Take stock and get organized.
Look at the situation: Can you
even win this thing?
Sounds like a stupid question, but not when we think of all the election-night disasters we've witnessed over the years, where the outcome could have been predicted on filing day and where years later the former candidate is still struggling with debt and in some cases depression and divorce.
Here's a simple calculation:
Write down the percentages
received in your district or county
by John McCain, President Bush and by every
candidate for governor and US Senate
since 2002.
These are the
"high-visibility" races, were voters
are more informed and therefore more
likely to ignore party affiliation.
Average out the percentages.
55 percent or more:
Reliably
Republican.
Unless your opponent is
first-rate, you can do most things
wrong and still win. 45 to 54 percent: This is the range from Lean Democrat to Lean Republican. At the lower end of the scale, you'll need to outwork, out-raise and out-think your opponent to have a chance of winning. Less than 45 percent: Forget it. Even when they know the candidates and issues involved, a solid majority votes Democrat. In the absence of mitigating circumstances, such as a weakened opponent, it will be difficult if not impossible to convince enough of them to change their minds and vote for you. While there are still many good reasons to stay in the race and account well for yourself, we can think of no good reason to spend your kids' college fund on an enterprise with only a tiny chance of success. It doesn't matter if you think you can win. Unless others think you can win, you'll never attract enough crucial support. (So forget about it!)
Take stock of yourself
Write down your one-sentence
answers to the following questions:
Why
would a person want to vote for
you?
Why
would a person want to help
you?
Why
would a person want to contribute
to your campaign?
Be
thoughtful and take some time in
being succinct.
You'll be repeating each
sentence thousands of times in the
coming months. Get OrganizedStop Spending Money!
If
your campaign checking account
hovers at or near zero, you're in
trouble already.
Later on, when you're
struggling to come up with postage
cash, you'll wonder exactly what you
were thinking when you decided to
plop down several hundred dollars
for some kid's hog at the county
fair.
If you follow our plan,
you'll spend the next few months
planning and recruiting, neither of
which requires much in the way of
funds.
So start thinking of ways to
reduce costs.
If you have a campaign HQ
that's mostly empty, think about
moving, if not to your basement, to
a smaller place with plenty of
parking and lighting.
(You want your HQ to be a
place that encourages people to stop
by.)
If you have an equipment
lease, evaluate the cost of getting
out of it.
Just about anything you're
leasing can be purchased second-hand
for less than your current monthly
payment.
Do not put yourself in the
position of wondering, after a close
election loss, what you might have
been able to do with an extra
$5,000. Pick the low-hanging fruit.
If
you've received early commitments
from friends, colleagues or PACs,
now’s the time to call; their help
is more valuable now than later.
Use their donations for your
office account, which is defined as
everything for which you'd be
spending money even if you raised
nothing for mail and media.
Examples would be office
rent, snacks, travel and utilities.
(and did we mention the
Filpac software?)
By setting this money aside,
you can assure future prospects that
their dollars will be used entirely
for direct voter contact. Lists, lists, lists.
Pull
together all the lists you have
collected and get them into a
central database.
(Might we suggest the
Filpac system?)
Potential helpers.
Sign locations.
Donor lists.
Constituent contacts.
Community organizations.
Professional associations.
This helps you establish the
“360-degree” view of voters in your
district.
Data-entry is a daunting job
but manageable.
Most electronic lists, such
as Excel spreadsheets, can be
imported directly into your
Filpac database. To manage the
data entry you can install remote
Filpac databases on volunteers' home
computers from where they can upload
their work, or you can take
advantage of the several
web options enabling them to
access your system directly. Get a Voter Vault user name and password.
If
you're running for the state
legislature, you should be able to
get a user name and password from
your Republican caucus committee.
Otherwise call your
Republican county chairman. Build your contributor prospect list
In
about half of the states, you can
get the names and addresses of
donors to past campaigns and use
that information to raise more
money.
Those lists, available from
either the county or state election
authorities, can be imported
directly into your Filpac system,
where the candidates and amounts
will appear next to each person's
name, along with the detail of that
persons' donations to your campaign.
That way you'll know what
they've given to others before
making your approach.
The
FEC and some states prohibit the
practice of using contribution
disclosure reports for fund-raising.
We did some checking and
found that in the following states
there are no restrictions on the use
of this information:
Start the precinct-targeting process
Look
at the election this way:
A certain percentage will
vote for you simply because you're a
Republican.
Another percentage will vote
against you for the same reason.
Then you have the people we
know as “ticket-splitters” who can
be swayed either way.
You don't know the identity
of
these swing voters, but with
the Filpac precinct-targeting system
you can at least figure out where
most of them live.
For
each precinct, here is what you need
for at least the ‘06 and ‘08 general
elections:
Then call us and we'll help set up your targeting scheme, based on a model we've used successfully for 25 years. |
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