I'd been planning to start writing diaries on my campaign for the state legislature for some time. I was motivated to finally break the ice yesterday, after reading NYBri's front paged diary, "So You Want to be a Netroots Candidate".
In the next few weeks and months, I hope to join other candidates like NYBri in offering some of the tips and insights that I've gleaned from my campaign with the intention of offering them in some form of coordinated fashion to the broader dKos community via my diary and dkosopedia.
A political campaign is not unlike a small business properietorship. No matter how much support you get from your local community, you as the candidate, the people on your staff, and a few key volunteers are going to do most of the heavy lifting.
Read on below the jump
Running a campaign is more of an art than a science, and although the scope and level of resources required to run a credible campaign changes as you move up the ladder, the basic tasks are fairly common whether you are running for city council or for the U.S. Congress. Eventually, I hope to discuss my experiences with building a volunteer organization, various campaign tasks, buying media, and offer some general ideas about effective grassroots campaign tactics and strategies.
But first, I think it's important to address some of the important nontechnical steps that need to be taken before running for office (think of this as setting up pieces on a game board).
Building Your Bona Fides
When thinking about whether to mount a serious campaign, you should consider setting the table by building up your bona fides with people and groups who are in a position to help you. My campaign relied heavily on the grassroots, and I wouldn't have had anywhere near the level of the support that I had if I hadn't spent the two years prior to the campaign working with the local Democratic Party, Democracy for America, the Oregon Bus Project, and helping local politicians and community activists such as the Yamhill Valley Peace Makers and other organizations build support for issues that they cared about.
I didn't have as much community volunteer experience as I should have -- all of my community work was political. But sitting on city and county boards, being an active participant in your church or local non-profit organizations, and generally working to raise your profile in the community are all important first steps to running for office.
One thing that I found to be very effective was to set up meetings with community leaders, including business leaders, church leaders, community organizers, and every member of the local newspaper's editorial board to introduce myself and to discuss their major concerns about state government, and the state of the community several months before I formally announced my decision to run. I think this played a key role in my receiving the endorsement of the local paper, since it gave them some familiarity with me, and plenty of time to ask around about me and my campaign.
Since I didn't have a strong name-recognition in my community outside of Democratic circles, I spent some time working to get endorsements of people who had strong name familiarity in the local community. Barbara Roberts, a former Governor of Oregon who was born and raised in my community was an early endorser. I also solicited the endorsements of some of the (few) Democrats and moderate Republicans and featured those endorsements prominently in newspaper advertising and my print mail.
In my case, connecting my name with people who were better known in the community was critical since I've only lived in the community for 5 years, and was running against a 3-term incumbent with a 35-year history in the community.
My Experience
I ran as a Democratic candidate in a heavily Republican District in rural Oregon. My opponent was a retired vice president of one of the largest employers in the community, and a 3-term incumbent who had lived in the community for 35 years.
At the start of the campaign, we were given virtually no chance to even be competitive in this district. The district, HD24, has a 3500 voter registration advantage for conservative candidates (2500 more Republicans than Democrats and 1000 more Libertarians and Constitution party members than Greens). Prior to 2006, it has been held "reliably and easily" by Republicans for more than a decade by consistently wide margins.
By running a grassroots campaign that focused heavily on economic populism and downplaying differences on social issues, we managed to come within 350 votes (i.e., we needed to flip 175-180 more people to win). We won every precinct in McMinnville, the district's largest city, and significantly closed the gap over past campaigns in 4 of the remaining 12 precincts. We received the endorsements of every newspaper that took a position on the race including the News Register, the Statesman Journal, and the Sheridan Sun, and were named an "A List campaign by Democracy for America.
Note: I'm posting this as a unique diary because it's unclear how it may fit into broader efforts by others in the community including NYC Bri. I've also started a wiki entry in dkosopedia to discuss it, avoiding (for now) glomming on to the How to run for office until I have a chance to work out my own thoughts on the matter.