Saying bah-bye to a client

What to do when a client fires you?  It's devastating at first. After you've bent over backwards, dealing with the client's endless second guessing of every idea, design and recommendation for fundraising, the client decides you are not working fast enough, paying him enough attention, taking him seriously, raising enough money, or just plain not eager enough about his campaign, and calls it quits.

Never mind that you explained endlessly websites don't come out of the blue; he has to supply at least the draft of content and must be responsive to your comments.  He's the client and he knows best. This is especially egregious with clients who've run before whether they've won or lost. They just know it all, and you are there to follow out their predetermined plan.

What do you mean, you need a new set of photos of the client interacting with locals, in various locations and situations? His mom's/wife's/brother's photos from last year's barbecue are great, and what about the one of him beaming next to the Governor, the one where the governor is gazing off in the distance, and the client wears a goofy smile, and looks downright sycophantic?

He calls, says I'm very sorry, but I need someone who can get the job done the right way. I don't know why you can't do it. You have a good reputation, so maybe it's me (but he doesn't mean it).

OK, you say, having decided this campaign cannot be salvaged. We'll call it even and keep our good relationship intact.  Perhaps you were friends before all this. It happens.  Smile and take it.  Just hope he doesn't ask for his retainer back.  And remember you have done a good job for him, one that a new team can step into and maybe salvage the race. Or not.

You wait with trepidation to see what he will do and how he will spin this falling out.  Spin first.  Like a divorcing couple, you just had irreconcilable differences, but you are still friends and wish him the best, as you scout out the next client, vowing to do a better job of vetting this time.

Reality TV

Campaigning is like Reality TV. The best and the worst.  So why not have a reality TV show that is a real life campaign?  Two candidates vie for a real position. I wonder if you can have them win by audience vote? Wouldn't that be awesome, but probably unconstitutional. Fun though.

You could have taping of a two real campaigns, with their strategy, their precinct walking, their agonizing over mail, TV spots, arguments arguments between candidates who think they (or their second cousin the ad agency hotshot from Peoria) knows better than the consultant they are paying good money for.

Plus all the real life fun of last minute hit pieces, Twitter indiscretions,  ugly divorces and other juicy scandals.

Yeah, baby, let's do it!

Campaign Slut - the TV Show

So, here I sit thinking there must be a more lucrative way to make a living than trying to wrangle candidates.  Like make a TV show about the wrangling of candidates.  It wold be bright, funny, edgy, racy, smart, scandal driven and moral.

That is each story would have a moral - an outcome good or bad that points the way for how to do the job right. Or not screw it up too badly.

So for instance, one episode would have our intrepid campaign team, headed by you-know-who, trying to figure out how to get their candidate out of the proverbial pickle caused by a not-so-youthful indiscretion and another having them pulling their hair when the candidate makes the forty-seventh edit to the mail piece they have waiting to go tot he printer, thereby sabotaging his own campaign.

From real life, we have the example of the sleazy, unattributed hit piece sent out two days before the election; the pulling of funds from a very competent candidate in favor of one with more star appeal and money of her own; the candidate who can't say no - to his wife, his brother in law, his aunt Maude, the mailman, or anyone else with a suggestion for how the campaign can be better run. Not.

Not to mention the lean times, the interpersonal squabblings, the scramblings to catch a hot property first, the typos that change everything, the cramming to learn all the latest social media tricks, the drinking, broken marriages and lost friendships.

And yet there are rewards. The night one week before the election when you know by the number of elderly Republican gents supporting your pro-environment candidate that he is going to win; the late absentee results that come in two weeks after election days showing your candidate, who was trailing the frontrunner by 123 votes on election night and went home to drown her sorrows, actually won by 37 votes when the last chad was hung.

The guts, the glory, the glamor, the gag reflexes. We have it all. Stay tuned.

Tips from the Trail

Do candidates know what they want?  Maybe, but do they know how to get it? If they did, they wouldn't need us.  So when you are dealing with candidates, you need to be tough. Tough love is what they need.  

No, you have to tell them, you do not need to spend all your time (or any of it) organizing your endorsers into categories, the alphabet, where they live or anything else. Just get their vital statistics, most importantly how much they can donate, will they volunteer, their title and their email for future contact, and get it to the data base person.

Listen to your consultants. Yes you are the ultimate decider. But you are paying good money for their advice. Take it.

Starting out

I started young. At age 11 I campaigned for my dad when he ran for sheriff.  On the Republican ticket.  He did not win, but I was hooked, walking around wearing my LeMieux for Sheriff sign as big as I was. 

From there I went on to lose my campaign to be class president in seventh grade. But stayed interested in politics.  It was 1960 and John Kennedy was running for President against Tricky Dick.   My Mom was an avid Democrat so you can imagine dinner table talk during the Kennedy campaign. I was 12, and got to stay home to watch the inauguration on TV.

Somehow he wrangled us tickets to the Governor's Ball!  That would Governor Romney, George, not Mitt.  A Republican's Republican his son could never be. 

Then, there was that fateful day in November, 1963. I don't know if school was closed or if we just stayed home, but I saw Oswald get shot on live TV, and knew nothing would ever be the same again.

Making Nice

Last night I attended the party for our new Assembly member, Marc Levine. Please note that I worked, although in a minor capacity, for his opponent, Michael Allen, an incumbent whose seat was redistricted this year.  As a progressive Democrat, I naturally gravitated to the more progressive candidate, Allen, whose short term in the Assembly was marked with bills protecting consumers, the mentally ill, farmworkers and much more.  Yes, this was not only a redistricted seat, but the first test of California's "Top Two" primary.  So we had two Democrats running against each other for the coveted new 10th Assembly District, covering all of Marin and some of Sonoma Counties.  To the surprise of many a pundit and political insider, the voters spoke out for the less established, more moderate, Democrat. Or maybe simply against what they perceived to be insider vs. outsider in an era of mucho distrust of government.

More about the actual campaign later.  This is a report on a party, held in a crowded upstairs room of a popular venue in San Rafael.  People lined the stairs to check in.  Young men in short haircuts handed out clipboards for us to sign.  Marc graciously greeted guests at the top of the stairs.  Everyone was checking out the crowd.  There were lots of new faces.  The question that naturally sprung to mind was "How many of these people are Democrats?"  Marc had appealed (wisely it now appears) to independents and even Republicans. 

Some of the old stand-bys were there too.  A couple of County Supervisors, sitting or former City Council members, and the usual partygoers.  I got a drink from the bar and worked the room.  A duet sang folky style "soft rock" music, and guests dined on mini-burgers, crab, oysters, mussels, cheeses, and some healthy veggies.

A newly elected school board member from Sonoma expressed her surprise to see me there.  "We're all Democrats" I said, realizing that wasn't even necessarily true, but since she and I both are, she nodded her understanding.

It became apparent the venue was too small, and fire codes must have been invoked. As I was leaving I ran into our Party chair who said they were not letting anyone up.  Everyone wanted to see the new kid on the block it seemed.

It's a new era, and we all must figure out our place in the political strata.  Looking forward to new campaigns in the coming year.