How to get involved in a campaign!

Hello! My apologies for the long delay, but I'm back! To quickly summarize, I was afforded a very rare opportunity to travel to Washington DC and learn how to run for office and run a campaign by a select group of political consultants. 

The individuals each specialized in a certain part of running a campaign and while it was absolutely astounding to hear some of their stories, it was even more amazing to kick ideas around to them and get some guidance from them. When I arrived, I naturally looked around the room and noticed myself and one other individual that was roughly my age. Everything else was in their forties and dare I say......quite a bit more seasoned. 

My anxieties quickly settled, however, as we all found common ground on what we were there to do and how we were going to accomplish the goal. We were broken up into teams to run our simulated "campaign". We also had small breakout sessions that occurred during the workdays, where we attended classes aimed at what are aspirations were. Mine being an eventual candidate, I was soaking up information on fundraising, reporting campaign financials, and how to do live interviews. It was truly a one of a kind experience that I'm extremely fortunate to have had. On the five hour plane ride home my mind was spinning, but I constantly thought to myself, "If I wasn't afforded this opportunity, how would I truly ever have gotten a grasp on all the parts of a campaign?" And so my next blog post was born! 

Now what I'm going to do is go over a rough outline of what it takes to run a basic state level campaign. Disclaimer, this is just to get you headed in the right direction. I'll then write one blog post going into specifics of each position in the future. Please keep in mind that all of this is scale-able so what your campaign would look like if you are running for a fire district commissioner spot will be slightly different than if you are running for a state House seat. So, as a millennial, how can you get involved?

1. Run for office

While this is the most obvious answer, it isn't the necessarily the most basic or easiest answer. Different levels of government come with different levels of responsibility,

and it helps to work your way up through government instead of just jumping into the deep end. Besides, you want to be the best you possibly can be to your constituent’s, right? If you are an involved individual with true passion for the town or city you live in, take some time to think about running. You may be that change that is needed.

2. Volunteer to work in the field

This is what a majority of the individuals that you see walking through the neighborhoods, passing out flyers, putting up signs, and generally talking to anyone that will listen does. They are volunteer field workers, but they feel very passionately about the candidate or the issue, so they are out trying to educate their fellow citizens. Make sure you read that correctly, they are EDUCATING other citizens, not starting arguments or trying to completely flip the other sides vote. You are wasting your time if you go out to knock on doors trying to talk your opponents supporters into supporting you, and it will not end pleasantly. Ask any campaign manager and they will tell you that this is truly the key to getting a campaign message out. This is down and dirty, in the trenches, pounding the pavement work. Find something or someone you're passionate about and give it a shot!

3. Get Out The Vote workers

I'm going to completely own up to the fact that I never even thought about this segment of voters before. Get Out The Vote workers generally are knocking on doors in neighborhoods talking with the citizens to make sure they know where their local polling stations are, what time the polls open, what the date is to vote. They sometimes even offer to help walk the citizens through the registration process. Thinking about how busy we all are, I can see how a regular voter can lose track of a special election and let it slip by. This is a great way to volunteer if you are looking for a non-partisan way of getting involved. "Just wanted to double check you have all the information you need to exercise you're rights as an American." usually fairs pretty well on the front porch.

4. Communications team

So this one is going to be a little vague for this post, but I'll go into more detail in later posts about this all-encompassing label. These individuals help you get your message out through paid and earned media. They help you develop your message to the masses both through words with something like a slogan, (think.."byaaaah" from Howard Dean) or a visual logo. They are going to design mailers that will get your main point across, which should help tremendously. According to some Pew Research studies seeing the same political message five to seven times leads to swaying 14% of voters. Make you realize why during election season your mailbox is packed? These individuals play a big role, but it's even more massive during a congressional race. Lots of info in this section that I'll show later. I'll post a picture of the flyer we made for our fake "campaign" if we get that far.

As millennials we are so used to venturing out of our comfort zone and pushing our limits with new challenges. If you want to wet your feet a little, I suggest getting involved locally. One advisor that we had, whom had worked on both Obama campaigns and "too many congressional campaigns to count" reiterated that there are really two tracks when it comes to being involved in campaigns: Track number one is stay locally, stay small, and you'll find yourself mostly volunteering until far down the line. Track number two is go on the road, make money, and find yourself living out of your Ford Taurus. He reminded me that the most interesting part of his job is that he knew, not matter win or lose, about a year later, he would be technically unemployed again. "So that means you truly have to have a passion for this. You have to love it", he said.