It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a diary discussing the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime: Just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide. Every week I try to tackle issues I’ve been asked about, and with the help of other campaign workers and notes, we tackle the subjects that people who want to assist a campaign want to know.
On your first day of elementary school, you walked into a classroom full of people you had never met before, and you built some of the first relationships in your life. It was one of your first real experiences in building friendships. Many adults say that it is much harder to build friendships as an adult than it was as a young child or even a college student. There are reasons for that: in those environments, when we are younger, we are able to mix and associate with people in structured spaces such as classrooms and shared living spaces, with the biggest factor being time spent together.
As working adults, we do spend time with co-workers and peers who can become friends, but getting out into the public and building new relationships? Thanks to such factors as the internet, which can keep us isolated; and the fact that many Americans are working harder and longer and have less disposable income, there are fewer opportunities for flexing and maintaining our ability to make new friends.
Building a good campaign, though, means that, whether you are a candidate or staff, you need to build a positive environment around you, and that includes making friends with fellow staff, voters, members of the press, and anyone else you may encounter.
Prepared to bring out your inner social butterfly?
Why do campaign friendships matter for our efforts?
What exactly was it that made our childhood friendships stand out? Outside of the fact we were young, put together, and left to sort it out, why do those relationships often leave a long-lasting impression in our life? There was a line that was used to promote the 1983 movie The Big Chill: In a cold world, you need your friends to keep you warm. I believe that part of what makes our childhood relationships stand out is that, as young kids, we face a world that is entirely new and maybe frightening to us, but we feel excited about the future. And in our friendships we find people to share the journey, with whom we can embark on adventures.
Now, I want you to think about a campaign. In our campaigns, activists and candidates know it’s a cold world out there—and the point of our work is to discuss the issues we hope to address, and promote the plans we have to address them. It’s a hard thing to do, and friendships forged on the campaign trail will sustain you and give you the strength to get it done.
Because of this, campaign friendships often are pretty tight. Members of the Hillary Clinton campaign of 2016 would go out and do karaoke together. Teams of Obama for America workers held trivia nights and had a set of movies they could quote verbatim. The inside jokes and social networking of congressional campaigns tie their workers together, whether they are in campaign mode or not.
People outside of the campaign can quickly spot a unified campaign, and one of the easiest things to see is whether the staff and volunteers get along beyond just a shared enthusiasm for the candidate. Environments that foster strong interpersonal relationships and build communities encourage the kind of campaign team you want working for you; if everyone is punching in and punching out, and a campaign is “just a job,” it will be dull and lifeless, and struggle to excite voters.
How can you create environments that encourage friendships?
You cannot push or force friendships. Personalities and a lot of other factors play the largest role in how they form. One of the biggest barriers to opportunities for friendship, though, is that people are working hard, and have very little time to get to know anyone. Isolation can result.
Mixing in ice-breaking opportunities, introducing and cheering new volunteers or staff, and rewarding those who stay can help people on campaigns make connections. It can be as simple as welcoming a new member of the campaign: “Everyone, I want to introduce Tim, who is coming on board as a new field staff for our campaign. Everyone say hello and ‘Welcome aboard!’ to Tim. We’re glad to have him!” It can be celebrating something in a campaign member’s personal life: “Big day everyone! Janice’s son is graduating from college! Congratulations! Thank you for being on our team. Don’t forget that we’re fighting to give more children great opportunities.”
While I will not endorse any presidential campaign, I know that several of them are already making the effort to show staff and others the importance of building interpersonal relationships.
Warren’s outreach isn’t just about connecting with one voter; it reflects one of the basic ideas of building a campaign that encourages developing personal relationships with anyone who is working on Democratic efforts. When candidates are the ones who lead these efforts and show that they value personal relationships, it can be a powerful force for the staff working for them, who can feel encouraged to develop friendships and create a better environment, and give voters the feeling that their input truly matters.
Many of our Democratic candidates are making similar efforts to encourage strong community within their campaigns and beyond.
Final thought: Friendships have value beyond the campaign.
Finally, beyond the campaigns themselves, building strong friendships with other dedicated Democratic workers can be a major positive in the lives of those who work on campaigns. These relationships help build our networks and our spheres of influence. All of this combined helps build a stronger Democratic community, cycle after cycle, and a more welcoming one.
Whether they win or lose, campaigns that build strong community grow Democratic opportunities by creating leaders who don’t just know how things work, but will also want to work again in a political environment because of the positive experiences they have already had.
And isn’t that what everyone wants—a community we all want to be a part of?
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: Q&A: a quick rundown of some of the best questions I’ve received this year