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As campaigns assemble, they often break into multiple components. Larger campaigns and all federal campaigns will have paid staff as well as volunteers. But whether you have a lot of paid staff or campaign workers, almost every campaign assembles what we call a “kitchen cabinet” a group of advisors who meet and talk with a candidate frequently that are unpaid advisors. This group often includes party elders, former elected, and yes, the significant other or spouse of the candidate who is running.
Kitchen cabinets can be a great resource for your campaign, or a stumbling block that is difficult to get past. How, exactly, do you handle a kitchen cabinet?
Kitchen cabinet as an endorsement mechanism
Candidates running for large office, whether a statewide or a federal, will often assemble a large kitchen cabinet of former elected officials which can provide an early endorsement and stamp of approval on a campaign. These campaigns like to announce their kitchen cabinet—it helps establish their credibility and ties to the community. In some cases, kitchen cabinets are for promotional purposes only; an endorsement, a few handshakes, and a sign of who the candidate trusts and will listen to as the campaign goes forward.
There is nothing wrong with this as an approach, and many successful campaigns are built around showing longterm Democratic support. In this format, your kitchen cabinet will probably never meet outside of a few photos at a fundraiser, though staying in touch with them via a phone call now and again is a good way to keep connected with the party base.
If you talk to campaign managers, this format of kitchen cabinet is the preferred way to work with volunteer advisors. That doesn’t mean it is the only way—or a way that your kitchen cabinet wants to work.
The active kitchen cabinet
Some kitchen cabinets, though, view themselves as the heart of your campaign. They will offer advice frequently, and, if they feel like it, may contradict either your staff or members who are running your campaign. “In MY campaign, we did ... XYZ… “
Be careful with active kitchen campaigns. On election night, your campaign staff and volunteers will be the last people at the bar with you, win or lose on election night. But if you lose, an active kitchen cabinet will be the first to throw you down a well as they point out all the reasons why you lost—which primarily will involve not listening to them enough.
Make sure if you have an active kitchen cabinet, one that wants to be involved, they go through the campaign staff first—before calling you on your private cell phone. If they get used to calling the candidate directly and the candidate always takes their call, then you will end up with a campaign that lurches from idea to idea without any firm campaign plan. If you dignified former elected start calling the shots over phone calls, your campaign will quickly turn into a disjointed mess.
If your campaign manager is a first-time campaign manager, you are often better off not assembling a kitchen cabinet at all; they will have greater difficulty fending off pushy former elected, and they will lack a campaign record that can put former elected into place.
The kitchen cabinet you can never avoid
So, you’ve decided maybe a kitchen cabinet will not be helpful for your campaign. There is still one person that you cannot eliminate as a voice into a campaign. The significant other or spouse of the candidate is going to have some say in the campaign. This can be a good thing or a bad thing.
The relationship between a campaign and the significant others of a candidate can be a difficult one. Candidates who let their spouses or significant others drive the decisions of a campaign will almost always fail. It is difficult for someone who loves you to make the harsh assessments needed to make a campaign successful. Before a campaign begins, it is good to have a clear understanding of the roles a candidate’s family will have in a campaign. It will help keep them less stressed out, and also allow the campaign to operate transparently.
If decisions made during the day are overruled at night when a candidate goes home, set up meetings and redefine roles or get all parties involved in the decision-making process so that a decision made at 4 PM is the same decision that stands at 9 AM the next day.
Final Thoughts
The smaller your campaign, the less need or interest there is in assembling a kitchen cabinet. The larger the campaign, the more it will be pushed to assemble a list of known endorsers who will stand behind the campaign as advisors who will vouch for the campaign’s credibility. Whatever you decide to do, keep the open discussion and remember that your actual staff is the only one who is guaranteed to support your campaign all the way to the end.
Next week: Don’t sweat the small stuff, embrace it!
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Nuts & Bolts: Building Democratic Campaigns
Contact the Daily Kos group Nuts and Bolts by kosmail (members of Daily Kos only). You can also follow me on twitter: @tmservo433
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.
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