What a Campaign Manager Actually Does...

For those of you who read me, you may have guessed that I run campaigns- and you guessed right. I am running several campaigns right now, and it's quite the job. One part of the job that is difficult is dealing with the "armchair quarterbacks" in the local party who have other ideas about what you should be doing. They want you to knock on every door, buy more yard signs, send more mail, put on fun events, and generally do the things they want you to do- which is a natural reaction from the outside looking in. Any manager worth their weight in pony loaf doesn't do those things though, and takes criticisms from the peanut gallery as a result. The manager is almost always right for not biting the apple, but rarely do we tell you why.

The point of elections is to get more votes, not build a party, "change the country," or any of the other things that many activists want to do. Your chief job as a manager is to marshal the available resources and choral them together in the stretch run. This means saying no a lot, and telling people to scale back their grand plans. It means knocking on the doors of people who are actually going to vote, not wasting precious volunteer hours chasing people who vote once every four years. It means not buying more yard signs, just because your opponent has more. It means sending mail to the voters you need to win over, not as many people as you humanly, possibly can. It means making sure your allies and running mates are on message, and not off talking about crazy things that are not a part of your campaign message. It means not getting involved in ballot initiatives that aren't a part of your campaign. It means being selective about what other campaigns you coordinate with, even if it hurts some feelings. In other words, you're not "Mr. Yes." That is not what this job is.

To be clear, this makes campaign staffers, especially managers, different from candidates, activists, and party leaders. You have different needs, different outcomes, and different goals. It means not worrying about always getting credit, because you know chasing credit isn't your job. It means not being everybody's friend all the time.

That's my entire response to what some newcomers to the process have had to say this week.

Some Truths About Campaigns

I'm going to let you in on a few campaign truths for a minute:

1. Hard work doesn't win elections. A common misconception among political operatives, candidates, and activists is that hard work is a good thing. Get to the office early, stay late, have no life, and stress yourself to death, they tell you. They're wrong. I don't care if you knock on 30,000 doors, if they're the wrong doors. I don't care how early you're at the office, if you're not raising money or getting votes. I don't care how many volunteer recruitment calls you make, if you're not having quality discussions that engage people. Quality work beats hard work every day. If that means you worked 40 hours this week instead of 80, so be it.
2. Party rallies and events don't win elections. I love Democratic Party events. I love most activists I meet, even the one's who are "crazy." Let's be clear though, no one at a county party dinner is the median voter in your district. In fact, they're much different than the median voter, they're engaged. They're also decided. They have an ideological political position. They're a committed member of their party. If they're not backing a certain candidate from their party, they have a personal reason why that you can't change. In other words, while I know candidates stress making every county party picnic, it doesn't matter at all. There's no swing voters there, and there's no voters there who might not vote.
3. Knocking doors all Summer doesn't win elections. So you knocked some doors today- that's great. Direct voter contact is pivotal to winning elections. It can make the difference in turning out a voter, and winning. It matters a lot. Here's the problem though- six months before your election, voters aren't engaged yet. You might show up at their door, and they may enjoy the interaction, and they may forget it in three weeks. I'm all for knocking doors, I think it's really important, but it's not all that important super early when no one cares yet. Spend that time calling donors.
4. "The Grassroots" alone, won't win you the election, but money can. Everyone hates money in politics. Guess what though? TV ads cost money. Literature to hand out at the doors costs money. Facebook ads cost money. Mailers cost money. Get my drift? Until you're going to make elections free by forcing media outlets to give you free advertisement time, money is going to be a part of elections- it's necessary for enough people to actually see you and know what you're about. I know that "the Grassroots" makes us feel cleaner, holier, and morally superior to calling people and asking them to give you a check, but it's a much slower, less efficient way to talk to voters. I'd argue doing both is best, but if you can only have one, raise the money.
5. Turning out your party wins elections. If I get a low information voter to the polls, someone who doesn't follow elections very closely, they're likely to vote for the party they identify themselves with. In other words, if I can get someone to vote who is registered in my party, or demographically is likely to support one party or the other, statistically, I will probably win their vote. If I get more people like that to vote than the other guy, I probably will win. In the end, a poll can say anything it damn well wants, if I can't turn out the people who I'm supposedly winning with, I lose. Turnout is one of the few things that actually matter.
6. Winning swing voters wins elections. Competitive elections are decided at the margins. 90% of people are decided at the outset. Voters who cross between the parties when voting tend to be the margin in close races. In other words, independents and moderates still matter. This may seem at odds with point #5, but it's not- if you're making a strong case for why someone should come out and vote for you who might not, it also stands to reason that your strong case will reach someone who is undecided, and convince them that you will be a more successful leader, in office. 
7. Being right sucks, winning doesn't. Your county prison is an inhumane dump and you want to build a new one- great! You may be right on the position, but when you poll the position, the public doesn't care about the issue. The few who do care are negative on what you want to do, and the rest of the public is indifferent. I have bad news for you- this issue is a political loser. Winning an argument on a political issue is completely pointless if the public doesn't want to hear the argument in the first place. You have to talk about issues that the people care about. What are those issues? Taxes, jobs, quality of life issues, safety and security. Those things always poll well, and people want to discuss them. Other issues can crack the list, on a case by case basis. The main point is that you better be talking about something the public actually cares about, and will vote for, otherwise you're wasting your time winning an argument.
8. Endorsements are only as good as the endorser. So I endorsed you. Great. Who cares? Whether you're getting an endorsement from an elected official, a group, or some popular citizen, that endorsement is only as good as the effort behind it. Endorsing someone three days before an election and doing a press conference doesn't do squat for them. Endorsing someone early on, and raising them money, cutting ads for them, knocking doors for them, and getting them in front of your network of supporters can help them win an election. Putting checks and bodies behind an endorsement is what matters in the end- not lending your name to someone.
9. Even Super Voters aren't full-time engaged. Your campaign is your life, you think about it all the time. You think about policy. You think about your local elected officials. You know who they all are. Guess what? Jane down the street who's voted in eight of the last ten elections doesn't do any of that. She's a great voter, but she's not that engaged. In fact, even today, in late September, Jane might not really be paying attention yet to who she's going to vote for in the race for Judge. Jane's civic minded, engaged, and smart- but even she's only going to really engage as the election gets closer. Voters are not political junkies, generally.
10. Candidates don't understand elections. This is actually not the fault of candidates, but they don't know squat about campaigns, usually. If you don't come from a campaign background, why would you really understand demographic movements, or the cost of TV per point, or how/why mail is effective, or what the value of a door knock is? I mean honestly, if you don't have a campaign background, how can we expect you to understand what matters and what doesn't? This is why candidates love the volunteer who works hard for them, or want to run an "all grassroots" kind of campaign, think party events matter, think more people know them than do, don't understand messaging, or all kinds of other things that operatives do. Of course they hate their campaign manager and love the super volunteer. Of course they hate fundraising, but love seeing their name on a yard sign. I get it. I also realize now though that a good candidate listens to the people they hire, and complies with the plan they have for them. That's how you win- not by being smarter, better looking, and just generally better than the other guy. 

In short, what I'm saying is that about 90% of the things that candidates, activists, and operatives treat as important are not. Look back a year- Hillary Clinton had a huge campaign infrastructure, a top notch media team, a huge ground game, lots of well made ads, and tons of endorsements, but she lost to a guy with no experience, barely a campaign team to speak of, very little staff, and a media team with very little to no political experience. In fact, Donald Trump ran through three managers, never had a national field program to speak of, and didn't really run ads until late September in swing-states- but he won. Discipline, wit, realism, and pragmatism win elections, being right does not. It's a strategic game, not one of hard work.