Welcome back to the weekly Nuts & Bolts Guide to small campaigns. This week, I want us to step back and look at some small and not-so-small campaigns and think about them as businesses. After we take that step back, we need to take a serious look at how campaigns can empower women, Black, Hispanic, AAPI, and other BIPOC workers, or how they can fail to do so by providing minorities only the opportunities that would be rejected by almost any white male hired into the post.
In other words: Do campaigns and some donors overvalue white men in campaign leadership roles? Do we second-guess the process when campaign leaders are not white men? Well, it isn’t just the NFL that can run into trouble for stereotyping leadership. Campaigns are made up of an organizational pyramid, and when we second-guess the authority of the pyramid, or when white men get upset about not having a say over it, we have to sit down and think about what control of a campaign means.
When your campaign is larger
It often will break down into several key areas. Your staff meetings among main staff will often be attended by a campaign manager, field director, finance director, communications director, outside consultant (for some), and you may receive reports from others. Most other workers within your campaign fall underneath one of these directors. Your campaign manager directs the group in general; your field director can handle the volunteers and paid canvassers underneath them. You can continue to reduce size based on your campaign and the race. In campaigns for a race large enough to require these positions—generally speaking, U.S. Congress, a mid- to major city mayor, large county- or region-wide positions or offices like mayor or state school board—the candidates have to put a lot of trust into their staff.
This is important because the candidate has a few jobs. One of the first jobs is to show up to events looking polished, refreshed, and focused. Candidates are also expected to get focused, raise funds, and work to enable their directors with the best opportunities to make things work.
This, unfortunately, is where second-guessing comes into the picture.
Voices of non-white men are second-guessed more often.
In each area of a campaign, a level of authority is invested in order to make sure that the campaign continues to function fluidly and successfully. As an example, field directors can hire or fire field workers based on performance reviews, they can pull together new strategies and plans as to where to assign campaign resources, and build the plan as data comes in. They provide scheduled reports. The candidates should avoid tinkering with the work in order for the field director to stay successful.
This same strategy applies to all areas. A finance director may find that members of their part of the shop also aren’t working out, and it is up to them to make sure the ship runs cleanly. If someone managing call time, compliance, or event coordination isn’t working out, the finance director can say this isn’t working. Communications directors are normally empowered with the ability to remove from the campaign someone who negatively impacts the messaging of the campaign.
This, unfortunately, is often where women and minority campaign workers can find themselves second-guessed.
Only anecdotal, but let’s call it more than a decade of anecdotes.
When a white male working as head of communications or as a campaign manager lets go of someone in a position of a campaign or hires a replacement, no one bats an eye. In fact, there is often praise for the decisive nature of the campaign manager or director for the bold steps they are taking in order to make sure the campaign succeeds.
When it comes to women and BIPOC campaign directors, it works out differently. This series has a pretty long history at Daily Kos, and even before it started there was not a single cycle I did not hear directly about the same problem.
When women make changes in their field staff, change over an accountant, or let go of someone for any reason, it simply does not go over very well if the removed worker is a white man. Concerns are instantly raised as to why the candidate wasn’t directly involved, or present when letting them know—imagine West Wing when a campaign worker asks this question. Unhappy they are let go by the campaign manager, they demand to hear it from the candidate themselves.
Well, unfortunately in most campaigns, this is not feasible. It is also a great way to undercut the trust candidates invest in their leadership staff, and while in a fictional world it can be asked of Josh Lyman (who simply refuses), women and BIPOC leadership staff who do their jobs well—managing their portion of a campaign—almost always have to sweat it out.
Rely on your staff and support them.
If your campaign needs to let go of your campaign manager, finance director, field director, or communications director, that is a conversation you as a candidate likely need to have. It may also depend on the size of your campaign whether that decision goes through your candidate or the other campaign managers.
When it comes to anyone under those positions, you have to trust your campaign staff. If you send the message that they need you to back them up on every issue you are tipping your hand that you do not believe in who you have hired to be your campaign manager, field director, communication director, or finance director. You are also going to exhaust yourself as a candidate and spend time you do not have if you find that you personally are expected to do the exit interviews or the change in staff for every single person who comes in and out of your campaign.
There are many variables in a campaign, but there is one variable that you have no power over: time. Once time is gone, it is gone.
Take a breath
A few years ago, someone I respect greatly was running field for a strong campaign. After letting go of some of the staff under her for performance and budget reasons, she found that she was immediately under fire. Why had the candidate not been the one who let them go? Why were they being told this “only” by a field director?
The underperforming staff members became an immediate thorn by making a scene at a follow-up event, because, well, they apparently didn’t care as much about the campaign as they did showing they were upset at the idea of being let go by a woman, and a Black woman to boot.
Having seen this from the other side of this situation, if she had been a white male, I sincerely doubt this would have been a problem.
Take a deep breath. Be open about the fact you have chosen to support the strength of the women and BIPOC members of your staff, and if that causes discomfort to some, especially those who might no longer work for the campaign—even more so if someone is let go to find themselves replaced by a woman or person of color—realize, we are running Democratic campaigns. This is our base. We empower and run on leadership that looks like our base.
We empower workers to be leaders and we look to provide leadership at every level of our campaigns.
We don’t undercut the value of someone, we empower them. It is that simple. Campaigns can move quickly and are built on trust and growth. Trust the process and find those who can do the work the way your campaign needs it to be done.
Disagree?
Have disagreement? Think maybe things should be different? I’m open to the discussion and ready to talk in the comments! Let’s go for it!