I hate to be a whining, crying nag.  Really I do.

I took a few days off after the election.  You probably did too if you were a candidate or campaign manager.

But now it is time to either quit celebrating or licking your wounds.  Have you done the following?

• Paid your outstanding campaign bills?
• Thanked your volunteers and supporters?
• Done a final accounting on campaign contributions and expenditures for your reports?
• Picked up all your yard signs?
• Had a celebration for your good effort?
• Debriefed with staff and supporters about what worked and didn’t work?

Most candidates I know have the political bug.  Even if they lose, most are ready to run again after a break.

It sometimes takes two or three times to run before you win.  It takes people getting to know you or at least recognize your name.

Keep busy with your other community activities and Party activities.  That will keep your name out there.  More importantly, you’ll be building a resume of accomplishments that you’ve done for your organizations and boards.

In the coming days and weeks, I’ll have more on how to set the baseline for your next campaign.

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!

We’re less than 48 hours until election day 2008 (November 4, 2008).  What should you be doing?

Frankly, much like studying for a test, it’s better that you went to class, kept up with your reading, and turned in your assignments on time.  You can try to cram, but hey, good luck.  Preparation, planning, and money wins elections.

But just in case, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Report any large campaigns immediately or within the period required by your state or locality.  You don’t want to get fined for not reporting properly or having bad publicity about the same.
• Make sure you’ve implemented as much of your campaign plan (another future post) as you possibly can.
• If you have money left over, who can you now target with a lit drop.  (You need boots on the ground now–it’s too late for mail.)
• If you have access to an opt-in email list, you might consider a GOTV email.
• Make sure you have all your volunteer shifts covered for GOTV, palm card hander-outers, and poll watchers.
• Dress the polling place.  In other words, get your signs up within the legal distance (if allowed by local or state law).
• Stage visibilities on key intersections.
• Relax.  Understand that you are what makes democracy work.

Good luck election day!

I’ve talked about yard signs in a previous post.  I’m luke warm about them.  Everyone seems to think you have to have them or your campaign is screwed.

What I’ve learned at campaign management camp suggests otherwise.

In fact, in 2006, here in South Dakota, the anti-abortion measure folks probably had far more yard signs than votes.  With another anti-abortion measure on the ballot in South Dakota again (yes, that’s pretty much all we vote on here), they again lead the yard sign fight.  But they lost in 2006 and they’ll probably lose again in 2008.

I’ve seen them with supporters having maybe ten yard signs-the same yard sign–in one yard.

Apparently they subscribe to the “if a little bit will do a little good a lot will do a lot of good” theory of political tactics.

I don’t agree.  Not because I’m on the other side of their issue, but because I don’t think it is effective.

In a ballot measure like abortion, it is well known.  Unlike a couty commissioner candidate no one may know, everyone knows there are two ways to vote on the iss–yes or no.

I think a better use of yard sign repitition madness money is through door to door canvassing, paid media, or direct mail.

I can’t imagine the same ten pictures of the same baby in my neighbor’s yard is going to be the difference between winning and losing.  Seems like that’s an approach where you bury–not enhance–your message.

I’m a firm believer in “less is more” advertising.

It’s the palm card.

Here in South Dakota, election day palm cards aren’t used much.  I was introduced to them from an East Coast organizer who I worked with on an issues campaign and he said they are part and parcel of elections there.

What is a palm card?  Hotcards.com has a marvelous explanation:

Palm Cards Do it Better

All good palm cards should include:

Front

• Candidate’s name
• Logo
• Candidate’s picture (smile!)
• Any other information relevant to the election or bill that you are hoping to inform voters about, such as dates and political party affiliation.

Back

• • A simple, straightforward list of your major campaign issues. When listing your issues, try to find an effective space between being too wordy and just skimming over important points.

Here in South Dakota, you can’t solicit voters within 100 feet of the polls. So, get a 100 foot length of rope (or whatever it is for your state or locality), stretch it out, and put a mark on the ground. That’s where your volunteers can stand.

Instruct the volunteers to be polite but not too pushy.  Some people don’t want to be bothered before going into the polls.  Others don’t mind as long as it’s friendly.

The palm card is your very last contact with the voter.  In many down ballot races or issues that have not received much attention in the media, this can be a great opportunity to win votes.

Don’t count out this low tech/high touch weapon in your campaign.

Having volunteered for political campaigns ranging from working at Al Gore’s Presidential Campaign HQ in Nashville in 2000 to volunteering for state and local candidates, I’ve had some very good and very bad experiences.

Frankly, most candidates take their volunteers for granted.  And part of it is understandable, as candidates are single-mindedly obsessed with getting elected.  And even campaign staff can be a little gruff at times.

No matter.  Treat your campaign volunteers like gold.  Besides all the work they do for you–for free–they are your best advocates.  They will tell their friends and neighbors all about you–for better or worse.

Here are eight simple ways to keep your volunteers happy and coming back to help you during this and the next campaign.

1. Keep the bathroom clean.  Yes, I’m serious.  When I was at Gore HQ, the bathroom was a stinking, nasty mess.  It was disgusting.  Having used open trenches to do my business in the Gaza Strip and China, I could handle a nasty American bathroom.  But that nice little old lady might never come back if your campaign office restroom is a science experiment.
2. Have coffee, drinks, and treats available.  Volunteers need breaks.  Have a well stocked refrigerator with water and pop.  Have a coffee pot on.  Have some chips or pretzels or other goodies.  These are also items you can solicit from your volunteers.
3. Make sure to greet your volunteers in a friendly manner when they come in for their shift and when they leave.  Nothing says “I don’t matter” more than no acknowledgment when people come and go.
4. Say thank you.  You can’t do this enough.  We all want to be appreciated for what we do.  The candidate I am volunteering for this fall, Clara Hart , who is running for state senate, always thanks me and makes a point to do it in public as well.  It is a nice feeling.
5. Buy pizza or other substantial meals for late nights or long days.  See # 2.
6. If you have people handing out palm cards (an upcoming post) at a precinct, make sure they get breaks and get meals and drinks.  It’s tough standing outside in the heat or cold trying to give out those cards!  I like to assign two people to a precinct for this duty–one, it helps morale, and two, people can take a break and the cards still get handed out.
7. Tell the volunteers what you can.  Make them feel like they are an important part of the team.  When I was at Gore HQ, the night before the election, all of us, no matter our status, were briefed by the deputy campaign manager about anticipated problems in Florida.  That made me feel like a big wheel in the campaign.
8. Have the candidate hand out a much of the praise as possible, given their time constraints.  You’re running for election in a democracy, you’re not running for king.  A few minutes with the peeps goes a long ways.

Hopefully, these ideas will keep your volunteers motivated, who will in turn make your campaign golden.

Let’s say like one of the Ghostbusters, you’ve been slimed.

But not by a ghost but by your opponent in the last days of the campaign.

You can’t cross the beams, as that might cause the end of the earth.  So what can you do to respond to a scurilous, untrue, or dirty attack at the last minute by your opponent?

Here are five ideas of what to do.

1. Plan ahead.  You probably had a sneaking suspicion months ago.  Your “conversation box” (another future post) may have pointed it out.  But you know–or should know–what you might be vulnerable on in terms of the issues or personally.
2. Have a response ready, even if you don’t need it.  Anticipate the attack and have a radio ad, flyer, your own robo calls, or postcard ready to go.  Yes, it might cost money.  But can you afford not to?  Also have volunteers ready to go.  If the attack doesn’t materialize, use them for a final lit drop push instead.
3. Hit the press and blogs hard.  Send out a press release.  Call a news conference.  Get on top of the media.  Don’t let your opponent’s words be the spin.
4. Have a counterattack ready.  I’ve been a part of campaigns where we had the “atomic bomb” ready to go if we needed it.  Fortunately, we didn’t have to drop it.  But if you have the stomach for it, fight fire with fire.  Only make sure your attack is based in fact.
5. Sometimes, there’s no need to respond.  The attack might be so crazy that no one will believe it or the folks who do weren’t going to vote for you anyway.

Anyway, hopefully, you won’t get heartburn in the waning days of the campaign and you and your opponent will stick to the facts, the issues, and the record.

Yes, I am a sunny optimist.  But don’t let the slime stick if it does happen.

It’s a week out until election day.

And finally, you get some major money from a donor or two.

Geez, it would have been nice to have this in August or even at the beginning of October!

But there’s the big check.

What can you do?

Emily’s List is famous for “Early Money Is Like Yeast.”  The early money does the most good because it can help you plan better and shows other contributor’s your campaign is for real.

But money in a campaign is always good.

Here are six suggestions as to what you could do:

1. The easiest thing is to increase what you are already going to do.  Going to buy a three column newspaper ad? Make it a five column ad.  Going to buy ten radio spots/day?  See if you can buy 15 or 20/day. Going to send out 5,000 post cards?  Send out 7,500.
2. If you’re not buying radio time, consider it.  Radio spots can be produced quickly and inserted into a schedule fairly easily.  I am a huge fan of radio for many races (that’s another post).
3. If you are comfortably ahead and your campaign laws allow it, bank it for the next campaign.
4. If you are comfortably ahead and your campaign laws allow it, use it to assist other candidates, particularly if you are running in a district that sends two or more of you to the legislature or the commission.  You will helping yourself and earning chits that you can cash in in the future.
5. Is there a college campus that you would do well in but you haven’t had the cash to hire and organizer?  Find a college student to do a crash GOTV program and or hold a GOTV party on campus, encouraging early voting and voting.
6. Provide win bonuses to your key campaign staff.  They’ll love you and want to work for you again.  Even if you lose and you’re close, call it a “near win bonus.”

Hopefully, this is a “problem” you’ll have in the next seven days!

Ideally, the political candidate has “only” three jobs:

1. Call and talk to people to raise money.
2. Call and talk to people (or be on TV or radio) asking them to for vote for them.
3. Win.

Most political candidates in my experience are Type As–they are control freaks.  They are usually ambitious and successful people and keeping their eye on the ball has brought them success.

But in a campaign, there is simply too much to do.  There are graphics to design and order, creating mailings, cutting turf, and a myriad of big and little activities.

Hopefully, the smart candidate–you–will delegate as much as you can.  About 50 percent of your campaign time should be spent trying to feed the campaign coffers by making calls, visiting contributors, and going to campaign fundraising events.  The other half should be spent meeting as many people as you can–in person, on radio or TV, or via the telephone.

Most campaign volunteers want to be useful.  And if you have the money or can find an ambitious political science major, have a campaign manager to take care of everything else.

Campaigns boil down to money and votes.  If you get those, you achieve #3–Victory!