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.
As you build your campaign, you are going to find a lot of new friends, allies and outside groups who will pick you up and make you feel good about running for office. While those allies and groups may make you feel good, candidates and campaigns need to focus on groups who do not like them. It is the natural instinct of, well, being human—people want to be liked.
This week, we are going to focus on the fact you cannot always be liked by everyone, and realizing there are some voters and groups who will never agree with you, can make your campaign much more successful.
In previous editions of this guide, we have discussed defining yourself around the issues you want to express your campaign. Realize, though, Democratic issues will have detractors, voters who are just opposed to your ideas and beliefs. Too many small campaigns run into resistance and find themselves quickly soft peddling their issues or wanting to modify their stances, in order to attract voters who are resistant.
This is, by all measures, a losing strategy. Voters who are openly opposed to you on specific issues are just going to be opposed—and negotiating to make them less opposed rarely wins their vote and may, in fact, alienate others who might vote for you.
So, this week, we are going to talk about how defining your campaign issues helps structure your campaign.
Before you start, recognize the unreachable
Every campaign, Democratic or Republican, has an inbuilt “no” vote. Just for carrying the brand of the party, or being on any particular side of an issue, your candidate will be an instant “no” to some voters. This sounds disheartening, but recognizing this reality is important if you want to effectively use your campaign resources.
Knowing there are some voters who are openly opposed to you, no matter what you say or do, hurts. There are some candidates who spend too much time trying to talk to voters that are implacably opposed to them. I cannot tell you how often I hear: "I'm going to visit everyone with a sign of my opponent in their yard!”
Your campaign can do many things. If you are running low on money, you can raise more. If you need more volunteers or staff, you can find more. The one thing you cannot do is manufacture more time. Wasting time talking to people who you know will not vote for you, or who are unlikely to vote for you, does not help you win. The time it takes you to speak to someone strongly opposed to your campaign and convince them to hate you a little less, is time that could have helped several voters you know are likely to vote for you if you can get them to the polls.
Your campaign should identify the unreachable and quickly set them aside. Rather than wring your hands about trying to reach these voters, just acknowledge you are on different sides of the issue and move on.
Are attacks real or spam?
Your campaign and candidate will be attacked in a lot of different ways. Some attacks are real: past mistakes made or gaffes by the campaign, but a lot of campaign attacks are just spam. Just like email blasts sent out to hundreds of thousands of users selling something, spam political attacks are just that, spam.
We have all seen them: ads with your candidate and President Obama, Leader Pelosi, or anyone else. These spam attacks appeal to a set audience, but they are also bait. The people who respond to spam attacks will never, ever support you candidate. As a result, responding to most spam attacks is a waste of time and resources, by your campaign, and may hurt you in the process. Do not take the bait. If your campaign is spending a lot of time responding to spam attacks, you are not going to be able to get your message out to the voters you need on election day.
There will be a few Democratic party members who don’t like you.
Interpersonal communications often talk about the difference between competing and collaboration. In a campaign, though, the competition is viewed by several as far more important than collaboration. You will find during a campaign there are more than a few Democratic Party members who should be on your side who will welcome being opposed to you for schadenfreude reasons. They want to see you fail.
Now, during a campaign as long as they stay quiet and privately think thoughts about your campaign or candidate, it is not an issue. Criticism after a campaign can sometimes be very helpful, but if you have open dissent during a campaign, that can be a concern. How do you deal with this as an issue?
There are several strategies I have heard promoted through the years, and I have to tell you absolutely none of them are as universal as we all wish they were in a campaign because party infighting is often based on personalities, or any number of unknowable reasons.
The less likely your campaign is to succeed, the more likely you will have individuals who want to tear down your efforts. That is fine. Say to yourself: you cannot be loved by everyone, grit your teeth and smile.
Final Thoughts
Running for political office is in many ways a popularity contest. But you do not need to win 100-0. If 30 percent of the people outright despise you for whatever reason, they are not enough to stop you from winning a race. Your goal in a campaign is always 50+1. If you stay focused on how you build to 50+1 you give your campaign a much better chance to succeed then if you worry about making sure everyone likes you.
There is a seesaw effect in how much groups like or dislike you. The more some groups or individuals dislike you, the more likely others are to favor you on that same issue.
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: What do special elections teach us?
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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.