Anyone ever worked on a campaign?

FishHooks · #1 09-01-2005, 12:52 PM

I was wondering if anyone here has ever actively worked on a campaign at any level of government and what their experiences were. Last night I had dinner with a man running for the Florida state legislature and was thinking of jumping on board and helping with the campaign in any way I could.

warlockjd · #2 09-01-2005, 12:57 PM

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I was wondering if anyone here has ever actively worked on a campaign at any level of government and what their experiences were. Last night I had dinner with a man running for the Florida state legislature and was thinking of jumping on board and helping with the campaign in any way I could.

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I worked for Joe Kernan (D) for Governor last year in Indiana. In the most Republican county in the state, Hamilton County.

I just worked the phone banks. We called registered Dems, asked for their support (not $), tried to give them a yard sign, and see if they would be willing to volunteer time to the campaign, etc.

It was funny, because almost every person I called said, "I thought I was the only Democrat in Hamilton County"

Now we have the evil Mitch Daniels of Bush Cabinet infamy.

warlockjd · #3 09-01-2005, 12:58 PM

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I was wondering if anyone here has ever actively worked on a campaign at any level of government and what their experiences were. Last night I had dinner with a man running for the Florida state legislature and was thinking of jumping on board and helping with the campaign in any way I could.

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Gentleman of the Politics forum, I fear the next Karl Rove has reared his head...... [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

SheetWise · #4 09-01-2005, 01:48 PM

McCain (80's), Reagan, several Gov's, MAyors, etc. It's a lot of BS -- talking to reporters, un-spinning opponents data while spinning your own -- finding audiences -- it's all about numbers and leveraging every advantage you can find. Rarely talking to voters or individual concerns. You will definitely learn a lot about the power of media. To be good, you have to leverage every contact you have -- and if the race is highly partisan, you will alienate some of them. When it's over, you may find yourself immersed in a group of "friends" who are somewhat one-dimensional. Winning is everything -- sometimes when it's over, and you watch the process, you really have to wonder if it made any difference. Spend a lot of time picking the horse you want to back, and if you really believe in them and believe they are honest -- and believe you can maintain contact with them -- go for it. I consider trusting McCain to be one of my biggest mistakes.

Hamish McBagpipe · #5 09-01-2005, 01:53 PM

I've worked on a few campaigns over the years but the most memorable was when in University in Canada we put up a friend in a federal by-election against Jean Chretien. We wanted to run independently protesting Chretien's parachute status but were lured on to the Rhino ticket. What a laugh. We ended up getting tonnes of press coverage and I learned more from that couple of weeks than I did during my whole 4 years as a Political Science major.

Our 0.7% of the vote was well worth it. We should have known our candidate had little hope since the year before he ran for student President and ended up fourth behind a dog that someone had nominated. Even better was that after the vote Elections Canada gave us a read out of where our votes came from in the riding. We lived in a small town and there were about 8 of us living in a shared house. When our candidate looked at the read out he realized that he didn't even get 50% of the votes in our house turned campaign headquarters since there were only 4 votes for him on the entire street. Great times.

But in more serious campaigns it is just a larger version of the same thing in my experience.

beta1607 · #6 09-01-2005, 02:27 PM

It is very hard work, sometimes tedious but very very rewarding.

Also are you thinking of being paid staff or volunteering or interning because they are all doing very different things?

FishHooks · #7 09-01-2005, 02:31 PM

How exactly were you invloved. Also this is a State legislature race and its basically a grassroots campaign and not as much media and things like that, allthough those are things we are striving for.

FishHooks · #8 09-01-2005, 02:32 PM

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I learned more from that couple of weeks than I did during my whole 4 years as a Political Science major.

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I've heard this from a lot of people, while I'm a business major it still sounds like great experience to work on a campaign.

FishHooks · #9 09-01-2005, 02:34 PM

It's more volunteering/interning non paid stuff which I didn't expect to be paid anyways since as all you know I'm pretty die hard republican. He's also doing a lot of stuff through our college republican club as well that is how I met him initially.

beta1607 · #10 09-01-2005, 02:49 PM

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I learned more from that couple of weeks than I did during my whole 4 years as a Political Science major.

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I've heard this from a lot of people, while I'm a business major it still sounds like great experience to work on a campaign.

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Hamish's comments are very very true.