I'm Ronery. So Ronery.*
(*Team America Fans will get that one)
Well, I'm making a few more attempts at attention. I sent out a few more e-mails. I'm probably not controversial enough. I'm more concerned with getting at the nuts and bolts of campaigns, and trying to figure out why. It's kind of the small boy mentality of wanting to know how something works, so let's take it apart, which I did often as a kid.
It's not that I'm a purist. I'm not pure, anyone who knows me well will attest to that. I get emotional with campaigns. Not weepy girly stuff. More akin to "I am girded for battle. Into the breach!" I get a little fired up. My mouth somtimes engages without the full benefit of my brain.
When Larry Russell was running in the special nominating convention for the congressional vacancy, and a group of us were campaigning for him and standing on the convention floor, in the heat of the moment, I seem to recall uttering something in the direction of his opponent's 'posse' when Larry was up in the numbers to the effect of "take that you &%$#%@!" While smirking in appreciation of my exuberance, Larry did say "Jeez, settle down before someone hears you." It's the whole heat of the moment thing.
Now that my impurity is established; A campaign in South Dakota is not something easily distilled down to a campaign plan. Why? For one, most campaigns I've seen don't use one, at least on my side of the aisle.
Think I'm lying? Think about it; People tend to avoid stupid blunders if they take the time to plan things out. Most of the time these guys are flying by the seat of their pants.
Example? One campaign I worked on only did one real major fundraising letter effort because nobody had time to worry about it. I did letter one, which went well. And so we had another I had written in the works, and prepared to go out, but once Person A had ok'd it, then Person B had to look at it. Once they made their corrections, then the candidate looked at it and ok'd it. But then it had to go to Person C, and back to Person A to start the game of round robin again.
On that one, I went through two rounds of pass the letter, taking about 2-3 weeks. And then they were trying to start another one. I put my foot down and said "GOD DAMMIT, everyone has looked at the thing and the candidate has approved it! If we don't get this out we're going to run out of money and we're going to lose!" I don't think the staff had ever seen me angry, and they finally took me seriously. I got the letter out the next day. Organizational Inertia in a campaign with only 4 weeks left to go is a bad thing.
While expressing my inner feelings got the job done, it cost me favor with the in-crowd in the campaign. I was kind of the bastard child of the office from there on out. But we did win, in spite of lacking any plan.
If you're going to do it right (and prevent ostracizing the hired help) you need a campaign plan to set goals on media and fundraising and to give yourself a rudder. It helps create a solid organizational structure.
Frankly, if you don't have a campaign plan, expect chaos. And expect campaign workers like me to yell at you. If someone's yelling because they can't get a fundraising letter approved after 3 weeks, it's time to re-evaluate how you're doing business.
And if you only have a few weeks to go, you may have already lost.
Well, I'm making a few more attempts at attention. I sent out a few more e-mails. I'm probably not controversial enough. I'm more concerned with getting at the nuts and bolts of campaigns, and trying to figure out why. It's kind of the small boy mentality of wanting to know how something works, so let's take it apart, which I did often as a kid.
It's not that I'm a purist. I'm not pure, anyone who knows me well will attest to that. I get emotional with campaigns. Not weepy girly stuff. More akin to "I am girded for battle. Into the breach!" I get a little fired up. My mouth somtimes engages without the full benefit of my brain.
When Larry Russell was running in the special nominating convention for the congressional vacancy, and a group of us were campaigning for him and standing on the convention floor, in the heat of the moment, I seem to recall uttering something in the direction of his opponent's 'posse' when Larry was up in the numbers to the effect of "take that you &%$#%@!" While smirking in appreciation of my exuberance, Larry did say "Jeez, settle down before someone hears you." It's the whole heat of the moment thing.
Now that my impurity is established; A campaign in South Dakota is not something easily distilled down to a campaign plan. Why? For one, most campaigns I've seen don't use one, at least on my side of the aisle.
Think I'm lying? Think about it; People tend to avoid stupid blunders if they take the time to plan things out. Most of the time these guys are flying by the seat of their pants.
Example? One campaign I worked on only did one real major fundraising letter effort because nobody had time to worry about it. I did letter one, which went well. And so we had another I had written in the works, and prepared to go out, but once Person A had ok'd it, then Person B had to look at it. Once they made their corrections, then the candidate looked at it and ok'd it. But then it had to go to Person C, and back to Person A to start the game of round robin again.
On that one, I went through two rounds of pass the letter, taking about 2-3 weeks. And then they were trying to start another one. I put my foot down and said "GOD DAMMIT, everyone has looked at the thing and the candidate has approved it! If we don't get this out we're going to run out of money and we're going to lose!" I don't think the staff had ever seen me angry, and they finally took me seriously. I got the letter out the next day. Organizational Inertia in a campaign with only 4 weeks left to go is a bad thing.
While expressing my inner feelings got the job done, it cost me favor with the in-crowd in the campaign. I was kind of the bastard child of the office from there on out. But we did win, in spite of lacking any plan.
If you're going to do it right (and prevent ostracizing the hired help) you need a campaign plan to set goals on media and fundraising and to give yourself a rudder. It helps create a solid organizational structure.
Frankly, if you don't have a campaign plan, expect chaos. And expect campaign workers like me to yell at you. If someone's yelling because they can't get a fundraising letter approved after 3 weeks, it's time to re-evaluate how you're doing business.
And if you only have a few weeks to go, you may have already lost.
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