Electing Senator Cruz Wasn’t Supposed to Be Possible. John Drogin’s Role as Cruz’s Campaign Manager Was to Defy the Odds!

This week’s guest is John Drogin. Drogin has been a long-time friend of mine and somebody I’ve worked in the conservative political trenches with for many years. He was also my boss, serving as Senator Cruz’s State Director when I was on the Senator’s staff. He’s currently operating his own consulting shop focusing on digital marketing and political strategy for political and corporate clients.

Drogin’s political resume is a long one and we’ll get him to share plenty of that history during the interview but what most people know him as is the Campaign Manager for Senator Ted Cruz’s long-shot Senate candidacy in 2012.

He’s known Senator Cruz for 8 years and was critical to the success of his 2012 candidacy and Cruz’s early success in the Senate.

John and his bride Mandy live in Austin, Texas and are new parents to the beautiful GraceMarie.

Links from the Podcast:

Connect with John on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn!

Important Time Stamps and Descriptions:

[00:00] Programming Note from Raz

[00:55] Introduction and John Drogin Bio

[02:24] Tell us about your background and what you did before crossing paths with Ted Cruz

[11:59] How did you and Ted Cruz get connected?

[19:02] How did y’all start building Cruz’s Senate campaign?

[24:44] How did you build your campaign team, especially for such a long-shot run?

[34:26] Tell us about that first year on the campaign trail. Building the strategy and the first phase of the campaign

[37:58] The importance of letting people really get to know the candidate!

[43:58] How Cruz secured critical PAC and SuperPAC endorsements

[48:52] How did you bait Ducking Dewhurst into engaging?

[54:30] How did you deal with the misleading attacks that the Dewhurst campaign deployed?

[57:16] Once you won the Senate race, how did y’all build a strong, conservative Senate Staff?

[1:04:52] What was your job as Cruz’s State Director and how did that mission build out?

[1:08:54] What advice do you have for potential candidates and campaign staff?

[1:10:24] Drogin’s contact information and outro