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.
When this series first began, I ran a companion series “AARGH” about campaign mistakes. While we haven’t done an AARGH piece in a while, some of the advice within those diaries—about campaign mistakes—remains important and this week, we’re going to cover a few of the things that your small campaign needs to avoid in order to be successful.
Mistakes during a campaign will happen, but keeping them small or minimizing the damage they can do is important. No campaign is flawless—we are all humans. But making sure minor problems don’t become big ones? That is one of the big keys that make a good campaign different than a bad campaign.
Keep your finances in order
One of the mistakes we see most often in small campaigns revolves campaign finance: your books are a mess. Far too many candidates fall into this boat, especially candidates who do not work with the party, a consultant, or a good manager. Typically, campaigns don’t keep strong enough track of the donations received or the expenditures made. In large campaigns, people keep strong track of these things, but campaigns run by the candidate themselves? Repeatedly people lose track of tiny expenditures or required information they must maintain on money received.
Even for small campaigns, keeping track of this information is critical. Getting this information up front is often easier than trying to go back and reconstruct campaign expenses and campaign income. Don’t put off doing this work until the night before you campaign finance reports are due. Focus on staying as up to date on your reports as you can, so that last minute crunches don’t result in errors.
Avoiding the sympathy spiral
Even well-funded campaigns flirt with the sympathy spiral. Bad press, a week of poor fundraising, bad response at doors or a misprint in campaign mail. It is easy to fall into the trap of believing your campaign is already done for and you cannot succeed. What happens next? All of your pitches to voters become one of sympathy rather than strength. “Vote for me, I’m right on these issues and we can do something,” becomes, “Vote for me, because no other Democratic candidate was willing to run a race in this godforsaken district and if you don’t vote for me, no one else will ever run for office here.”
No matter how tough your district is, or whether or not your campaign had a bad week, try hard to present a positive image to Democratic voters in your district about what your campaign can accomplish. If your campaign suddenly becomes Debbie Downbeat, you can really turn off voters from coming to the polls.
Pestering the press doesn’t pay off
Republican candidates have a level of disdain and distrust for the press that allows them to never fall into this trap. Too many Democratic candidates, however, believe that the press should want to help them get their message out and be sympathetic toward their cause. As a result, Democratic campaigns fall into bad habits hoping that they will get sympathetic coverage.
You send out a press release daily, hoping the press will pick up several and run them. Your campaign fails to check the calendar and schedules your campaign event at the same time as your incumbent opponent (or you do it intentionally), you send out a release to the press 30 minutes before the press daily deadline and expect them to use whatever you have written because they will have little time to do anything else. Your campaign makes a mistake and you assume you’ll “get a pass”/positive coverage from the press that you think has to favor you over your wild-eyed conservative opponent.
Treat reporters with respect. Begging a reporter for coverage because of dubious reasons or manipulating their time will not cause them to be helpful to your campaign.
When you’re in public, smile and be friendly.
Things happen in a campaign. You might not feel well, maybe you are tired, hungry or any other reason to not be at the top of your game. Even for the best politician, those moments can leak through.
Losing your cool is something that happens to the best of us. With that having been said you have to remember that when you are in public many eyes are upon your campaign. If you spend four hours at a public event smiling and shaking hands, but five minutes getting into a heated argument with a constituent or voter who opposes you, no one will remember the four hours of smiles and shaking hands. Instead, everyone will remember the heated moment and they will likely remember it with photos and video somewhere.
Displays of public anger or frustration are a major AARGH! For campaigns, they can make people feel as though you aren’t a “nice person,” people who may not have voted for you anyway can use it attack your character.
If you have an issue in public, walk away. Do not get into an argument or debate with someone who opposes you. You already know you will not get their vote. Do not waste your time any farther.
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: Keeping track of your opponent