounds like you do), make sure that you're invited to every event that Congressional/Senate/whatever candidate does in or near your locality, those other campaigns are carrying your literature (even if it's just a quarter-sheet with your headshot and "Ofaloaf for Township Supervisor" and nothing else on it), and that you wind up on the sample ballot. Obviously still campaign on your own because you need to win on your own merits, but any coat-tails you can get from those guys really helps, especially if their race is winnable. Jackson Taus fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Jun 26, 2014 04:35
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Ofaloaf posted:I don't have the formal endorsement of the party, I was just the only party member to file. It's a special election for a two-year term, and the township board's been a shitshow lately, so no-one's wanted to touch that. The opposing party has two candidates in a primary before the general, and they both filed so close to the last moment that I genuinely thought I was going to run unopposed, since the county clerk's website didn't process their paperwork and update until an hour and a half after the filing deadline. Call or Email your state or CD-level party and try to get some clarification as to which group has the official endorsing power in your race (or maybe several of them, depending on how territory is actually split). Call up the local chairs for those official groups and introduce yourself or have a 1-on-1 with them. Go to basically all the meetings anyways. Show up early with snacks. Shake a lot of hands and get to know folks, and try to get them to put voting to endorse you on their agenda next month. Ask them to consider helping you knock doors or phone bank (promise pizza, they'll show up). Pay special attention to (1) actual officers, (2) party members who speak or present during the meeting, and (3) anyone who looks or sounds influential or important. This can be hard to judge because everybody has a puffed-up sense of self-importance. Honestly you shouldn't have a hard time getting folks to endorse you, because their leadership is probably feeling some pressure from on-high to actually have a freaking candidate. Show up at the next month's meeting and they'll vote on endorsing you. You'll win because duh. To subsequent meetings send your brother/wife/cousin/buddy/campaign manager to speak on your behalf and talk about how your campaign's going great and folks should come out and help. Once you have that endorsement, work with your other local candidates to make sure you're carrying their lit and they're carrying yours and that you end up on the sample ballot. If the Senate/House candidate is coming to your area, try to show up at his events and either be able to speak quickly as an opener or get name dropped by him from the podium ("when you're out voting for him, don't forget to also vote for Ofaloaf if you live in TOWN"). The best way to get other campaigns to like you is to also campaign for them. So literally walk some of their packets in your town when you go out, and hand out both your lit and their lit. After a few weeks of this, you'll be their favorite person. You should also seek the endorsement of the unofficial groups you're talking about as well because you don't want them to feel snubbed and every little bit helps, but that's less crucial than getting the other candidates coordinating with you and carrying your lit.
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Jun 26, 2014 17:37
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Ofaloaf posted:Will do on the further clarification with the party. I've tried going to what meetings I can, but scheduling for everything's an awful mess. It's hard to say. It can't hurt to go to as much as possible, but prioritize the groups where you're going to be saying things they want to hear - if you're a "pro-business" Democrat (based on your previous posts you're also a Dem, right?) and can make the right sort of noises then the Chamber of Commerce is well worth it (doubly so if you're raising money), but anti-immigration or pro-theocracy groups are probably not worth your time. Really who the movers and shakers in a given area are varies by the area, so talk to folks who have run for local positions in your area before.
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Jun 26, 2014 19:06
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Ofaloaf posted:Yeah, I'm a Democrat. Of course I'm pro-business, I only wish the best for our community's economy, respect the role job creators have played in stabilizing things during the worst of the recession and etc. & so forth. Yeah, I kinda put that in scare-quotes because obviously folks that are relatively pro-regulation like myself still think private businesses play a crucial role in the economy. I just meant only go to the Chamber of Commerce if you think they'll generally clap at what you have to say. Ofaloaf posted:Mainly I just want to get the township's emergency systems re-integrated with the county*, prevent the board from voting another round of raises for themselves** and expand the new practice of livestreaming all board meetings and saving the recordings online. If everything worked out it'd be great if a previous supervisor's efforts at consolidating our township's fire services with a neighboring township's services could be worked on and approved, but that's unlikely even in the best scenario. Then go everywhere and talk about that. To the Chamber of Commerce, remind them that properly coordinated emergency services can get the best bang for the tax-buck and also help with insurance appraisals. Play up the safety issue with everyone else too, just vary the pitch a little bit depending on audience. See if you can convince the firefighters or whoever to either (a) publicly agree with you or (b) offer relevant info on background to the local reporters. I'd imagine (a) is a no go because that's them really sticking their neck out, but if you've got the right guy in emergency services you could maybe swing (b). Seek the endorsement of your local firefighter's union on the basis of (a) your EM proposals they probably back and (b) you're a Dem so you're pro-labor anyhow. Grab a third thing from the police union as to what the town council can do - something cheap or free that sounds good. If you can have 3 good ideas that (1) make everyone safer, (2) are effectively free or save money, and (3) are easy to pitch then you've got a lot of supporting arguments for when you're talking about yourself as a "commonsense reformer" who "wants to get things done" and "isn't a politician". I honestly feel like the raises thing is probably kinda hit-or-miss. Unless the raise was huge, it's probably defensible as COLA if it hadn't changed in 8 years. And folks may well not remember it by November. Since you're not running against an incumbent, those sorts of negative attacks won't work well because your opponent can just be like "hey, wasn't me, I wasn't there". But you can maybe tie that and the webstreaming thing together as more transparency and accountability. Hell, the dog kennels around here have web cameras so you can check up on them (though I live in a rich county, so YMMV on that), why shouldn't the town board? Maybe grab a third example here too? The reality, however, is that people don't really care about process issues. But it can be useful to "elites" in getting endorsements, so don't drop it, but don't open with it when you knock on someone's door. EDIT: I feel like I should add a disclaimer that while I am fairly involved in politics, I'm not and have never been paid staff, so it's not like I'm a professional at campaign managing or whatever.
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Jun 26, 2014 20:08
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Love Stole the Day posted:So after following the latest American elections from living overseas, and from watching the Last Week Tonight bit this past weekend about how almost 1 in 4 state legislators around the country are running unopposed... Many state legislators run unopposed because (a) many state legislative districts are pretty heavily red/blue - gerrymandered or not, you can't draw 100 legislative districts in Virginia without having a bunch in deep-blue Arlington and a bunch in deep-red Southwest, and (b) being a state legislator is kinda lovely. There's not necessarily a whole lot of respect like there is as a Congressperson and the jobs are usually low-paying and part-time. For instance, in my state, your job as a state legislator is 6-8 weeks in January-March where you're full-time down in Richmond, and then you spend the rest of the year back home. You make $17-18K for those couple months, but most jobs can't accommodate that schedule. Plus it's hard to run - a friend of mine ran in 2011 and he had to raise like $50K from friends and family in order to retain staff and be taken seriously enough that he could get further help. So basically nobody runs in these deep-red/deep-blue seats because campaigning for state office is somewhere between a part-time and a full-time job that requires you to come up with tens of thousands of dollars from your family/friends just to even have the tiniest shot. Plus even if your opponent winds up getting busted sleeping with his staffer or indicted or whatever, you're up for re-election 2-4 years later. Let's say you're a Republican running in a D+20 seat (a seat Obama won 60-40 twice), and your incumbent opponent gets indicted or whatever and you win. Congratulations! Two years from now you'll be running against some good-looking Assistant DA who can keep his fly zipped, and you'll get creamed because (1) 60% of the voters are normally Dems anyhow, (2) when a Dem wins it it's a safe seat for life, so any Dem with a chance threw his hat in the ring and the best man won the primary, and (3) outsiders are happy to help fund an easy race so the new state legislator will owe them one. So now you get to raise another $50K from friends/family, tap out every connection you made over the last 2 years, and spend 20-40 hours a week for 4 months campaigning, only to lose 57-43. Plus now that you got pantsed so effectively good luck running for anything else. I alluded to it in the previous sentence, but there's also a large opportunity cost to a politician in seeking a seat. If you're a Town Councilman or County Supervisor, running for state/federal office means (1) tapping any financial contacts/favors you could be using for re-election or a different race, (2) putting your reputation on the line, and (3) potentially not running for re-election if both races are the same year.
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Nov 10, 2014 01:10
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