It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a Saturday Diary of Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. Each week, we discuss issues that help drive successful campaigns, and once a month we look into “Horrible mistakes you should avoid” (last Saturday of a month). If you’ve missed prior diaries, please visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.
For those who have been following, you know that our candidate, Jessica Jones, is preparing her run for a state senate seat. Jessica has done a pretty good job following the prior steps of this diary series. I hope Jessica has been listening to some good advice and following some of the suggestions I’m providing her, but this week, I want Jessica to focus on how to say no.
The moment you declare your campaign, you will be confronted by a nearly endless number of individuals who want to offer you advice on every step you take. There will be times you make good choices and times you make bad choices, but being a candidate doesn’t give you prophetic vision. You simply have to choose your path, adjust as you see fit, and have individuals around you that you trust. This week, we’re going to focus on the need of a candidate to say pleasantly say no and move on.
The art of saying “no” is a subject I could write multiple Nuts & Bolts stories about. Whether it is campaign advice or the need to tell a volunteer that they need to do something else, managing a campaign, like managing a business, requires the ability to have assertive managerial skills in order to succeed and keep your sanity.
In order to keep this entry short, however, I’m going to focus on the three areas that most frequently trip candidates up, focusing on when “no” is most important to small campaigns.
There are a lot of “no” moments when you are getting started.
Running for state Senate in a mid-sized state, Jessica Jones began planning her run for office a year before Election Day. The larger the state and the more money you need to raise, the earlier you are likely to start. Running for State Senate, Jessica will need to find her treasurer, a campaign manager or consultant (and maybe both), and start looking at her district. We’ve discussed many of these items in other diaries, but what we haven’t touched on is that during this process, Jessica will receive a LOT of outside advice from former candidates, elected party members, and party officials at the state, county and maybe city level.
Like any startup business, Jessica begins her campaign by hunting for the right employees. Even if Jessica is running a low-budget campaign and volunteers will be a key to her success, she has to make her hiring decisions in a way that will match with her personality and goals for her election bid. While recruiting the right people to help her, Jessica will receive a great deal of advice, as many of the individuals she will consider will likely have long track records of work within her local Democratic Party. There will be positives and negatives to the track records of anyone who she considers for her campaign. Unless they are someone who has won every single campaign they have ever been a part of, Jessica can expect to hear from others about the pros and cons of working with anyone she considers. She can also expect to hear from former candidates who worked with them, both positive and negative.
Like a business, Jessica will do her own assessment, but once she has made her decisions she will need to show support to whoever she is working with and quiet some naysayers. I would love to say she will be met with all cheers and support regarding her staffing and campaign choices, but every campaign is met with some criticism from the very beginning. This is where Jessica will need to put her foot down with a few well placed “no” responses.
Because many of the people who want to work with Jessica likely have some leadership roles within the local or state party, she needs to make her choices carefully, considering that she needs good relations with the individuals she didn’t choose to work with. The easiest way to protect yourself from second guessing is to treat others who wanted a role fairly and making sure they hear the decision directly from the candidate. This means finding a friendly way to say, “I’ve decided to go another way.”
Many of these conversations are difficult for candidates, just as they are for employers. But candidates need to take the time to gracefully let others know the direction she has decided, and to give them an opportunity to move on. A lot of down ballot candidates have a tendency to practice “The fade away,” where potential managers, treasurers or volunteers just find out later they were not added to the campaign by the knowledge leaking through the county or state party.
Don’t let this happen to your campaign. Jessica’s first call is to Tim Green, a local activist who helped run a campaign for another Senate race in her county eight years ago. Tim had talked to her at a county meeting and suggested he wanted to work with her this campaign. These are low budget campaigns, so Tim wasn’t looking for a lot of pay, just compensation for time. Tim applied with considerable positive support within the county party. Still, Jessica decided to work with Sarah Smith. Sarah hadn’t worked on a state Senate campaign, but she managed a nearby state house campaign two years ago and also had people speak positively of her. Before calling Sarah and letting her know she had been chosen, Jessica Jones picked up the phone and called Tim Green.
Making sure that Tim heard from her that she had decided to do something different was important in maintaining the relationship. In a phone call, Jessica can express to Tim that she was grateful he considered her and she took his approach seriously, but she had decided to go a different way. She thanks Tim for his time, and she wishes him well and hopes that he will find the right candidate in other races nearby.
This is the first in a series of “no, but thank you” a campaign will have to take part in. It is important to start on the right foot and make sure that you stand up for the people who you have chosen to work with, but just as important that you make sure those you say no to feel as though they were treated properly in the process.
You can’t do it all.
As Jessica’s race moves forward, she will be approached with numerous opportunities. We’ve discussed meetings in previous diaries, but they are only the tip of the iceberg as to the demands a candidate will face for their time. Community gatherings, backyard BBQs and even your private life can quickly be scheduled to your physical limits.
As a result, you’re going to need to start a schedule of events and get a plan of action, and that plan of action will include setting days aside or determining which event you attend.
In Jessica’s local community, she will have invites from her local Democratic Women’s group, Environmental Advocacy State Group, LGBT forums, pro-choice gatherings, county party meetings, local house parties, legislative forums, union meeting invites, Unitarian invites, and that’s before she figures in time to make fundraising calls and walk her district.
The reality is, Jessica Jones needs to pick and choose what events she attends. That means groups that meet monthly may not see her every month. Many groups have limits on how often they must see a candidate in order to provide them with donations or financial support. Jessica needs to know that she has to attend the LGBT forum at least twice a year, the pro-choice fund needs to see her once a year, and her environmental lobby needs to see her three times over two years—which can include time where she was not a candidate.
Knowing what she needs to do, Jessica can begin to fill out her schedule and make sure she attends the number of events she needs to attend in order to make friends within the local party, but not so many that those events take over her campaign.
That means occasionally, Jessica Jones is going to have to say no. In many cases, she can choose to not appear. There isn’t a real reason to serve notice to standing monthly meetings that she will not be there, unless she is a member of a committee within that group.
When Jessica does attend one of these meetings, she will likely be asked why she doesn’t attend more of their meetings. This is where Jessica Jones needs to be firm in the “Unfortunately, I need to visit a lot of groups, and I want to make sure everyone in my district sees me and that I have a chance to walk all of my district before the election.”
You’ll need to learn to say “no” in such a way that makes support groups understand that you are glad to give them as much time as you can afford, but you need to focus on connecting with as many groups as possible.
Some groups may have difficult or conflicting schedules. Jessica Jones wants to attend the local alternative energy forum meetings, but all but one of them conflict with either the women’s forum meeting or the chamber of commerce meeting. Unfortunately, she can’t be in both places at once. While the alternative energy forum also has rules about whom they donate to, she knows it is very unlikely she can attend the number of meetings she would need to attend to qualify for their support. Remember: advocacy groups have a lot of candidates to choose from and limited resources; they cannot support everyone. Rather than trying to thread the needle, Jessica takes the time to call the leader of the local alternative energy group, tells her that she supports their cause and will be a good legislator, but she is unlikely to make more than one meeting that year. She recognizes this puts her outside of their funding guidelines, but she hopes that she can still express support for their cause and work for their vote.
Jessica may also receive invites from groups she decides she doesn’t want to be a part of, doesn’t support, or can’t support in her campaign. A local group near her, that she refers to as the “granola group” is dedicated to changing state rules in favor of homeopathic solutions and alternative medicine. They will of course send her invites because they are looking for people to back. Jessica doesn’t believe in their cause, and certainly won’t be a vote for many of their issues if elected. It would be bad form for her to say, “get away from me, you are weird.” Instead, Jessica Jones runs into their group leader at a local Democratic meeting and lets her know that she can’t attend her meetings. In many ways, being blunt, but nice, helps. “I don’t think I really reflect your issues well. I will work for your vote on many other issues, but we may not agree on this, and I don’t want to cause disruption to your meetings.”
Do NOT start a confrontation. Be polite but direct.
The really big “no”: You can’t work for me.
Months into her campaign, Jessica Jones is really happy with her campaign manager, Sarah Smith. They work together well and Jessica is pretty confident she made the right choice. As she starts to work with volunteers, though, Jessica realizes that she has more than one volunteer who isn’t representing her campaign well.
Jessica’s canvass has simple rules. Dress nicely, no clothes that have images, phrases or slogans on them, and don’t smoke or litter while you are walking the district. Jessica knows it is important to make sure people advancing her cause represent her well.
Max started out as a hard worker. He showed up every single day, and he would anchor her canvass. But over the last few days, Jessica has had reports that despite all his past work, Max isn’t collecting much data while he’s out there, and now a few other canvassers are telling her that he started using a vape pen while he walks around the district.
This isn’t acceptable to Jessica. While Max was a hardworking volunteer, he still has to follow the rules she has set. The hardest “no” a candidate often has is a no that says: you can’t work for me in this role anymore, especially when that role is unpaid as a volunteer.
To keep her campaign on track, though, Jessica needs to take a second and talk to Max. If her campaign were in a larger, more populous district, her campaign manager or consultant would bear this conversation, but it often is better received in a smaller race if the candidate addresses the volunteer directly. She can explain the rules and explain to Max that there are concerns about him not representing the campaign well. She can offer him another job—whether it is phone banking or handling the mail—but for the time being, she’d prefer he not walk the district.
Volunteers can get very personally invested in a campaign. This is why if you are a campaign that has resources, you work to have paid canvass and outreach, which makes firing them considerably easier. Volunteers work for free, and as a result, they have a much more emotional tie to the campaign. Letting go of a campaign worker or switching their job duties is something that occurs in every campaign.
While every campaign will run into this issue, there are a lot of campaigns that avoid like the plague talking to their volunteers and letting them know it isn’t working out. Jessica needs to realize if she is elected, she will have to make a lot of hard calls, and dealing with volunteer concerns is minor, in comparison to the rigors of a statehouse.
Jessica needs to let Max know in no uncertain terms that she appreciates his past work for the campaign, but that she is making a change and now needs him in another role. If he is uninterested in another role, she will thank him for all of his work and wishes him well.
Final thoughts: Your campaign will have to say “no” often. Like any business, not every volunteer, issue or moment is right for you. Running a successful campaign knows when you need to say “no” to advice, a volunteer, an event, or hire. It also means you can take advice with a smile, leave an event and say to yourself “no, I am not doing that.”
Local campaigns struggle with saying no to free help far more than large campaigns. They are more prone to take all advice and they often refuse to let unproductive or counterproductive volunteers go because they worry they might not have other volunteers to replace them.
Candidates that want to win, however, know that saying no successfully is important to keeping friends and building a successful campaign at the same time.
Next Week: AAARGH #4 Let’s Keep the Public Language PG, Shall We?
Nuts & Bolts: Building Democratic Campaigns
Contact the Daily Kos group Nuts and Bolts by kosmail (members of Daily Kos only).
Every Saturday this group will chronicle the ins and outs of campaigns, small and large. Issues to be covered: Campaign Staffing, Fundraising, Canvass, Field Work, Data Services, Earned Media, Spending and Budget Practices, How to Keep Your Mental Health, and on the last Saturday of the month: “Don’t Do This!” a diary on how you can learn from the mistakes of campaigns in the past.
You can follow prior installments in this series HERE.