Political High

Everyone talks about the election winners.  Makes sense.  They won.  They’re going to courthouses, capitals, and Capitol Hill to go serve us.

But the losers–seems like a harsh word–whose who did not prevail–deserve some praise and attention.

Thank you for running.  You gave the voters the choice of your ideas, your experience, and your personality.  You tested your opponent.

Now, take a few days off.  Wipe your tears.  Get your anger and disappointment out of your system.  Reintroduce yourself to your family.

Then, get back to work on how you’ll win next time.

Here are some thoughts:

• Review your election results precinct by precinct.  What was the turnout?  Where were you strong?  Where were you weak?  Can you identify or relate efforts to results?
• Write thank yous.  Thank EVERYONE who you can identify who helped.  It’s your first campaign piece for the next election.
• Pay your campaign bills.  Now.  Leave no vendor unpaid.  They will talk bad about you if you do.
• File your campaign finance reports.
• Hold a debriefing with your campaign staff, top volunteers, and state or local campaign officials.  What do they think worked and didn’t work?
• If you need to make more (fill in the blank here) Party voters to overcome the other side’s registration advantage, get with your state and local party officials and ask them, point blank, what they are going to do with you to help narrow the registration gap.  You can’t start too soon on this.
• Review your campaign plan.  Did you follow it?  If not, why not?  What would you do differently?
• Take down your campaign signs.  Many localities have a deadline.  Plus, people are sick of looking at them.  Do it now.

Thank you again for your hard work, dedication, and being in the democratic fray.  And better luck next time!

Win or lose, thank you candidates for being participants in our American democracy.

Just like you can’t play a football or soccer game with only one team, you need opponents in elections.  Democrats, Republicans, Reform, Libertarians, Constitutional, Greens, whatever your political flavor, thank you for your personal sacrifices to be in the arena.

It isn’t easy being a candidate.  You give up your time, sometimes your money, your privacy.  You’re away from your family.  People say nasty things about you.  But you make democracy work.

You test the validity of ideas.  You listen to the people.  You fight like hell.   You meet the peeps.

Maybe you did some things wrong in your campaign.  If you want, there’s probably a next time if you lose.  If you won, remember, don’t get cocky.  Defeat in the next election can come from overconfidence in the results of this one.

Candidates at all levels facing the people Election Day, Political High salutes you!  Good luck on Election Day!