Campaign Management Archive

Its over three years since I had been a campaign manager for a Congressional Campaign, and I was cleaning up my blog and discovered a couple of half completed notes on being a campaign manager that I planned on publishing for others to benefit from my experiences. In the intervening years, I got extremely busy and never had the time to edit and update.

Today, I thought - why the heck not? The information is still relevant and the ideas may help some new campaign manager learn some lessons from this crib sheet instead of from the fire of a candidate (or campaign). As I go through my notes, I will write some of my thoughts out - and capture them in posts.

Lesson #1: It’s all about the money.

One of the lessons I learned in running a Congressional campaign is that a political campaign is like making sausages - you never want to know how it is done, but you can appreciate when it is done right.

In building a campaign from the ground up - or improving an existing program - you face a lot of operational issues:

• getting low-cost, high-quality facilities,
• getting the best staff for the least amount of money,
• growing connections both within the district and the District,
• creating compelling marketing materials that hit the high points, but keep the powder dry,
• and so on.

And, aside from the operational ones - the interpersonal issues of political candidates and their families, the issues of staffers and volunteers - all of these are part and parcel of running the campaign.

But when it comes down to brass tacks, with all of these issues looming, what truly matters in the eyes of everyone is the money.

Money determines viability, strength and success in the future. Early money determines your perceived viability of the campaign. Effective money management determines the nature of your campaign management. Growth of money determines your future viability in various situations - including television, radio, print/direct mail, online and other outreach mechanisms.

Since money is the constraint on your campaign - consider the following suggestions when trying to create an effective political campaign:
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Crossposted from Social Engineer:

The final panel of the day has Zack Exley and Mike Turk moderating a panel on this cycle’s eCampaign Managers: Joe Trippi from John Edwards 2008; Christian Ferry from John McCain 2008; Mindy Finn from Romney 2008; Peter Daou from Clinton 2008; and Josh Orton from Obama08.

Mike: Discussing how the CIO ended up creating things to move on tech within business. Similar to campaigns - once someone has the insight into managing the implementation of technology across an organization - they have the responsibility of the increased performance through technology.

Zack: DeanTV - back in 2004 was a big deal. how the whole campaign going to ask for money - every big decision was coordinated with the campaign team. Joining the Kerry Campaign, we were in the basement, in a closet - it was not John Kerry talking, it was the “beer” (Ari-Rabin Havt and Zack in their own little hovel in the campaign office - my addition).

Trippi: the issue is about command and control structures. Campaigns have problems decentralizing campaigns. In the Dean Campaign, the Internet team was huddled in a small office. This year, integration of the web team within and throughout the campaign. Some of it is due to the toolset and the opportunities to impact across the landscape.

Four years later, we now have to manage YouTube, Facebook, eventful, MySpace - need to integrate with the rest of the campaign. Have to be involved with the net. Scheduling (though eventful) is being used to pull the campaign into interacting with the web.

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