“The dignity of a prime minister, like a lady’s virtue, is not susceptible to partial diminution.” – Winston Churchill
Here’s today’s tip: “The dignity of a prime minister, like a lady’s virtue, is not susceptible to partial diminution.” – Winston Churchill
As most of y’all know, I’m a huge fan of Winston Churchill. And as soon as I saw this quote from him, its truth resonated with me strongly.
I’d imagine that after hearing the quote, your mind went directly to your opponent or some politician who is guilty of some kind of betrayal. Perhaps it’s through a failure in their personal lives or by something they’ve done within their role as a public official. All of those things factor into what Winston is talking about.
In sum, Churchill is saying that you’re either honorable or you’re not. Virtuous or your not. Possessed of dignity or not.
Hire a professional to execute thorough opposition research and a vulnerability study early in the campaign.
Here’s today’s tip: Hire a professional to execute thorough opposition research and a vulnerability study early in the campaign.
There are a lot of areas within campaigns where I routinely encourage campaigns to keep things in-house. In a lot of cases, you’re able to save money and achieve an equal or greater quality level in areas like canvassing, fundraising, etc. However, vulnerability and opposition research are not in that class.
I’ve interviewed several folks who work in this world on my How to Run for Office podcast and hope you’ll check them out. But suffice it to say, this is an area where there is always going to be a qualitative difference between the work product of a professional and a beginner.
Each of these two research realms involve identifying and looking under various rocks, trying to locate that hardest to find, often intentionally hidden, nuggets about someone. In terms of opposition research, what you find or don’t find will have a huge impact on the arch of your campaign messaging and your efforts to differentiate yourself from your opponent.
I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them. – Adlai Stevenson
Here’s today’s tip: “I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them.” Adlai Stevenson
This tongue in cheek quote from Adlai Stevenson perfectly captures the feelings of many candidates. But it also brings into perspective a central question of campaign strategy: “How do we differentiate ourselves from our opponent?”
Most first-time candidates launch their campaign with the belief that they can win on their virtues alone. If only the voters could learn how awesome they are, victory would be assured. This is not far off the mark since every campaign should start out by first establishing why THEY are the best candidate, rather than talking about why their opponent is the bad guy.
Be accessible. If voters and supporters can’t reach you on the campaign trail, they’ll doubt they will once you’re elected.
Here’s today’s tip: Be accessible. If voters and supporters can’t reach you on the campaign trail, they’ll doubt they will once you’re elected.
One of the perennial complaints about elected officials is their lack of accessibility. We talk about them getting caught in a bubble of their own creation or shunning the hoi polloi. If you’re running for office, chances are that you’ve heard that charge and your frustration with an incumbents failure in that area may be motivating you to run.
So the last thing you want to do is fall into that trap. More than that, you need to demonstrate to your future constituents that you won’t be THAT GUY.
There are lots of ways to convey that approachability but here are a few of my favorites:
- Publish your cell phone number on campaign literature and your website. Get a separate phone if you’re really worried about call volume or security but make sure folks can pick up the phone and call you. Fewer will take advantage of it than you’d think, but everybody will notice.
- Knock lots of doors. Nothing says, “I want to listen to you,” like actually listening to people. Don’t make the whole conversation at the door about you and all the myriad of things you want to do. Make sure it’s a real, 2-way conversation. Everybody loves to share their opinion but rarely do folks ask us what ours is and then really listen as we give a candid response. When it does, we like it and take notice.
- Take lots of questions. Depending on the dynamics of your race and fervor of your opposition, taking unlimited questions at large events may or may not be a good idea. However, there are plenty of other mediums to use. You can solicit questions and answer them via Facebook Live, post Q/A on your blog, take questions on Twitter, etc. This is stuff you can squeeze in on limited time and use to make an impact.