Winning: The Art of Getting it Right

It’s finally February and spring campaigns are underway. I talk to lots of candidates this time of the year who are jumping into the door-to-door campaign feet first, full of vigor and excited to get out and start walking.

The bad part? Sometimes they haven’t done their homework. I understand that crunching numbers is pretty tedious stuff—historical voting results in your precinct, which precincts you must win, how many like-minded voters live in your precinct already… There’s nothing overly exciting about it, I’ll admit. But it is oh-so-necessary.

Here’s an example: I spoke with a candidate once who was reluctant to give up some door-to-door time on a Saturday for our campaign training. When I asked about his door-to-door strategy, he told me he was planning to start at the geographical “top” of his district and work his way down. He had no idea how many votes he needed in order to win, because he hadn’t checked historical vote totals. He had no idea which precincts tended to be more aligned with the issues and values he championed, because he hadn’t looked into those voting results. And he had no idea which voters living within those precincts generally turned out to vote in the primaries, the race in which he was running at the time. Walking door-to-door without a good plan is like stumbling through the dark.

Sometimes candidates think they will win by virtue of their good ideas and hard work. I believe strongly in good ideas. Every positive change in our country began as a good idea. I also believe strongly in the value of hard work. I know what it’s like to walk door-to-door in the hot Kansas sun and thick humidity until your jeans stick to your legs, your shoes stick to the pavement, and you don’t think you can do it anymore. Campaigning does take hard work. But no matter the strength of your ideas or the dedication with which you’re willing to work, implementing any part of a campaign without a strategy is a recipe for disaster.

Bad ideas with good implementation will always beat good ideas with bad implementation. Whether it’s attending a campaign training, sitting down with trusted advisors, or simply taking an hour to sketch out a plan on a pad of paper, planning is as important as doing. Should the candidate I described earlier make it to our New Leaders Campaign Training he would learn how to understand the precincts within his district, which precincts he should target, how many votes he needs to win, which voters are most likely to turn out and to vote for him, and how to effectively target those voters in necessary precincts. He would learn how to organize and implement a strong door-to-door plan that would allow multiple contacts with each voter.

He would learn how to fundraise effectively, communicate strongly, network efficiently, and campaign victoriously. As it is today, he is wandering through precinct after precinct, without a clear goal in mind, and without a means to attain it.

Winning is ultimately the art of getting it right. Before you can implement those good ideas in the form of policy as an elected official, you must first win your campaign. If you are running for office or volunteering for someone who is, now is the time to get trained. At the very least, take a moment to listen to a few podcasts and check out some presentations on running effective campaigns. We’re all fans of good ideas, and we want to equip individuals within the community with every resource available to help them implement those ideas in a strong campaign.

Adapted from a previously published post by Beka Romm. Thanks, Beka!