Welcome back, Saturday Campaign D-I-Y’ers! For those who tune in, welcome to the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic campaign. Each week, we discuss issues that help drive successful campaigns. If you’ve missed prior diaries, please visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.
This week we are going to talk about candidate recruitment. One of the themes that we are going to address this year is how to build a resistance coalition and create progress on every level. The moment that the general election of 2016 ended, candidate recruitment for 2017 and 2018 began. Successful campaigns for state and local offices are built on having the right candidate in the right race. This week, we’re going to talk about how to build successful candidate recruitment on all levels.
Before we begin this week, I want to take a second to say that when a person decides to run for any office, they open themselves up to a lot of scrutiny over their personal life, business dealings, and public life. When you recruit candidates, remember they are taking a risk with you. You can build a lot of good faith with candidates if you tell them their position from the beginning. Many candidates feel burned if they feel as though a county, state or federal organization over-promised and under delivered. Make sure you under-promise and over deliver. Explain up front that this is difficult, and in the end, the candidate themselves are what make a campaign work. If you promise the moon and stars, you better be prepared to deliver or deal with the consequences.
With that out of the way, I want to turn to looking at what makes a good candidate and how you get them into the race you desire.
Red Flags: candidates who shouldn’t run.
Part of recruiting candidates is knowing when to tell someone they shouldn’t run. Running a race for office can be financially and emotionally draining. Before they begin a race for office, make sure they’ve done a self-check over some basic issues:
- Can they afford to run? Running for office isn’t just about fundraising, it is also about the impact it has on your ability to earn money. If the person who considers running would be made financially unstable with a time commitment to run, they shouldn’t run.
- Family on board? Candidates who do not have the full support of their spouse or family also should not run. More than once, a run for office has resulted in someone losing a marriage or doing real damage to a personal relationship. No matter how much someone wants to run, if their partner is opposed, you are better to move on than to say “they will get over it.”
- Background research. A candidate needs to do a strong self assessment. If there is anything in their past they say: “This is personally or financially devastating” if it is ever revealed in an election, they probably shouldn’t run. Sometimes candidates will overthink this; example: “I’m a recovering alcoholic who is 20+ years sober” is easily addressable in a campaign, and could be used as a benefit; but “I was once charged with running a criminal enterprise, but it’s complicated. ...” they really shouldn’t run for office. Candidates who get blindsided by information they thought was private quickly come to regret campaigning and quit, which harms not just them but the other candidates who are below and above them on the ticket.
One of the most important traits is the ability to listen and filter.
There are many qualities people like in a candidate; from their ability to raise money and opening name ID. Those factors do matter, but a big one that gets overlooked is the ability by a candidate to take in information, filter it, and make decisions accordingly. Running a campaign will provide someone with a lot of people who whisper advice in their ears. Good candidates are able to filter this information quickly and make decisions.
A great deal of advice just gets ignored; it is already part of a game plan for their campaign; other advice can be integrated into their strategy. However, a person who can quickly assess advice and make sound decisions on it will run a campaign that is pretty stable. Campaigns that jump back and forth on differing strategies will seem to voters to be rudderless and indecisive, a quick way to make sure a campaign has little shot at winning an election.
Candidates who have good listening skills also are the ones who sense and capitalize on opportunity when it is available to them.
Fundraising and Support
Here is the very cold truth about a good candidate. If a candidate doesn’t know where their first five state/federal maximum or significant contributions are coming from, they are probably going to struggle to run for office. This doesn’t mean party resources promoting them to get money into their campaign, and it doesn’t mean a candidate loaning their campaign money equal to five strong contributions. In some states, like Missouri, a state candidate can receive unlimited funds from a single donor. That changes the math a bit, but not by much. Bringing in funds to a campaign isn’t just about bringing in the funds, it is also about the interest of community members and leaders in seeing a candidate run for office.
If someone says: “I’m thinking of running, and I know who my first five phone calls are going to be and they will all be very excited I’m running,” that is a sign of a good candidate ready to go. If someone says: “I’m thinking of running, but I know all my friends and family will be trying to talk me out of it,” that is a sign there may be trouble.
Finally: The Issues
Wait, you thought I was going to forget to bring up issues? Individuals who want to run for office as a Democratic candidate need to actually represent the Democratic issues of the district and community they live within.
This is something we sometimes struggle with; we find candidates who want to run away from Democratic positions lined out in their state and federal platform. That is okay, not every candidate has to agree with everything; however, candidates who are out of step with their district and voters on Democratic issues are likely to spend a lot of their campaign fighting over issues that were not part of their original campaign plan.
Democratic candidates often lose elections in part because they don’t get enough Democratic voters to the polls. It is far easier to get people motivated to get to the polls if the candidate running better represents their values. So, having a candidate who is in-step with the values of the district they are running in is very important.
Next Week: Functions, Protest, Rallies and Events That Work
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.
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