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I've spent the last 6 or so months since our Congressional candidate got REKT trying to work with the local committees to improve them so that (a) we actually have a functional party of some description when the 2016 Campaigns roll in and (b) we can actually win some of the hundred or so elections on the ballot in my Congressional District this year. I have learned the following:
There is nobody in the world I don't hate right now. Except Mooseontheloose, who made this thread so I can rant. Jackson Taus fucked around with this message at 05:49 on May 17, 2015 |
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May 17, 2015 05:37
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[rant]Dear Idiots: If I can find a hole in your plan thirty seconds after hearing it, it doesn't mean I'm an rear end in a top hat, it means you didn't do your homework. Like seriously, if you're going to propose a bylaws amendment, shouldn't "read the whole bylaws and make sure nothing else relates to the section that's changing" be a part of the process? Or at least "run a search on related words to make sure I didn't miss anything"? [/rant] On a different note, is there an easy way to explain to local parties that they're very obviously under-performing and aren't nearly as successful as they think they are? Because they tend to declare it a major success when the state party drops a million dollars and 20 field organizers on a race and wins or when a race ties the part of the district in their county but wins convincingly in the other part of the district. Mooseontheloose posted:My first bit of advice is to always join a campaign that you are interested in. Most campaigns from city council on up have some sort of consultant with them that work with vendors and have worked with other officials. It is a great networking opportunity. Also, you want to know how campaign operations work before you start consulting and doing the high level data/messaging work. Practicality goes a long way. Yeah, I'd definitely recommend spending some time working with or volunteering with a campaign, because it helps you get a sense of the "front lines" of politics as it were. It's also a really fascinating experience, and largely populated by cool people roughly your/our age. Its Miller Time posted:I got an undergraduate B.A. in Business Economics (accounting + economics + finance) and have been working at banks and hedge funds for 4 years. While I've briefly considered pursuing something like a PhD in finance, I don't have the aptitude for graduate level math. I want to switch industries to something more qualitative and political through a Master's program. I'm not sure I have the fortitude for a PhD but I'd consider it afterwards. I'd warn you of two things. First of all, the pay doesn't compare at all to finance. The entry-level campaign or legislative staff make really poo poo wages and even folks who get "better' jobs like PAC director or junior lobbyist make less money than I made at their age. I'm in IT so presumably you make/made even more than I do. It seems like the folks higher up the food chain in political consulting/lobbying/think tanks/etc make good money, but still less than you would be making if you stayed in a financial track. That said, money's not the most important thing in the world, and nobody I know in politics is like starving or homeless or anything. The second thing I'd warn you about is that approximately everybody would love to be a "political strategist"/literally Josh Lyman, and there are comparatively few positions available to do that. Of course, you sound considerably more competent than the average dude, so you may hit the head of the pack a lot quicker than everyone else.
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May 31, 2015 17:25
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Mooseontheloose posted:Finance if you want to make money or run a campaign To be clear, by "finance" in my post, I meant compared to his current employment in the finance industry (hedge funds, banks, etc), not campaign finance staff jobs.
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Jun 11, 2015 14:09
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It's really amazing seeing the difference between a good campaign and a bad campaign (or a good district and a bad district). Like today I spent time working with a candidate who has like zero dollars, just got a website, and is trying to raise enough money to get a campaign manager (I may help him put together a finance mailer because I'm nice) and last week I spent time with a candidate who has a campaign manager but no volunteers, barely enough money to pay the campaign manager, and the only reason he's got an office is because another local politician donated it to him. Then tonight I was working at a coordinated campaign office and the larger campaign there is hiring their 5th field staffer (and invited me to the welcome party tomorrow) and the smaller campaign is raising like $10k/week. It's really like two different worlds, and these campaigns are separated by like 10-15 miles. Gotta love that gerrymandering.Mooseontheloose posted:Yes, having clear and concise goals, learning to organize, and welcoming allies had nothing to do with it. Like focusing on easier milestones like gay adoption or decriminalizing sodomy or domestic partnerships/civil unions and focusing first on the more media Ls, Gs, and Bs before heavily starting the public push for the Ts and Is and Qs? tsa posted:Step 1: have your movement be predominantly filled with well off white people. I mean a demographic that is largely middle-upper class and childless with tons of spare cash is music to the marketers ears, where else do you think all this corporate sponsorship came from? I think it was less that they were well-off white people than that everybody knows a gay person. The push to come out of the closet was a huge success, because most people in my generation know a gay person and so gay rights isn't abstract, it's Tony and Ralph's rights to get married or visit each other in the hospital or whatever. Unfortunately this is harder to replicate for other movements - I remember abortion groups briefly tried a campaign like this and then dropped it. For economic issues, however, this seems much tougher since most people have social networks predominately in within their class - rich people don't have minimum wage friends in the same way they have gay friends.
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Jul 1, 2015 05:21
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Ofaloaf posted:I ran for a super-local position last year and barely bothered with any yard signs at all, and I super-regret doing that. I did a bit of a post-mortem with a friend after the election was over, and he revealed that he'd voted for a super-lovely candidate for the local school board just because he recognized her name on the ballot from all the signs he'd seen on the side of the road. Yeah, I've sort of suspected that a lot of the advice for campaigning comes from folks running races at the Federal level or at least well-funded state legislative races. A lot of the Analyst Institute stuff I'm pretty sure is geared in the Federal direction and the assumption is that stuff scales up/down pretty uniformly by race size (except that stuff like TV obviously isn't affordable as you scale down). So it might be the case that some of the assumptions made are wrong, and stuff that's irrelevant at the state legislative level is crucial at the Town Council level. It's funny actually, because some guys I know ran a training specifically geared around the premise of teaching people on like town councils or HOAs or PTAs how to run for higher office like State Senate because it's a whole different ballgame (and we say the same thing to candidates considering jumping from Supervisor/state legislator to Congress), but I never really considered it in reverse - that because running for Town Council is substantively different from running for the higher offices, advice that works for State Senators may not work for Town Council races beyond the obvious and intuitive scale differences. And I think most of the dislike for yard signs from folks in this thread isn't because they're absolutely 100% useless, it's a reaction to (a) candidates wanting to spend half their budget on yardsigns, bumper stickers, and buttons, (b) "volunteers" saying that them allowing us to put a yard sign up is a major contribution to the campaign, and (c) people constantly critiquing campaigns for not having enough yard signs therefore we're all going to lose. Like in 2012, the day we got yardsigns in at the office, there was a line around the block, and most of the people picking up yardsigns would refuse to volunteer and would feel free to offer criticisms to various staffers about what message Barack should be campaigning on or how terrible it is he hasn't visited our county three times already. It's also the sort of advice that slacktivists who try to worm their way into a campaign's Inner Circle tend to give.
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Jul 1, 2015 16:04
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You know who suck? Local candidates (no offense Ofaloaf). The Coordinated Campaign (which you haven't bought into because you're a poor local candidate) is doing a canvass, and we say that if you come and canvass with us, we'll drop your lit too! Great deal, right? Of course a bunch of them want to participate, so guess who's got to spend hours picking up all their lit and putting it with the correct packets? Me. And then some of the local candidates turn around and knock on like 15 doors. ARGH! Hilariously, one of the candidates that did that wants to buy into the Coordinated. That'll make for an awkward conversation - "Well what can you bring to the table?" "Well we can knock doors" "Like the time you and your staffer showed up late to a canvass and teamed up to knock a tiny packet between you?"
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Jul 14, 2015 00:45
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Ofaloaf posted:Haha, I briefly was working for the state party's coordinated campaign last year. In a Panera Bread. Using my own cellphone and laptop. Because the central office hadn't actually secured a place for our county yet, or gotten any equipment for us. We were still expected to make the same daily Yeah that sounds pretty ridiculous, but there's definitely a common ground between "treat candidates like they're your staffers" and "candidates can't even do a walk packet right in exchange for getting a ton of their lit handed out". Mooseontheloose posted:Counter: Panera's are great staging locations for canvasses. It's a great staging location for a canvass if you're doing a quick training, handing out packets, and getting them back a few hours later, it sucks massively to use for call time.
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Jul 14, 2015 15:37
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Tim Pawlenty posted:Last month I turned down a campaign gig that would have had me moving to the middle of nowhere for the same/less responsibility than I had last cycle. I still think I made the right decision since I actually love where I live now (moved out here for the last cycle, now I live here!). Good luck all of you, I'm currently interviewing for a position with a political nonprofit and hopefully I can just stay away from campaigns in the future and ride out the horrible stuff like 'consistent employment' and 'regular hours' on the nonprofit side. Yeah, in the campaign world you're either moving upwards or you're moving downwards. If you're taking on the same responsibility for multiple cycles you may be in trouble. Obviously "responsibility" and "job title" don't always line up - going from state legislator's finance director to being on a Senator's finance staff is hardly a downgrade. The problem with having "consistent employment" and "regular" hours is that I still wind up helping with campaigns and political stuff and the hours wind up being no better.
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Jul 15, 2015 15:52
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Mooseontheloose posted:I don't entirely agree depending on where you are in your career but yah, you should always look for upward movement. I would say if you moved as a FO in a congressional to a senate run, take it. Yeah, that's definitely fair. I meant generally moving upwards in responsibility or race size. For instance I know someone who moved from local race CM to state senate Finance Director, and that was a good move. Just don't wind up in a situation where you're in the same position for too many consecutive cycles. A good way to find opportunities for upward movement is to figure out who is running next cycle and make friends with them. A lot of the FOs on the Congressional last year got their current jobs by doing that.
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Jul 26, 2015 03:09
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One of the more frustrating things to me about local politics is that it's sometimes a challenge to distinguish the vainglorious incompetents from the stealthy operators from the humble "nose-to-the-grindstone" grassroots types. Like not that I can't tell them apart when I'm working closely with them, just that that doesn't scale to my level (across a Congressional District). For instance, it's really clear if I'm running a canvass who the braggarts are and who the hard workers are, but usually staffers run canvasses and at best VAN shows "shift completed" or "flake", not who did how much work. For example, I frequently see slacktivists post half a dozen "I'm going canvassing" pictures on FB and assume they're useful only to discover that they knocked about 20 doors while the quiet guy I usually ignore did two packets. This isn't just a field problem - I see it on the leadership side too, where people talk a great game about how they're doing X, Y, and Z but until you show up at their event it's not always easy to tell how full of poo poo they are. And of course I'd try the "ask other people", but other people seem to have the same problem: I've had multiple people tell me one guy is the biggest slacktivist alive only to watch him recruit a few people to my canvass and knock a packet and half himself. And of course it's even harder on the political side where this stuff is unseen by design - exactly whose fault is it that we have a weak candidate slate? If I ask Person A, it's Person B's fault. If I ask Person B, they'll say it's because Persons A and C are undermining and backstabbing them, or they'll say "well I put a lot of effort into recruiting for races X and Y, only to have my recruits stepped on by the Legislative Caucus". Or whose fault is it that a moderate-Dem decided to run as an independent? Joe'll say "Mary basically talked him into it by mishandling him" and Mary'll say "Joe never liked our candidate in the first place, he probably did it". Like I realize that that's the game and that most of these people are self-interested and this was never going to be easy, but are there red flags or best practices or something for distinguishing the helpful from the vainglorious and the loud idiots from the clever? Obviously "talk to staffers" works for some of it, but that doesn't really scale when I've got a few dozen campaigns in my area and there's stuff staffers can't really say (or won't really say until (a) they really trust you and (b) it's way after the fact).
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Jul 30, 2015 17:05
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Yoshifan823 posted:I know this was vaguely touched upon in the last thread, but I want to get into running as a candidate for state politics. I'm an Iowan (currently in Chicago) who watched Joni Ernst get elected in November and that has set me on my current course. I'm not a college grad (I have a diploma in Culinary Arts from a local CC, and did one semester as a theatre student before rightfully getting the hell out), and I've spent the last few years helping start up a theatre company in Chicago, as well as working as a bartender in the city. There are no easy answers. The political marketplace is relatively efficient in the sense that if somebody discovered an easy fool-proof way to become state senator, everyone would try it out and you'd be back to square one. Also, state legislature isn't really the bottom of the totem pole - in my state there are something like 1800 local elected officials (School Board, County Supervisor, Town Council, Sheriff) and 140 state legislators. Then there are 3 state-wide elected officials, 2 Senators, and about a dozen Congressmen. Basically there's kind of a steep pyramid, because at each higher level there are 1/10 the number of offices as the level below. IDK what it's like in Iowa but it's probably similar numbers. The length of planning is also long-term too - some of the more successful local/state politicians I know think 10 years ahead, and one turn of bad luck can cost years. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying if you're thinking you're going to move to Iowa in 2016, get a job on HFA, get elected to state legislature in 2018, move up to Congress in 2020 and be sitting in the Oval by 2032 you may want to re-evaluate. Pick carefully the district you move into. If you move into a district that's deep red, the race will basically be you hoping your opponent gets caught with a cheerleader or something, and in a deep blue district (a) the incumbents tend to stick around and (b) when the seat opens up the primary is heavily contested. One of our state senators in a blueish seat got elected to higher office a few years ago and the primary to replace him had 3 candidates - a Town Councillor, a former prosecutor, and a prior Supervisor candidate, and thousands of dollars was spent on just a two-week-long special election primary (and they then had to run a somewhat competitive race afterwards). Ideally you want a district that's purple with an opposite-party incumbent. This advice applies for state or local office, but it's more critical for state office, and if you want to advance you've got to be in competitive districts all the way up - if you win a purple State Senate seat in a red Congressional district, that's probably the extent of your climb until there's a big shakeup of some kind. Purple lower-level seat in a blue higher-level seat works fine as well, it just takes longer. Getting a job working on a campaign is not really a prerequisite for running for office. Sure, you should be politically active before hand, but you'll be in a better spot if you volunteer on evenings and weekends while working a regular job. Most entry-level campaign jobs are Field Organizers (cold-call potential volunteers to convince them to cold-call voters, knock on doors to give a 30 second salespitch of your candidate), and that doesn't really get you connections that you can't get as a savvy volunteer leader. It's not like FOs are routinely going to dinner with PAC Directors or rich donors, they're eating pizza with the volunteers and volunteer leaders. I do know one guy who made the leap from campaign side to candidacy, but he was a campaign manager a decade ago and is running for County Supervisor (we've also got a mayor and a few young professionals in those races). It's not a question of whether staff experience would be useful to a candidate, it's a question of opportunity cost - if you could get a higher paying job with lower stress and networking abilities, that's a better way to spend those few years. The most important thing is connections. It feels like there's a perception that a candidate stands up, gives some rousing announcement speech, and volunteers flood to him in throngs while George Soros dumps a million dollars on his head. In reality, campaigns have to be built - your first volunteer is gonna be your roommate and your first donor is gonna be your mom. There are 99 other races for State House, and it takes strong initial performance for the state party and PACs to take you seriously. A friend who ran for State House a few years back was told he had to raise $20k-$50k from friends and family just to get in the room to pitch why he should be a targeted race. Since you didn't go to college ("call through your whole fraternity" comes right after "call everyone in the photo album") and I'm guessing your theatre actors aren't exactly rolling in it, this is probably going to be the hardest part for you. Maybe try making friends with outgoing elected officials and getting your hands on their fundraising lists or something? Rob a bank? This is why you see so many lawyers in political office - they've got swarms of former coworker and law school buddies they can hit up for a few hundred or a few thousand each and they're loving shameless about it. This is the sort of thing where starting small helps you - it doesn't cost nearly as much to run for Town Council or Supervisor (4 or 5 figures instead of 6 figure state legislative races) and you can build your network while in office. PS: The above assumes you're a Dem. Reverse the colors, etc., if you're a Republican. PPS: Sorry if the above is a little condescending, my usual experience with this question isn't Goons trying to learn, it's dealing with Joe Schmoe who woke up one day and decided to run for Congress because it can't be that hard.
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Aug 13, 2015 07:32
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G-Hawk posted:1. Establish viable funding. This is the most important. I promise you won't win without money. Look at the race(s) you're considering, check out comparable and previous races. How much did the candidates raise? If it is 100k, you should probably expect to need similar. You don't need that all on day one, but you should probably be able to raise a good amount of that quickly from self funding, friends, family. If you can't, figure out how to build a network you can raise money off of. Be prepared to beg everyone you even slightly know. Be prepared to beg people you don't know. Don't get sucked into thinking you're gonna grassroots your way to victory, obviously volunteers and hard work and door knocking matters, but you will not win without money. In addition to paying for stuff, money is also how you get taken seriously. It's a sad state of affairs, but the best way to get other candidates or whoever to take you seriously is to raise a lot of money. If you show up to a race with a large warchest or you have a strong first quarter, you're going to frighten away opponents. Last Congressional primary, we had someone who decided on the 27th they were going to run, then on the 28th the frontrunner in the race announced she'd raised $200K, and the other guy never filed. G-Hawk posted:3. Build political relationships. This is somewhat connected to 1, but build relationships with local electeds, committee people, donors, volunteers, etc. This can be through volunteering, through going to fundraisers, through committee stuff, etc. You want to have your partys backing and have some strong supporters who can point you in the right direction and open some doors. Absolutely. The frontrunner in the race I mentioned above announced his candidacy, and within 3 weeks had hundreds of people at her impromptu fundraiser, an endorsement list a mile long, and six figures in the bank. By contrast, a smart but politically inactive lawyer who had gotten into the race months earlier had only put together $75K or so. He wound up dropping out ahead of the primary when he realized that most of the elected officials in the district were going around signing up convention delegates for the frontrunner. Had the frontrunner not made as many friends in her years as a County Supervisor, she wouldn't have been so far ahead and might have had to actually had to spend money in the primary to get people to show up to caucuses. G-Hawk posted:And yeah, don't rush it. It may be better to not run for 5 years and have the ability to win then than to run in 2 years and get run off the field because you weren't ready. Think long term. There may or may not be second acts in American Politics (Nixon, Spitzer, Sanford, etc), but it's definitely crucial to make a good first impression. When it comes to local parties and donors and elected officials, these guys stick around a while. Most of my town council has been around in some capacity the last dozen years or so, and one of our state Senators has been around that long too. The lady who throws the best mid-dollar ($75-$150/person minimum) fundraisers has been doing it for decades. Some of the people on my Congressional District committee were first elected to that role when I was in elementary school. More to the point, sometimes they move up the ranks - that phonebank captain from 2012 is now a respected staffer for a local elected official, and that School Board candidate who lost 5 years ago is probably going to be mayor next year. A lot of the people who are CMs or Directors on state legislative races were FOs a few years back. Tangentially, I think Hollywood depictions like The West Wing and especially House of Cards have totally given people the wrong impression of working in politics. There's this sense that you're supposed to conspire to stab people in the back in between blearily walking into meetings that you barely comprehend and then cap the day off by giving an inspiring yet vague speech that somehow solves all your problems. This seems to lead people to think that as a volunteer you should try to get the Josh Lyman gig or as a political activist you should try to imitate Frank Underwood. Because it's Hollywood and it makes for good story-telling, this elides two things. First, it skips the long road to those sorts of positions - Frank Underwood is 55 and spent 8 years as State Senator and then another 14 years in Congress before working his way into the leadership and a decade in leadership before moving up again, and Josh Lyman at 35 had probably spent 3 years after college as an FO or FD and then managed various local races before running a House or Representatives/Senate/Governor's race and then finally getting the job working on Hoynes' campaign. For all that they look down on or ignore the lower-level politicians, they used to be those people. Second, it ignores the fact that the reason people like Frank and Josh get ahead is usually because they did a lot of favors. In TV it revolves around the power plays and the blackmail and the threats, but 95% of the time, the way that politicians get what they want is by being open-handed. Whether it's pork-barrel spending or throwing a fundraiser or putting in a good word for some guy's amendment, logrolling is the bread and butter of politics. On a local scale, this leads to political activists and party people who think that the way to get what they want is to be aggressive and vindictive towards everyone, where instead they should be trying to be helpful and accommodating so that they can build up goodwill to spend getting what they want. It also leads to volunteers and candidates who think that the most important thing to do is talk about policy in a way that's basically a rehash of what was on Maddow last week, or give a generic policy speech with an uplifting tone and a few clever bits and suddenly the whole politics problem is solved.
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Aug 13, 2015 20:46
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Mooseontheloose posted:That being said, if you want to run locally, you have to get to know the local party officials and activists. You may not want them to RUN your campaign but they know where the bodies are and some important issues so you have to listen to them even if they are a pain in the rear end sometimes. That doesn't me you have to be beholden to them but you do have to listen and be open to them. It's a balancing act but activists can get tunnel vision, get territorial, or pick the wrong issues to focus on but they are still voters. Yeah, I'm not saying ignore them by any means, I'm just saying it sucks that much of the time they're more interested in being King poo poo of their little town or county than winning elections or working with people. Mooseontheloose posted:Make sure you know what's important about what you are running for. If you are running for school committee, talking about fixing potholes makes you seem out of touch. If you are running for State rep, talking about saving Social Security makes you seem like you don't know what you are talking about. However, knowing that East Greenwich's School System hasn't bought new computers since 2004 makes you seem knowledgeable and connected. THIS. Like seriously, you're running for Board of Supervisors, SHUT THE gently caress UP about how much you hate Citizen's United, you can't do gently caress-all about it and it's not helping you win over moderate voters in any real way.
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Aug 14, 2015 14:31
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:I'm helping with my first fundraiser, we're doing a Democratic Debate watching party. Get as much of the food for free as possible. Do it potluck-style or have the host provide it, or whatever, just try to avoid laying out campaign funds for anything you can get someone else to buy for you. Invite a lot of people, especially past donors. Have a guest of honor that's another politician, even if it's like a local mayor or town council member or something. Try to get other groups or officeholders to pimp your event, or try to get donor lists from them. Have multiple donation levels - Guest is $25, Friend is $50, Champion is $100, Co-Host is $200, Host is $500, etc. This allows you to set a low barrier to entry (not turning away folks with only $25) while also incentivizing folks to give more. You'll want to thank your Co-Hosts/Hosts publicly at the event (and maybe Champion-tier if there's not a lot of Co-Host/Host supporters). You might do the same thing with people who bring/refer people to the fundraiser. In a big fundraiser, a lot of your money will come from bundlers or big donors, and if someone who was going to give the minimum instead gives $50 because of the donation levels, that's as good as recruiting someone and takes way less effort. Those numbers may have too wide a spread or not be in your price range, IDK. Track all of your donors, so you can (a) invite them to all subsequent events and (b) send them fundraising mailers/emails later. For the same reason, you'll want to send them a "thanks for coming" letter (with a link to your ActBlue or something). You'll want to have name tags. Print them in advance for the people who RSVP'd, and have a few blanks with Sharpies for everyone else. Bring extra donation forms/envelopes too. Dr. Arbitrary posted:I was thinking it had been for the Republican debates it'd be fun to do a fundraiser that's kind of a combination of a drinking game with a swear-jar. You'd pledge dimes, quarters, dollars etc. And every time a candidate references Reagan, you put some money in the jar etc. Keep in mind that you have to be aware of exactly how much each person donated. You can't have a big jar of change from an unknown donor on your FEC report (or at least it looks very sketchy) even if it's only $20 or so. There's no reason you can't do a watch party for a Republican debate, especially a mocking watch party. Just try to leave most of the more incendiary comments to guests you can disavow don't be on record saying too terrible of stuff.
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Aug 18, 2015 20:15
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gohuskies posted:I don't do federal campaigns so I can't speak to FEC rules but in my state, legislative/state level races are allowed to report contributions of up to $100 in cash from anonymous folks for this kind of situation. You have a booth at the fair with a jar asking for donations, a few people put in $5 each and you can report $45 (or whatever up to $100) worth of anonymous "small dollar contributions." So if people want to do this they might be able to, just check the rules with the appropriate regulator. Yeah, as with everything finance-based, definitely check the specific regulations that apply to your particular campaign.
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Aug 18, 2015 20:39
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I hate local candidates. Why can't they be smart? Like why do I have to pull teeth to get their talking points included in Coordinated canvassers' packets? Note that it's not the Coordinated FOs who I need to bug about this, it's the drat candidates, the folks who should have been pressing for this themselves from Day 1. Which they'd know if they went to the candidate training. And of course after the election they're gonna blame the Coordinated for not helping enough, despite passing up opportunities and not really trying aggressively to work with them. We've got one or two campaigns with GREAT relationships with the Coordinated and the rest don't. I don't get how they can not look at the campaigns with great coordination and try to get that.
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Oct 18, 2015 02:17
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My Facebook feed is full of October Surprises, it's beautiful.Mooseontheloose posted:Because they know better than you about their district. Or their CM is giving lovely advice, or the district party chair is giving lovely advice. But I live in their district... I totally buy the "party chair is an idiot" angle though. Jackson Taus fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Oct 21, 2015 |
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Oct 21, 2015 02:49
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:I'm going to be helping manage my first campaign so I'm interested in anything to do with that kind of stuff. What size is your race? I'm guessing you're talking about something in between "Town Council" and "State Legislature" here? Dr. Arbitrary posted:What the gently caress is an Instagram? It's like Twitter or Facebook, but for photo-sharing. Dr. Arbitrary posted:What techniques are effective for GOTV? Depends on race size. Mailers are usually pretty good - send a handful of them in the weeks leading up to the election. If it's a small race you can have your candidate on the doors, but if it's a larger race that's less of a beneficial use of their time than fundraising. Is this election in November? If so, attach yourself to the Presidential campaign like a remora. Dr. Arbitrary posted:How do I attach a giant sign to the roof of my car so that it won't flop over while I drive it in a parade? With large, free-standing signs or parade banners what often works is putting some holes in it so that the wind blows through it instead of blowing it over. I don't know how to do that classily though.
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Oct 30, 2015 01:45
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I hate paid canvassers. You'd think that the canvassers you're paying would be the ones who do the best job and who are the most efficient. That would be false. They'll talk about how they've done this all before, but then despite training they don't understand things like "yes, you need to fill in the data sheets I just handed you" or "leave the lit at every door on your list even if they're not home" after I tell them. I had one who had a 51 door packet and who knocked 43 doors of it in 5 hours - (a) gently caress you for doing 43/51 doors, which made a staffer have to drive back out to the turf to finish it, and (b) this is the suburbs, you ought to be knocking more than 40-something doors in 5 hours. And another who knocked 30-something doors in like 6+ hours. When confronted about this, he said something to the effect of "well you only gave me a small packet and I wanted to work more hours so I took my time" and it's just like WTF WHY WOULDN'T YOU ASK FOR A BIGGER PACKET OR JUST COME BACK AND GRAB ANOTHER ONE?!?
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Nov 1, 2015 03:22
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Y-Hat posted:Funny how this month-old post just so happened to be the last one in this thread. Even if it weren't, I was gonna post in this thread about how if NGP VAN weren't a perpetually buggy piece of poo poo, this whole snafu with the Bernie Sanders campaign never would have happened. Everyone here who's worked on Democratic campaigns knows what I'm talking about. It's vital to have a contact there in case things go wrong, which they most certainly will. I remember the small political consulting firm I used to work for spent a lot of time actively looking for alternatives to NGP VAN and performing phone interviews with the people behind them. Dr. Arbitrary posted:I literally paid for NGP VAN on Monday. I'm not gonna pretend NGP VAN is top-tier or anything, but as a programmer, I've got to say that this strikes me as a pretty understandable mistake. As I understand it, they went to push an update, there was a bug that wasn't detected, and then they fixed it less than an hour later. Then they acted quickly to use their auditing system to identify anyone who abused the momentary breach, and took the necessary disciplinary actions. Now, obviously you want for there to be no bugs, and it sounds like this isn't the first time a similar thing has happened, but I've got to say their reaction wasn't bad. Whoever leaked this poo poo to the media, however, is an utter moron. Nobody wins here.
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Dec 19, 2015 21:10
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Feeling kinda pissed at NGP VAN now, Like I said, I paid them on the 14th and I still don't have a website up. Nationbuilder had me going on day one of my trial. Yeah, I mean they're in the campaign business, and 15 days is like an appreciable fraction of a campaign's lifespan. People simply don't have that kind of time in this environment. Plus "Christmas" isn't a month long, it should be a week's delay. Maybe there's a two week delay if it's a small shop and there's like literally just the one dude who pushes the button, but "set a client up with the basics" isn't the sort of thing a company should be rendered unable to do for two weeks by the holidays.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:18
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I hate local committee people who can't do their loving jobs. Like seriously, you know what the rules are for when your officer elections have to be held, if for no other reason then that you literally wrote those rules and we fought about them. There's no excuse at all for scheduling your officer elections two weeks after the deadline. And if you didn't think I'd check into your "oh, well I got a waiver" claims, guess what? I wasn't born yesterday. I got to be the drat enforcer today, and it was fun.
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Jan 5, 2016 04:27
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Mooseontheloose posted:Are you in NH? Are the Pats playing? I would avoid it because there will be super bowl parties. Yeah, I mean the game isn't until 6:30, so it's not like parties will start before 5pm anyhow.
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Jan 9, 2016 21:33
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What's driving me nuts are all these people (not necessarily Bernie-aligned, but often so) who come out of the woodwork and are like "we should fix or change X" and then go about it in nonsensical ways. Like if I want to pick a fight with a political group, I'm going to read the rules and figure out how to use the rules to my benefit instead of randomly yelling about something. If your fight with a political committee is that they won't let you join, why not show up at the reorganization meeting where they'll basically be forced by the party rules to let you join? That seems smarter than showing up 2 meetings later to apply for membership where you risk getting rejected. Or, if you have a qualm with one of the (well-qualified and popular) people in the running for an officer position, maybe you should call them out weeks in advance and put up your own candidate, rather than sending an email the day of the vote and hoping everyone votes for the other candidate, a kinda weird slacktivist lady. Hey, you want to run for office where there's gonna be a contested primary? Why not hold your meeting with party leaders on the nominating committee before they've decided the method of nomination instead of continually delaying it until it's too late to have much impact? Like, I realize that I'm smarter than the average bear, but "read the rules of the game you're playing" and "actually put some effort and thought into it" shouldn't be major accomplishments. I don't understand how these guys walk into buzzsaws so frequently without taking the hint. If I walk into a buzzsaw or so much as hear one behind me I certainly at least try to put my thinking cap on. Like how do they go 0-and-a-bunch and not re-evaluate their strategy?
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Feb 5, 2016 00:09
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gohuskies posted:It's all somebody else's fault, it's "the establishment" keeping them down, Democrats and Republicans are basically the same you know? They're just two corporate parties, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz being a kinda crappy chair also somehow means the local Buttfuq County Democratic Party is in league with Monsanto. We're trying to make real change here, the system is broken, and we need a revolution rather than making incremental forward progress towards improvement as has been the process of change on pretty much every issue in history! It's not even that. Here's another example. We've been having an email thread for about 3 weeks with a subcommittee on doing our nominating process. Everyone on the subcommittee except one slacktivist is participating via email and call-in and wants a convention. Slacktivist says literally nothing. Then the day before the meeting where we're presenting our recommendation, he emails the subcommittee being like "well obviously primary is the right choice and why didn't anybody raise arguments X and Y?". Holy poo poo dude, don't hold off on participating until the last possible second and then bitch that we've been doing the entire thing wrong. Even in the world where they're right, that's a really ineffective way to change folks' minds. It's almost like their preferred outcome isn't winning the argument, but martyring themselves.
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Feb 5, 2016 14:42
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TropicalCoke posted:Hey guys I am a college student in South Texas. I've worked a couple of races here in San Antonio as an unpaid field intern, one mayoral and one state senate. I like campaigns (though this thread doesn't support liking campaigns) and want to get deeper into it. I made a connection with the campaign manager of the last campaign I worked, and am looking at a paid canvas job for a state rep race here then maybe moving to a RFD position on another race (mayoral is in spring 2017). Is this feasible with a student schedule on top of that? I know campaigns can be slave drivers, and I am also looking at Congressional both in district and in DC and have opportunities there in the fall. This race is also in a competitive district. Should I focus on moving up in college or wait until after? I graduate in '18, so my hope was to be able to start working as a Field Director/RFD immediately after school using the experience I've built up. It's important to distinguish a "paid canvasser" job from a "Field Organizer" job. In a "paid canvasser" job you're given a packet and a script and sent out to hit doors all day (or set on a phone with a call sheet), while in a "Field Organizer" job you're building a team of volunteers, cutting turf/building packets, and running canvasses while also doing voter contact. They might call them different things in different places and different races. A "paid canvasser" job is probably compatible with a student schedule - you knock for a set number of hours per week, and do it around your class schedule. "Field Organizer" jobs tend to be 60+ hours/week and thus not conducive to student schedules. That said, in terms of future career opportunities, you want a Field Organizer job (or one which roughly matches what I've described in duties and stature), because that's the stepping stone to becoming an FD/RFD.
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Jul 13, 2016 20:25
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Spacebump posted:I might be managing a smaller campaign in next year's primary. The highest staff position I've had on campaigns in the past is field director. Are there any good books on dos/don'ts for campaign managers? (The following assumes you're running as a Dem. If you're running as an R, flip Democrat/Republican, blue/red, etc.) How big of a race? Is this like a state legislature primary or like a town council primary? How contested are primaries in this area usually? If it's a deep-blue seat where the Primary is essentially the General Election, that's a different story as well. Reach out to folks who have been campaign managers in your area before if they're still around. You'd be surprised how much good and relevant advice you can get for the price of a burger and a beer. Obviously avoid folks who are backing your opponent(s). If your candidate isn't already active in local committees, have him go help out and volunteer for the Hillary (and/or local) campaign now. It'll help earn him the support both of the local committee but also of the activists and volunteers you'll need in a few months. Cheryl the Super-Volunteer might help out "the nice guy from my Hillary Phonebank" whereas she'll ignore a random state legislature candidate. When you and your candidate go, you don't need be super-open about the fact that you're running, just hoover up activist contacts and reach out in January. Along these same lines, shamelessly bribe the current local FOs into helping you reach out to prospective volunteers (AKA the folks already volunteering for them). literally this big posted:Get your office, and get it in order ASAP. I had trouble finding reasonable insurance for our office, and that really pushed back our move-in date further that it should have. Once we could move in, the office still didn't have internet access, a dedicated printer, etc. Not having a centralized campaign location, an office to work out of, and essential campaign items will screw you hard. If something comes up that pushes back your timeline for getting these things, then it's pushing back the timeline your your entire campaign. Don't let that happen. In addition to being good advice on its face, this is extra good advice because it helps set the impression of you as the serious candidate in the race. If you look like a serious candidate, folks will treat you like one and it'll be a lot easier to get endorsements. To that I'll add that a critical way to look serious is to raise money. Heck, if you raise enough money early enough, it can chase off competition. I had a House race where a viable primary opponent cancelled their announcement plans the day after the campaign held a blockbuster six-figure fundraiser. The opponent decided she wanted no part of that, and a 2.5-candidate primary became a 1.5-candidate primary (and this resulted in the semi-viable candidate realizing exactly how long his odds were and dropping out). Mooseontheloose posted:DO: Understand the district Definitely. You need to know the race you're running and the district you're running in to know how viable different campaign strategies are, and you need to know what your candidate is capable of and willing to do in order to get a sense of which strategies you can execute. That said, recognize that this is going to require pushing a first-time candidate outside their comfort zone. Someone who hasn't run for office before isn't going to be comfortable with fundraising, but they have to do it. Someone who ran for Town Council and won with 38 votes is going to need to realize what's involved in running this race. Mooseontheloose posted:DO: Talk to local party apparatuses, volunteers, people who know the candidate best THIS. People loving hold grudges. Momentary insensitivity or disdain can freaking haunt you. Simultaneously, people often make their "who should I support" decision based on the most trivial of stuff, so showing up and sounding articulate at the right meeting or event can get you a lot of support.
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Sep 26, 2016 23:19
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