Last week I announced a new feature on RunSmart2Win.com: Tuesday and Thursday Campaign Tips. Today’s tip comes from the current leading answer in our poll question, “What is the biggest obstacle to running for local office…and winning?“ And that answer is: “Where do I begin?!?!”

This is a huge topic — especially for first-time candidates.  It’s so important, in fact, that today’s tip will be the first of three posts on getting started in politics. Here are questions 1-5 of The 15 Questions You Must Answer Before Running for Office…

1. Have I done anything to distinguish myself? Community involvement should not begin with the election. What accomplishments can you point to as reasons for people in various demographic groups and geographic areas to vote for you? Learn about the needs, concerns, and problems of the constituency. Get a lay of the land. Join community organizations. Attend city council and school board meetings. Get involved. If you haven’t gotten your hands dirty trying to improve your community, don’t expect its residents to lift a hand to vote for you.
2. Do I want this job? Make sure you know what you’re getting yourself in to before taking a blind leap. What are the demands of the office? Can you do the work? Do you want to do this? Is your personality better suited to executive, legal, or legislative positions? Many elected offices come with a lot of baggage: banal daily tasks, mind-numbing red tape, constant public ridicule. Make sure the office is something you can do and want to do before you run.
3. Can I win? Learn what it takes to win. Research previous election results. How many votes does it take to win? How much money will you need to raise to be competitive? Talk to an old pro who knows something about campaigning — and winning — in your district. What are the pitfalls of running for this particular office? Does the old pro think you have a shot? If you can’t win, don’t run. There are more pleasant, enjoyable, and economical hobbies out there than running doomed political campaigns.
4. Do I legally qualify to run? Check your local election laws and make sure you are legally able to run for this office at this time. Do you need to live in the district a certain amount of time before running for office? Do you have to be a certain age? Certain positions have special requirements. For example, you may need qualifications in teaching or school administration to run for school board, law enforcement or legal experience to run for sheriff or judge, an accounting degree to run for city manager or treasurer. Maybe most importantly, have you missed a filing date to run for this office? Don’t waste your precious time and money campaigning when the deadline has already passed to file for the race! Finally, don’t rely on anyone else to check on the local laws for you, not even the old pro. Laws change. Ultimately, you are responsible for figuring out if you’re legally qualified to run for office.
5. Can my ticker take it? Campaigning is not easy. Let me say that again. Campaigning is not easy. To quote a memorable Tim McGraw song, it’s “hard on the ticker.” Campaigns take a physical toll on your body. If you find yourself out of breath walking to the mailbox, you probably don’t have the lung capacity for the canvassing, speech making, hand shaking and baby kissing required to win. Get a physical. Get a clean bill of health from a doctor before you commit your body to battle.

If you answered “Yes” to all of the questions above, continue to questions 6-10 on Thursday! And if you have any comments, queries, or ammendments to the tips here, please share with the RunSmart2Win audience.

Tags: Campaign Tips

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 5:30 am and is filed under Campaign Tips, Get in the Game. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.