Three Things Not to Do if You want to Win Your Next Campaign

Don't do this:

In a recent campaign I ran, early in the final month before election day, a very earnest young woman, a campaign volunteer, said to me on evening as we had an energetic phone bank going at the local Party headquarters, "Dotty, you can't have our candidate calling people during the dinner hour. Do you know how many people have said to me, 'I won't vote for anyone who calls me during dinner.'?"  "How do we know what time everyone eats dinner," I responded. I didn't say, "And do you know how many of those people wouldn't vote for our candidate anyway? Or how many of them just don't vote at all?" But I didn't.

Don't call me during dinner!

Or this: 

In another hard fought race for supervisor, an eager volunteer came up to me, all in a lather, saying "Dotty, Dotty. We have to get the candidate down to the freeway entrance right now! His opponent is there with his wife and kids, waving signs and people are honking for him!"

At that moment, the candidate was busy on the phone, dialing for dollars, calling his friends and family, to get those last minute funds to ensure he got over the finish line with room to spare. It was tight, and time was short. "No," I said, as kindly as I could to this well-intentioned volunteer. "He's busy now, raising money. We don't need to distract him. "But," she went on, undeterred,'the opponent has a very photogenic family and lots of sign wavers there too. He'll be noticed and our guy won't." Sign waving does not win campaigns. 

And especially don't do this: 

At the very beginning of what would prove to be a nail-biter of an election, volunteer number three came running up to me as I was busily checking the data provided by the research team, to target our early walking. "Dotty, Dotty" he said. "We have to buy a bunch of signs. Right now. Let's not waste out money on walking and mailing, when we can get our candidate's name in front of voters if we get to the freeway intersections and overpasses first. He'll have the most big signs and everyone will want to vote for him on election day!"

Never mind that we hadn't even settled on a logo or a slogan or finalized the first handout for the printer. And that the candidate, who had gotten off to a late start, was still madly calling his friends and relations for that all important early money.

When I reminded Eager Volunteer no. 3 of that, he had a ready answer, "But don't you see? If he just buys a bunch of banners and gets them up all over town right away, he won't need so much money. He'll have name recognition and win easily." No, he won't. He'll have annoyed drivers and business people calling to complain and writing letters to the editor about sign pollution, not to mention banners tend to fly off overpasses and can do all kinds of damage. We waited on signs, got the candidate out walking, did some targeted mailing and won with a pretty good margin.

So many signs!

                                                            

What DO you do then? 

Follow the time-honored techniques of savvy campaigners: Walk, phone (even at dinner time; phoning at dinner time never lost a candidate a vote and now with cell phones and caller ID, most calls got to voice mail anyway. Have a good short voice mail message ready to deliver), mail, meet voters at events and house parties, use smart social media, and do it all again. Yes, you need to do all of the above (except for banners, don't do banners!), but don't do them instead of campaigning like crazy, right up until the last minute. Oh, and tip no. 1. Raise money, raise money, raise money. More on that later. 

 

And more signs!