Dark Jedi

Running for Congress, that is.

I live in a mostly rural district, and meet all the requirements. I have been thinking on this for a few years now, and have fairly well convinced myself to do it.

My main holdout: providing for my family while I run. I cannot forsee being able to maintain a job while campaigning, but I cannot support my family for a year plus without an income. (Not doing real well at it WITH an income, right now!)

So, what do you think? Dark Jedi for US House of Representatives, Colorado 4th District?

This is generally for support, sympathy, and ideas to help boost my decision to do it.

Philosoft

Dark Jedi - The Political Force is With Him

Koyaanisqatsi

Ok...You ready, because this is going to take a little bit and trust me, I was Dr. Mark McMahon's spin doctor in his successful primary challenge to Hillary Clinton in her New York Senate coronation (not that there's anything wrong with that...).

First thing's first: Demographics. You're overall voting margin is roughly between thirty eight and sixty nine, which gives you about 100,000 total votes, if you're lucky and your area is a steadfast "we vote, dammnit" area.

Of those 100,000, the majority will be in the early fifties to middle sixties. Discount the youth vote immediately. It doesn't exist.

Out of those fifties to mid sixties, the overwhelming majority are white, married, but on the brink of divorce, with kids and what they think is a stable home. According to the stats (if you read them right), most of them own their home and take care of others around them (most of the voters own their own homes, that is).

You've also got a fairly select few (out of those who vote and own their own houses) about 5,000 who rent for "seasonal, recreational, or occasional use," which is your target fund raising strata and you've got around seven hundred who admitted to making more than $300,000 on that state poll, which really means you're dealing with about one to two thousand of that five thousand total, who have serious cash and are willing to even think about funding a bid for government office.

We'll call it 1500. Of that 1500, 1200 are Republican and will vote Republican until they die. Which leaves you with about 300 fairly wealthy conservative democrats (and about twenty "liberal" ones; the best for my money, but not for mounting a campaign ).

Out of that three hundred, you will be lucky to get fifty to seventy five to actually give you any money for your bid.

The good thing is, you already probably know at least six or seven of them (in one way or another) and several more through a friend of a friend of a business acquaintance.

So, your plan of attack has to be to target the largest block of rarely-voters (the 179,000 25 to 44 year olds) and show your most conservant side to the ones who actually vote (38 to 69) while courting the more progressive sides of those scant 300 conservative democrats with all the cash.

Keep hyping that you are progressive and aggressive about maintaining intelligent solutions to complex problems. Making sure that everyone's home should be individually owned and State secure.

Where you are, it's all about their homes and their progeny and the pride they hold in both. "Government" is a swear word and individualism reigns, so you should skate the line between stopping "big government" and "supporting local growth" while convincing the 300 that you're devoted to making "fair and open" housing issues a daily staple of your term.

Then you get the six or seven people that you or your wife or your friends or someone you work with or someone you met in a f*cking coffee shop to throw inexpensive (but well catered) cocktail parties at the nicest homes and best restaurants and you make a speech and detail your agenda and then you have others in the crowd (preferrably the friends) press for the cash.

Every single community in America has one or two fund-raiser socialites who just adore throwing these "shin digs." Find them and make it look like it's all them and nothing to do with you or your agenda.

You're just there at their request.

Then you get two or three interns from a local college or high school (Political Science majors work best) to man some phones you've set up with the initial money you've garnered, and they start the machine rolling with cold calls; first to the people on the list you've made from the various fund raisers and then to the general target demographic.

At this point, you should have and cull the resources of someone who has run a campaign before, or at the very least, a lawyer/accountant who is well known in the community you've been fund-raising from; preferrably a man.

Don't start with me, I'm on a roll.

Then you start hunting for someone like me; a college grad writer who can come up with the spin fast and headline free (perhaps a stringer for a local newspaper). And that's where you put your money; into the propaganda for at least two weeks (and no sooner) before you take on the incumbant.

You make the call for open debate (and pray you don't get one) and you lay everything on TV in the last week; every night, every channel you can afford, ad nauseum.

By the way, there is no such thing as a "negative" ad. All ads are positive from a voter's perspective, no matter how many times you may have seen one or two dissenters being falsely paraded before the mainstream press for good moral conscience.

Hate (like love) sells. Since you're going up against an incumbent (a Republican incumbent, no less, if the stats you provided are correct) trust me! They will fling so much mud you won't even be able to understand why you decided to run in the first place.

This is not a playground. The mud they fling is childish and stupid, yes, but it works. Always. Let me repeat that. Always.

In the entire history of American politics, not slinging some kind of mud somewhere along the line has never worked and always backfired.

You just have to have a saavy Campaign Manager to know when to fling and when to sling.

So long as you don't go too far outside the box, you stand a chance, just bear in mind that Republicans want war. They don't want it when in social company, of course, but they want it when they're looking at their bank accounts and wonder what's going to happen. We know (from today's little missive about the budget Bush sent to Congress) that we're looking at a 400 billion dollar deficit projected over the next two years without war being factored in and the majority is going to the military (again, without war being factored in).

Most importantly, then, is to find out where the conservative Republicans stand on that issue in your district and hit them hard with it at the same time you preach to your choir, because the only way you're going to win is to win over the Republicans on top of the conservative Dems you should have already won over (no small fete).

Homes. Security. Taxes. That's your mantra for a local run.

"Iraq isn't going anywhere. Economy first; Hussein second" is your slogan for a national run.

Good luck!

Dark Jedi

Umm... Damn.

You sure you aren't free to run a campaign?

:notworthy

and, just for effect:
:notworthy

Richard1366

DJ

Still Retired steered you in the right direction, his campaign book was right on the money. In real estate the 3 most important things are location, location and location...in politics its money, money and money.

There are exceptions, to the rule, however. While money is always required, generally its use is primarily to get name recognition and publicity. If you were VERY well known, i.e. celebrity status, its much easier.

One of the best assets a campaign can have is a huge batch of volunteers, people that believe that you are the right person for the job and who are willing to work in the trenches to get petition signatures, to make phone calls, to go door to door for you, to put up signs, to address envelopes, etc. etc. etc.

As Still Retired pointed out, you must know who your electorate is, and how they vote. Party members will generally vote for you even if you were a serial killer, so other than a few handshakes, and a little ego stroking that's all you need to do to get their vote.

Come up with a gimmick to get people to give you $1, yes, that's all it takes for a voter to believe he or she has invested in you and that's enough to get them to the polls to vote so that their money wouldn't be wasted.

Be ready for the questions that you will be asked..one of the most frequent is "What church do you attend?"

Unfortunately, without a source of income to maintain your household, however, your campaign is doomed before it starts. Your only hope is that your opponent is caught in bed with a 10 year old boy or some similar happening.. does the name Gary Condit ring a bell???

dangin

If you get rolling, give me a call for your ads. Not that I will write them, I'm sure there are more qualified people than me. But I'm just a state over, and I have reasons to visit Denver as often as possible.

I have my own video production company, and will gladly make your :30 second spots for cost. If you get enough money to where you want to shoot on film, I can handle that too, but costs will obviously skyrocket in that case.

Better yet, if you want a behind the scenes of the campaign documetary, that is where my strengths really lie.

Good luck.

Grad Student Humanist

Whatever you do, don't mention you're an atheist!

dangin

I disagree. It's time to stop hiding that fact. Particularly in liberal constituencies. If no one mentions it, nothing will change.

Douglas Campbell was the Green party candidate for Governor in Michigan and he is an out atheist. He got third. 25,600 votes. Granted only getting 25K votes is a big loss compared to the two leading parties but damnit, it's time to make it an issue.

queue

Here is a map of the US Congressional districts of Colorado (District 4 is the north and east counties).

Here are the election results for Colorado for 2002.

Grad Student Humanist

That's all well and good, but an avowed atheist will not win. I can't think of a single member of Congress who has on the record stated that they are an atheist. Let's face it, even the liberals in Congress and the Senate all play the God card whenever they need to. Let's not forget what happened with the whole "Under God" thing last year.

So, if you want to win, just don't mention it. If this campaign is only used as a means of raising awareness, well that's fine.

This is a democracy and you can't get anywhere until you've changed people's minds. The vast majority of US citizens are not going to vote for an atheist candidate for a myriad of reasons. They're just not ready. It will probably take another generation or two. It sucks, but what are you going to do?

This isn't personal; I'd vote for an atheist candidate in a second. But it doesn't change the fact that most other people won't.