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Hello again and welcome to the 2015 Campaigns/Elections/Politics thread. This thread is designed to answer any questions you may have about working on or the inner workings of political campaigns or political offices. I know I am late this year just been busy with life. Who am I you may ask? I am Mooseontheloose (or just Moose) and I am a just a guy who worked campaigns for about 3 or 4 years before moving over to an official office. I've run two campaigns a small city council race and a state senate race. Have been an organizer for two statewide campaigns and ran a paid canvass. I've worked mostly in the north but did spend some time in the South. I do not consider myself a expert or like David Axlerod but I do feel like there is a lot of questions that people have about the political process that they are afraid to ask. I am here to demystify our sometimes complicated political world. Mooseontheloose's rules and general questions 1. This is a safe space and I ask everyone to refrain from being internet detectives. Don't be that jerk who ruins it for everyone. 2. If you work in the political world please feel free to jump in with your own opinions. Always good to have more opinions and always good to have different perspectives. 3. I want to be Josh Lyman! Can you help me become Josh Lyman? I will also settle for Toby Zigler. Shamelessly stolen from this youtube video. If you want a job you can certainly send me a resume, please PM me but be warned that it's hard to recommend random strangers from the internet. 3a. Help! I have a chance to run a small state rep race or I can be low man on the totem poll on a competitive governors/Senate race. What would you do? Every option has advantages and disadvantages. Running a small state rep campaign gives you some invaluable experience in management, hiring, and volunteer management. Still, it's a small world and sometimes it hard to move up. Working for a bigger race is great, you meet a lot of influential people and lots of people within your political party. But be warned if you want to advance you can't just show up once a week. You have to dedicate yourself to the campaign and take every opportunity thrown at you. Even then, it takes time to claw your way up. 4. Aren't you part of a system that is just corrupt, making you part of the corruption. All political parties are the same and clearly my pet candidate from (libertarian/green/vermin supreme) didn't win because the two political parties don't want them to win. You make me sick. Listen straw-man I made up, I get that you think that all political parties are the same and that your pure 3rd party candidate and thoughts would show Americans the light IF ONLY they could get elected. But both parties are not the same from the way they governor to the way the run campaigns and yes their policies are significantly different. 5. Lawn signs are a tried and true method of getting people elected. Why don't more campaigns use lawn signs? [sobs internally] 6. Where can I find jobs? Look for jobsthatareleft, idealist (thought those are more of the grassroots campaigns, more on that in a second), Democratic Gain, and Tom Mantos are all places that come to mind. 6a. I saw a Grassroots Campaigns job that says I can run a campaign with no experience. What's the catch? The catch is they pay like poo poo and make more than enough money to not do that. They say they run more legislative campaigns, which maybe true, but I haven't really seen them make a huge impact. This is my own personal opinion and others may vary. 6b. What about paid canvassing? It's not a bad way to start though it all depends on who is running it and if the people running it are willing to teach you things and let you in on what's going on. Plus, they are a bit disconnected from the other campaigns due to FEC and PAC laws. Finally, everyone should go to http://www.campaignsick.tumblr.com and learn to love that site. Ask away!
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May 17, 2015 04:07
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I've spent the last 6 or so months since our Congressional candidate got REKT trying to work with the local committees to improve them so that (a) we actually have a functional party of some description when the 2016 Campaigns roll in and (b) we can actually win some of the hundred or so elections on the ballot in my Congressional District this year. I have learned the following:
There is nobody in the world I don't hate right now. Except Mooseontheloose, who made this thread so I can rant. Jackson Taus fucked around with this message at 05:49 on May 17, 2015 |
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May 17, 2015 05:37
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Jackson Taus posted:
So uh...yah those are a lot of problems and the unfortunate side of what we love to do. Local parties (and especially county parties) if run by the wrong people can be the bane of your existence. To that end, make sure you do what you can to either recruit the next generation or be VERY clear to local party people about what is happening. Put another way these things have a way of blowing up in party people's faces like this guy: http://coralspringstalk.com/broward-county-democratic-party-official-arrested-for-grand-theft-3261
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May 17, 2015 13:44
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gently caress off years, and gently caress local parties. Anyway i posted a bunch in the old thread(s) but I do lots of campaigns. Mostly field and targeting stuff so far. I've worked in 5 states and counting, and have done stuff from paid canvassing for state house candidates to field directing statewide coordinateds, mostly stuff inbetween. I can answer lots of questions especially about field and careers within field.
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May 17, 2015 15:48
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Jesus, mooseontheloose, you're still doing this? You either have the patience of a saint or you have an unhealthily high tolerance for pain and bullshit. The last campaign I worked for was almost a year ago and now I'm at an office job. Campaign jobs can be fun, but the magic wears off after a while. However, I did do some GOTV phonebanking for the winner of a special election for the New York State Assembly earlier in May. I couldn't vote in it on account of living less than two blocks north of where the district begins, so I decided to do that after work instead. It was a very strange election from the start- the Democratic machine candidate had a snafu at the Board of Elections and didn't make it on the ballot, so the Democratic line was vacant for the election. The three Democrats that clamored for the seat (there was a Republican candidate, but his base of support is solely the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Lubavitchers, who are headquartered in a small part of the district, so he had no shot) ended up being on different party lines, and all three of them ran on one issue- tenants' rights. As this article explains (please excuse the horrible first paragraph- the NY Times put this in the Sunday Metro section and their audience is mostly the kind of people who can relate to sending their West Indian nanny home after a long day's work), Crown Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens stand to lose a lot if New York state rent regulation laws aren't renewed this year, as they must be every three years, because it has a high concentration of rent regulated buildings compared to the rest of New York City. The Democrat who was closest to the Brooklyn machine, Shirley Patterson (who ran on the Independence Party line), talked the talk, but she got money from a developer who owns some buildings in the district, so it was pretty clear she wasn't going to walk the walk if she won- not to mention that I hardly saw any signs for her in the district until a week before the special election. Geoffrey Davis ran on the "Love Yourself Party" line (your guess is as good as mine as to why it's named that), and while he was more visible on campaign literature, he ended up placing dead last with less than 5% of the vote. The winning candidate was Diana Richardson, who ran on the Working Families Party line. She took no money from developers, and when she spoke at a meeting of the Crown Heights Tenants Union, she gave the entire room her personal cell phone number, which is both incredibly courageous and kinda stupid. Also, she might be younger than some of the campaign veterans that have posted in previous iterations of this thread. The message is clear- the tide may be finally turning against the real estate lobby. Of course, this is just one district, and if the rent regulations are renewed (they probably will be), a lot can happen in the three years before they need to be renewed again. But I have hope. get that OUT of my face fucked around with this message at 05:32 on May 19, 2015 |
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May 19, 2015 05:30
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Y-Hat posted:Jesus, mooseontheloose, you're still doing this? You either have the patience of a saint or you have an unhealthily high tolerance for pain and bullshit. The last campaign I worked for was almost a year ago and now I'm at an office job. Campaign jobs can be fun, but the magic wears off after a while. Being on the official side helps, though last year was kinda bullshit. New York (like any place) seems like it is a tough place to be, especially if you are anti-development/anti-real estate.
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May 19, 2015 23:45
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Mooseontheloose posted:New York (like any place) seems like it is a tough place to be, especially if you are anti-development/anti-real estate. It's not even halfway through the first year of Cuomo's second term and already people are clamoring for Bharara, state AG Eric Schneiderman, and state comptroller Tom DiNapoli to run for governor in 2018. If this leftward momentum continues into the 2016 elections, Cuomo and his more-GOP-than-Democratic agenda will be on the ropes. But a lot can happen in a year and a half. I highly doubt Bill de Blasio will run, partially because he's running for re-election as NYC mayor in 2017, partially because he's an oblivious idiot in spite of the fact that he's enacted some good things (universal pre-K, five paid sick days for practically everyone who works in NYC, practically no business can run a credit check on you for employment), demagoguery towards protesters notwithstanding. get that OUT of my face fucked around with this message at 00:57 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 00:54
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Y-Hat posted:I'd like to think that New York's going through a seismic shift right now, but as a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist I can't be too sure. Even before this year's developments in Albany, Zephyr Teachout won almost 40% of the vote in the Democratic primary in spite of the fact that not many people knew who she was. Bear in mind, this was when Andrew Cuomo's approval ratings defied all logical explanation by being healthily over 50% (it's now in the mid-40s among all New Yorkers, and it's in the mid-30s among NY Democrats). A little populism goes a long way. And of course, you've got the fact that the head of both houses of the State Legislature were indicted on corruption charges because Preet Bharara is actually walking the walk of rooting out Albany's rotten culture, instead of half-assing it like Cuomo has. It is a reminder though for challengers to build their grassroots networks early.
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May 25, 2015 05:07
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I got an undergraduate B.A. in Business Economics (accounting + economics + finance) and have been working at banks and hedge funds for 4 years. While I've briefly considered pursuing something like a PhD in finance, I don't have the aptitude for graduate level math. I want to switch industries to something more qualitative and political through a Master's program. I'm not sure I have the fortitude for a PhD but I'd consider it afterwards. Ideally, I want to try and migrate towards the more PR/media oriented side of things, because the strategy and creativity involved in crafting messages and responses for a campaign sounds a lot more interesting to me than being a policy wonk, though I still find a policy wonk more interesting than being an quantitative based investor. I like the intellectual challenge of deciding the appropriate response and messaging for a recent event, like Hillary and the email blowup or deciding how to comment on the student debt issue. I also like how it's more about people and your ability to read or influence them, whether it's the politicians or the voters. I'm currently at the very initial stage of researching programs in a range of areas, including National Security/Securities Policy Study, Public Policy/Administration, International Relations, International Political Economics, Legislative Affairs, Media and Strategic Management or American Government to name a few. Advice? I'd love to do a job that has a title like "political strategist" or work for a campaign. I'm worried about applying for these programs with no real relevant experience. I'm worried about the job prospects after the program. My background is competitive enough I'd shoot for a name brand institution like Georgetown or Hopkins but also weak enough I might end up at a 2nd tier program. If I'm in the wrong place please send me along. Its Miller Time fucked around with this message at 16:45 on May 25, 2015 |
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May 25, 2015 16:42
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Its Miller Time posted:
My first bit of advice is to always join a campaign that you are interested in. Most campaigns from city council on up have some sort of consultant with them that work with vendors and have worked with other officials. It is a great networking opportunity. Also, you want to know how campaign operations work before you start consulting and doing the high level data/messaging work. Practicality goes a long way. You may also want to look at the major political consultants in your area if you want to stay local. Aristotle sounds more like what you want to do. They are the ones who put together all the big data for the Democratic party. You may also want to look at NGP/VAN as a democrat as well. But again find a campaign you like and see if you can join in for a bit.
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May 27, 2015 03:08
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[rant]Dear Idiots: If I can find a hole in your plan thirty seconds after hearing it, it doesn't mean I'm an rear end in a top hat, it means you didn't do your homework. Like seriously, if you're going to propose a bylaws amendment, shouldn't "read the whole bylaws and make sure nothing else relates to the section that's changing" be a part of the process? Or at least "run a search on related words to make sure I didn't miss anything"? [/rant] On a different note, is there an easy way to explain to local parties that they're very obviously under-performing and aren't nearly as successful as they think they are? Because they tend to declare it a major success when the state party drops a million dollars and 20 field organizers on a race and wins or when a race ties the part of the district in their county but wins convincingly in the other part of the district. Mooseontheloose posted:My first bit of advice is to always join a campaign that you are interested in. Most campaigns from city council on up have some sort of consultant with them that work with vendors and have worked with other officials. It is a great networking opportunity. Also, you want to know how campaign operations work before you start consulting and doing the high level data/messaging work. Practicality goes a long way. Yeah, I'd definitely recommend spending some time working with or volunteering with a campaign, because it helps you get a sense of the "front lines" of politics as it were. It's also a really fascinating experience, and largely populated by cool people roughly your/our age. Its Miller Time posted:I got an undergraduate B.A. in Business Economics (accounting + economics + finance) and have been working at banks and hedge funds for 4 years. While I've briefly considered pursuing something like a PhD in finance, I don't have the aptitude for graduate level math. I want to switch industries to something more qualitative and political through a Master's program. I'm not sure I have the fortitude for a PhD but I'd consider it afterwards. I'd warn you of two things. First of all, the pay doesn't compare at all to finance. The entry-level campaign or legislative staff make really poo poo wages and even folks who get "better' jobs like PAC director or junior lobbyist make less money than I made at their age. I'm in IT so presumably you make/made even more than I do. It seems like the folks higher up the food chain in political consulting/lobbying/think tanks/etc make good money, but still less than you would be making if you stayed in a financial track. That said, money's not the most important thing in the world, and nobody I know in politics is like starving or homeless or anything. The second thing I'd warn you about is that approximately everybody would love to be a "political strategist"/literally Josh Lyman, and there are comparatively few positions available to do that. Of course, you sound considerably more competent than the average dude, so you may hit the head of the pack a lot quicker than everyone else.
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May 31, 2015 17:25
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Jackson Taus posted:
Finance if you want to make money or run a campaign Field for if you want to run a campaign and become a consultant. Media/Press forever baffles me what their tracks are.
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Jun 11, 2015 03:49
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Mooseontheloose posted:Media/Press forever baffles me what their tracks are. Doing the same in government/official side, or a private public affairs consulting firm.
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Jun 11, 2015 04:20
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Mooseontheloose posted:Finance if you want to make money or run a campaign To be clear, by "finance" in my post, I meant compared to his current employment in the finance industry (hedge funds, banks, etc), not campaign finance staff jobs.
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Jun 11, 2015 14:09
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Bitter Mushroom posted:are you more of a jonah ryan or a malcolm tucker? 98% of men who work in campaigns want to be Malcolm and are Jonah.
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Jun 14, 2015 05:45
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gohuskies posted:98% of men who work in campaigns want to be Malcolm and are Jonah. The rest want to be the lovechild of Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn?
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Jun 14, 2015 15:58
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Bitter Mushroom posted:are you more of a jonah ryan or a malcolm tucker? You know one of those worker bees you see in the background of a Sorkin show who aren't a main character. That's me. That is everyone in politics. Also, thinking about getting a policy degree. Does anyone here have thoughts on that?
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Jun 17, 2015 01:23
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Y-Hat posted:I'd like to think that New York's going through a seismic shift right now, but as a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist I can't be too sure. I saw a couple of job postings for a recently-elected state senator's office south of my current district who's an OK guy, but I refuse to work for anyone in Albany because it's such a clusterfuck. Also, the dad of my ex-girlfriend's best friend works for him, and I really don't want to be pulled back into the crazy world they occupy. get that OUT of my face fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Jun 17, 2015 |
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Jun 17, 2015 02:18
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Mooseontheloose posted:You know one of those worker bees you see in the background of a Sorkin show who aren't a main character. As in a Masters of Public Affairs or Public Policy? It's a good degree to have and just having my MPA and Peace Corps service I'm already interviewing with 4 different agencies. If you want to work with the Feds or a big city directly, rather than campaign work, I'd highly recommend it. Plus, its 90% the same skill set as MBAs while being half the cost, so it also works for private jobs as well as long as you can bullshit well in an interview.
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Jun 17, 2015 03:08
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Slaan posted:As in a Masters of Public Affairs or Public Policy? It's a good degree to have and just having my MPA and Peace Corps service I'm already interviewing with 4 different agencies. If you want to work with the Feds or a big city directly, rather than campaign work, I'd highly recommend it. Plus, its 90% the same skill set as MBAs while being half the cost, so it also works for private jobs as well as long as you can bullshit well in an interview. This is what I am looking it.
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Jun 17, 2015 03:40
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Yep, what I was talking about. You'll learn a good amount of stuff there, and some of them are able to be done in just a year or part time. The average salary is about ~75k public sector, 85/90k private (mostly consulting). If this one is anything like my program, it'll be heavy on statistics (using SAS or SPSS or R), monitoring and evaluation, economics, law, program design and client/internal management. It's a very broad degree that can work in just about any job you can think of.
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Jun 17, 2015 04:54
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Slaan posted:As in a Masters of Public Affairs or Public Policy? It's a good degree to have and just having my MPA and Peace Corps service I'm already interviewing with 4 different agencies. If you want to work with the Feds or a big city directly, rather than campaign work, I'd highly recommend it. Plus, its 90% the same skill set as MBAs while being half the cost, so it also works for private jobs as well as long as you can bullshit well in an interview. I'm going to second that, if you want to go work for the Federal government or a state/local government directly (as a civil servant or appointee), this is the route to go. It's less necessary or unnecessary on the pure political or political-policy route. I'm at a think-tank type institution now after taking a break from the cesspool of day-to-day DC politics*, and most of us at the policy level with advanced degrees are JDs or MA/PhDs. *That's a lie; you can't escape.
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Jun 19, 2015 17:55
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Roark posted:I'm going to second that, if you want to go work for the Federal government or a state/local government directly (as a civil servant or appointee), this is the route to go. It's less necessary or unnecessary on the pure political or political-policy route. I'm at a think-tank type institution now after taking a break from the cesspool of day-to-day DC politics*, and most of us at the policy level with advanced degrees are JDs or MA/PhDs. I figure if I decide to sell out and go corporate, it's good idea to have it in my back pocket. Oh and maybe get a deeper understanding of policy. Whatever.
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Jun 22, 2015 01:43
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Dear liberal activists: Look to the LGBTQ community and their activism. Look at what they did. Understand how they did it. That is how you make change. Love, Moose
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Jun 26, 2015 23:44
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Step 1: have your movement be predominantly filled with well off white people. I mean a demographic that is largely middle-upper class and childless with tons of spare cash is music to the marketers ears, where else do you think all this corporate sponsorship came from?
tsa fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Jun 28, 2015 |
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Jun 28, 2015 20:39
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tsa posted:Step 1: have your movement be predominantly filled with well off white people. I mean a demographic that is largely middle-upper class and childless with tons of spare cash is music to the marketers ears, where else do you think all this corporate sponsorship came from? Yes, having clear and concise goals, learning to organize, and welcoming allies had nothing to do with it.
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Jun 28, 2015 21:08
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It's really amazing seeing the difference between a good campaign and a bad campaign (or a good district and a bad district). Like today I spent time working with a candidate who has like zero dollars, just got a website, and is trying to raise enough money to get a campaign manager (I may help him put together a finance mailer because I'm nice) and last week I spent time with a candidate who has a campaign manager but no volunteers, barely enough money to pay the campaign manager, and the only reason he's got an office is because another local politician donated it to him. Then tonight I was working at a coordinated campaign office and the larger campaign there is hiring their 5th field staffer (and invited me to the welcome party tomorrow) and the smaller campaign is raising like $10k/week. It's really like two different worlds, and these campaigns are separated by like 10-15 miles. Gotta love that gerrymandering.Mooseontheloose posted:Yes, having clear and concise goals, learning to organize, and welcoming allies had nothing to do with it. Like focusing on easier milestones like gay adoption or decriminalizing sodomy or domestic partnerships/civil unions and focusing first on the more media Ls, Gs, and Bs before heavily starting the public push for the Ts and Is and Qs? tsa posted:Step 1: have your movement be predominantly filled with well off white people. I mean a demographic that is largely middle-upper class and childless with tons of spare cash is music to the marketers ears, where else do you think all this corporate sponsorship came from? I think it was less that they were well-off white people than that everybody knows a gay person. The push to come out of the closet was a huge success, because most people in my generation know a gay person and so gay rights isn't abstract, it's Tony and Ralph's rights to get married or visit each other in the hospital or whatever. Unfortunately this is harder to replicate for other movements - I remember abortion groups briefly tried a campaign like this and then dropped it. For economic issues, however, this seems much tougher since most people have social networks predominately in within their class - rich people don't have minimum wage friends in the same way they have gay friends.
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Jul 1, 2015 05:21
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Mooseontheloose posted:5. Lawn signs are a tried and true method of getting people elected. Why don't more campaigns use lawn signs? I ran for a super-local position last year and barely bothered with any yard signs at all, and I super-regret doing that. I did a bit of a post-mortem with a friend after the election was over, and he revealed that he'd voted for a super-lovely candidate for the local school board just because he recognized her name on the ballot from all the signs he'd seen on the side of the road. I might end up running for another local position next year, and I'm definitely going to do more to just plaster my name where I can. Yard signs are definitely part of that, and they do help out if your name isn't a well-known one otherwise.
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Jul 1, 2015 05:43
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Ofaloaf posted:I ran for a super-local position last year and barely bothered with any yard signs at all, and I super-regret doing that. I did a bit of a post-mortem with a friend after the election was over, and he revealed that he'd voted for a super-lovely candidate for the local school board just because he recognized her name on the ballot from all the signs he'd seen on the side of the road. Yeah, I've sort of suspected that a lot of the advice for campaigning comes from folks running races at the Federal level or at least well-funded state legislative races. A lot of the Analyst Institute stuff I'm pretty sure is geared in the Federal direction and the assumption is that stuff scales up/down pretty uniformly by race size (except that stuff like TV obviously isn't affordable as you scale down). So it might be the case that some of the assumptions made are wrong, and stuff that's irrelevant at the state legislative level is crucial at the Town Council level. It's funny actually, because some guys I know ran a training specifically geared around the premise of teaching people on like town councils or HOAs or PTAs how to run for higher office like State Senate because it's a whole different ballgame (and we say the same thing to candidates considering jumping from Supervisor/state legislator to Congress), but I never really considered it in reverse - that because running for Town Council is substantively different from running for the higher offices, advice that works for State Senators may not work for Town Council races beyond the obvious and intuitive scale differences. And I think most of the dislike for yard signs from folks in this thread isn't because they're absolutely 100% useless, it's a reaction to (a) candidates wanting to spend half their budget on yardsigns, bumper stickers, and buttons, (b) "volunteers" saying that them allowing us to put a yard sign up is a major contribution to the campaign, and (c) people constantly critiquing campaigns for not having enough yard signs therefore we're all going to lose. Like in 2012, the day we got yardsigns in at the office, there was a line around the block, and most of the people picking up yardsigns would refuse to volunteer and would feel free to offer criticisms to various staffers about what message Barack should be campaigning on or how terrible it is he hasn't visited our county three times already. It's also the sort of advice that slacktivists who try to worm their way into a campaign's Inner Circle tend to give.
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Jul 1, 2015 16:04
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Yard sign obsessives are morons, but I think the backlash from campaign professionals is getting a little too strong the other way. "Yard signs don't vote!" Yeah, but neither do TV ads, and we spend a huge percentage of our budget and effort on those! And even though a TV ad has more messaging than just a candidate's name, the average person doesn't take all that much away from the average campaign TV spot other than "hmm, that person seems good" or "hmm, that person sounds terrible," hardly more of a message than you get from a candidate's name plastered on a sign.
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Jul 1, 2015 16:13
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Ofaloaf posted:I ran for a super-local position last year and barely bothered with any yard signs at all, and I super-regret doing that. I did a bit of a post-mortem with a friend after the election was over, and he revealed that he'd voted for a super-lovely candidate for the local school board just because he recognized her name on the ballot from all the signs he'd seen on the side of the road. I ran a small city council race (a city of about 100k) with a budget of about 50k. We had about 100(ish) lawn signs up which is probably the least of any candidate and we topped the ticket. What I think was more helpful was having our candidate knocking doors EVERY night and having our volunteers leave lit on the doors which I think acts in the way you are doing. Mailers are a great multiplier too in my mind because you can target them and you know they are going to where they are suppose to go. If you have someone who is willing to place lawn signs and not waste someone elses time doing voter contact great but I feel it can be a waste of staff resources if you are spending more than a couple hours here and there on it. Time is a resource on these campaigns, it needs to be spent wisely.
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Jul 2, 2015 21:37
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Direct voter contact, mail, and digital are all going to be way more effective than yard signs regardless of race size. On local races raw name id is more important than big races sure, but yard signs are not a particularly cost or time effective way to raise that. Honestly the main reason to get yard signs from a campaign manager pov is because candidate+candidate friends+volunteers will freak out if you don't get yard signs. But even that is starting to change.
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Jul 3, 2015 01:57
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You know who suck? Local candidates (no offense Ofaloaf). The Coordinated Campaign (which you haven't bought into because you're a poor local candidate) is doing a canvass, and we say that if you come and canvass with us, we'll drop your lit too! Great deal, right? Of course a bunch of them want to participate, so guess who's got to spend hours picking up all their lit and putting it with the correct packets? Me. And then some of the local candidates turn around and knock on like 15 doors. ARGH! Hilariously, one of the candidates that did that wants to buy into the Coordinated. That'll make for an awkward conversation - "Well what can you bring to the table?" "Well we can knock doors" "Like the time you and your staffer showed up late to a canvass and teamed up to knock a tiny packet between you?"
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Jul 14, 2015 00:45
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Haha, I briefly was working for the state party's coordinated campaign last year. In a Panera Bread. Using my own cellphone and laptop. Because the central office hadn't actually secured a place for our county yet, or gotten any equipment for us. We were still expected to make the same daily
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Jul 14, 2015 04:54
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Ofaloaf posted:Haha, I briefly was working for the state party's coordinated campaign last year. In a Panera Bread. Using my own cellphone and laptop. Because the central office hadn't actually secured a place for our county yet, or gotten any equipment for us. We were still expected to make the same daily Counter: Panera's are great staging locations for canvasses.
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Jul 14, 2015 05:01
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Yeah, but for entire 10-hour shifts? Do you know what it was like to try to get anyone to seriously engage over the phone with the sound of the dinnertime rush going on in the background?
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Jul 14, 2015 05:05
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Ofaloaf posted:Haha, I briefly was working for the state party's coordinated campaign last year. In a Panera Bread. Using my own cellphone and laptop. Because the central office hadn't actually secured a place for our county yet, or gotten any equipment for us. We were still expected to make the same daily Yeah that sounds pretty ridiculous, but there's definitely a common ground between "treat candidates like they're your staffers" and "candidates can't even do a walk packet right in exchange for getting a ton of their lit handed out". Mooseontheloose posted:Counter: Panera's are great staging locations for canvasses. It's a great staging location for a canvass if you're doing a quick training, handing out packets, and getting them back a few hours later, it sucks massively to use for call time.
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Jul 14, 2015 15:37
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Last month I turned down a campaign gig that would have had me moving to the middle of nowhere for the same/less responsibility than I had last cycle. I still think I made the right decision since I actually love where I live now (moved out here for the last cycle, now I live here!). Good luck all of you, I'm currently interviewing for a position with a political nonprofit and hopefully I can just stay away from campaigns in the future and ride out the horrible stuff like 'consistent employment' and 'regular hours' on the nonprofit side.
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Jul 15, 2015 14:55
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Tim Pawlenty posted:Last month I turned down a campaign gig that would have had me moving to the middle of nowhere for the same/less responsibility than I had last cycle. I still think I made the right decision since I actually love where I live now (moved out here for the last cycle, now I live here!). Good luck all of you, I'm currently interviewing for a position with a political nonprofit and hopefully I can just stay away from campaigns in the future and ride out the horrible stuff like 'consistent employment' and 'regular hours' on the nonprofit side. Yeah, in the campaign world you're either moving upwards or you're moving downwards. If you're taking on the same responsibility for multiple cycles you may be in trouble. Obviously "responsibility" and "job title" don't always line up - going from state legislator's finance director to being on a Senator's finance staff is hardly a downgrade. The problem with having "consistent employment" and "regular" hours is that I still wind up helping with campaigns and political stuff and the hours wind up being no better.
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Jul 15, 2015 15:52
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