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Managing Election Campaigns
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- Concluding the class Tue, 2010-11-23 00:49
- Week Six: Get Out the Vote (GOTV) Sun, 2010-10-31 03:49
- Week Four-Five: Candidate Statements, Direct Mail, Campaign Organization Fri, 2010-10-22 06:46
- Week One: Understanding the problem Fri, 2010-10-22 06:15
- Miscellaneous Thu, 2010-10-21 16:20
Week Four-Five: Candidate Statements, Direct Mail, Campaign Organization
We're a little bit behind and I've been allowing new enrollments into the class, so there's a lot of catching up to do.
I'm going to write two postings for this week: written material (candidate statements, direct mail) and then a separate one on campaign organization, which is a big topic.
If you started the class late, please look at all the course materials provided, particularly sample election results and the voter data format file for Los Angeles County. One of the key points for this course is understanding how to identify your target voters and then how to reach them. So the files are important for understanding voter identification. But in campaign organization and direct mail, we discuss how to actually reach the voters with our message.
Candidate Statements
First, a general observation. Campaigns waste money, time and effort in a counterproductive attempt to say too much in their writings. A good place to start in learning to be disciplined in writing is the candidate statement, because they have strict requirements, such as a 150-word or 250-word maximum.
You can see how candidate statements are distributed in California here: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_cand_stat.htm#prop-34.
What should a good candidate statement contain: key biographical data, a short appeal on the key issue of the campaign ("We must cut administrative waste an direct scare resources to the classroom and our kids."), two of the most important endorsements ("I am the only candidate who has the support of [name your city]'s classroom teachers"), an explicit appeal for support ("To reform our schools, I need your support. Thank you.").
Let's put this together:
Dear parent, neighbor or concerned citizen, my name is John Smith (if you need to reinforce voter recognition of your name - otherwise it isn't necessary) and, like you, I am deeply concerned about the state of our schools and its impact on our kids. I have twenty years's experience in the classroom as a teacher and a children's advocate. Our kids deserve better. We must cut administrative waste and direct resources to where they are most needed: the classroom and our kids. 30% of our school district's budget is spent outside of the classroom! With your support, I will restore the arts and music programs that were cut. I urge you to join with Mary Jones (some famous person), Dr. Fred Simpson (other famous person) and[NameYourCity]'s classroom teachers and concerned citizens and parents to make the changes we need on November 2.
In the US, states regulate elections. Typically, most states allow a challenge to the factual information in a candidate statement. So, let's say you have the endorsement of the teachers' union (and this is seen as a popular thing). You can, of course, put that in your statement. What happens if you don't, but you want to imply that you have a lot of teacher support. Then, you can write: "Please join the many classroom teachers who are supporting me."
In my next post, I'll write about direct mail.
Thank you for this insight. Sometimes I am just too busy hearing what many have to say, that I wonder how I am missing the obvious - What I am seeing but don't see; what I am hearing but don't hear.
With this class, I am seeing and hearing what I was blind and deaf to.
Thanks, Mary!
Direct mail and other voter contact mechanisms.
First, let me note that direct mail, when I was actively managing campaigns, would cost about US$0.34 per piece with a printing quantity of more than 10,000 pieces. This cost included postage, graphic design, everything, for a 10"x8" (metric conversion needed!) postcard. We typically used no envelope! The front was dedicated to the legally required information for the Post Office and the California Fair Political Practices Commission (which issues a required campaign id#). Then, of course, you have to leave a space for addressing the postcard.
However, the big bulk of the front was a photo of the candidate with a visual message. In a school board campaign example, we used (several times and for different candidates) a "KIDS" (ninos, enfants, meninos) motif. The candidate was surrounded on a playground by a group of children, typically representing the racial and ethnic mix of the electoral area or precinct. The words "KIDS" was in bright blue letters against a black-and-white photo. (One color was less expensive than two colors or full-color).
Where was the text? What? No programmatic statements? Here we use the back of the postcard to highlight three campaign themes: eliminate administrative waste, resources to the classroom, education reform for greater effectiveness.
Then we would add an abbreviated list of campaign supporters in order of their importance. Some campaigns try to list hundreds and this can be visually effective, but the danger is that it won't get read at all. Who should be listed? Those people and organizations that the voter will most identify with.
I previously mentioned lawn and window signs. Campaigns spend thousands of dollars printing and displaying lawn signs. The problem is that they have to be extremely well-built to withstand rain and when placed on an anonymous lot, don't convey the best of associations. Similarly, if you are counting on people driving in cars and paying attention to these signs - well, probably it is only the candidates and their friends who really look for them.
More effective and less costly are window signs. They are protected from the weather because they are hung up inside. And they display to a group of neighbors who walk by every day that a neighbor is supporting a candidate. When a number of these go up, they can convey to the entire neighborhood that there is a "local" candidate. Of course, if more than one candidate does this, the advantage is lost.
I'm going to talk about the use of the Internet in its own posting. One quick observation: the more local and low-interest the campaign, the less valuable is the website and social networking mechanisms. It may still be worthwhile, depending on the budget, but it can become a sinkhole for campaign funds (web designers, hosting, staff to support it).
The Importance of Campaign Organization
As I have done through this course, I'm going to describe campaign organization as it works in local (not statewide) campaigns in California. I'm looking forward to the comments about how this applies (or doesn't) to the various countries and states we live in.
One of the subthemes of this course is how to overcome an opponent's advantages in terms of fundraising. Good campaign organizations effectively use all available resources: volunteers, money, PR, and the candidate him/herself.
Let's start with the candidate. A few rules:
1. The candidate should be disciplined enough to stay out of all the micro-details of the campaign. They need to focus on voter contact (door-to-door, phone, etc...), fundraising (personal phone calls, organizational endorsements, twisting the arms of friends and family), and recruiting volunteers (house parties). Remember, the candidate is the best fundraiser, the best one to contact a voter, and the best one to motivate volunteers. Don't waste this resource.
2. Volunteers have to be actively managed. Give a volunteer a phone list to take home - and you may never see that phone list again, much less get any benefit from the volunteer). Volunteers are most active when surrounded by other volunteers. Voter contact should be done in pairs, with the lists of targeted voters divided so that one volunteer walks one side of the street and the other walks the opposite side. They are always within visual range of each other.
3. Money has to be used as economically as possible. Your voter database and the list you give to the mail house (a private company that handles printing and mailing of campaign mail) should be thoroughly de-duped (duplicates eliminated) so that every household gets one and only one mailer. I can't count the number of times opposing campaigns sent two and three mailers to voters who were married couples. That means that if our cost was $0.34 and their cost was $0.68 per voter. Now, if they didn't target their voters carefully, much less to send mail to every registered voter, we may have a 3-1, 4-1, or 5-1 advantage in the cost of voter contact. That's an advantage that can result in knocking out an incumbent.
4. Campaign staff. If you can afford a consultant or staff that knows what they are doing, they may be worth it. In elections where you are unable to raise even a few tens of thousands of dollars, you probably can't afford campaign staff. That means that a volunteer has to rise to the role of the campaign manager. (Make sure they take this class! :) )
5. From your core of volunteers, hold neighborhood house parties. Have each one reach out to their friends and neighbors to attend it. This is free publicity at the worst. At best, a dozen or two dozen people attend the meeting, donate a little money, and volunteer to contact voters.
6. Hold phone banks as frequently as you can. Door-to-door is most effective, but phones are faster. Volunteers get a script, pizza (donated preferably), coffee, a phone and a list of voters. In the US, there are companies that will take a voter list with phone numbers for only 25% of the registered voters and give it back to you with numbers for 50-75% of the voters.
7. Door-to-door campaigns, sometimes called "neighbor-to-neighbor," are extremely effective. The testimony (in two minutes or less) by someone who lives nearby and is appealing not for money, but for help on an important campaign, leaves a very positive impression. We organized these every Saturday (and Sunday when it was possible) in a church basement, with bagels and coffee, leaflets, and voter lists. We asked everyone to return in three hours with their precinct completed. The oversight exercised was based on pairing the volunteers and receiving the lists of voters with those leaning or decided in our favor noted.