We’re adding a new feature to the RunSmart2Win blog: Five Questions With _______. We will talk to North Carolina’s news makers, political insiders and experts, asking them five questions — and five questions only — on politics and campaigning in the Old North State. I’m excited to bring you the first edition today: Five Questions with Peter Hans:

1. What do you like about politics? And what do you not like about politics? I like the excitement, the people, and the chance to accomplish something important. I dislike the pressures of raising money, the personal nature of many attacks, and losing.
2. What advice do you have for “the mob” (as the Democrats call them) of activists, concerned citizens, and political newcomers wanting to get involved, make a difference, or even run for office? People in our country and around the world have given their lives for freedom. But too often, we forget that democracy requires participation. So I love to see citizens, of every political persuasion, fulfill their civic responsibilities.
3. You’ve been in the trenches of some North Carolina’s biggest political battles in recent years, advising senators Lauch Faircloth, Elizabeth Dole, Richard Burr, and others. What have traditionally been “winning issues” for Republicans in North Carolina? Are these issues changing at all as the state grows, changes demographically, and becomes more urban/suburban? Traditionally our winning issues on the federal level have centered around family values, limited government, and national security. Our state is more moderate, philosophically, in years past so the tone of our political communications should reflect that reality while still staying true to our principles.
4. What will separate winning campaigns and candidates from losing ones, specifically in North Carolina, in upcoming elections? The same things that have always separated winning and losing campaigns: ideas, money, organization, and luck. The biggest difference is that “organization” used to mean yard signs and today it means social networking.
5. Do you have any predictions on the 2010 election (in the state or nationally)? I’m cautiously optimistic about 2010 even though the Republican “brand” continues to poll poorly. I believe Republicans will be energized and Democrats deflated going into next year. Our challenge now is to recruit good candidates, don’t take anything for granted, and work hard and smart.

Peter Hans provides strategic advice on government relations to business clients at SZD Wicker, a Raleigh law firm. His background in public policy, political campaigns, and media relations provides clients with a unique resource. Peter worked on Capitol Hill as senior policy advisor to former U.S. Senator Lauch Faircloth and then-U.S. Representative (now U.S. Senator) Richard Burr. He was a consultant to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole in her successful 2002 campaign. He was elected by the N.C. House of Representatives in 1997 to a six-year-term on the State Board of Community Colleges. Peter was elected by the N.C. Senate in 2003 to a four-year-term on the University of North Carolina Board of Governors and was re-elected in 2007 for a second term. He was elected vice chairman of the Board in 2008. Peter is currently co-chairing a $5 million capital campaign for Urban Ministries of Wake County.

If you would like to answer “Five Questions” on RunSmart2Win.com, please contact Nathan Babcock.

On Wednesday, Jessica Wood wrote about Facebook Groups, Pages, and Profiles.  Continuing with the Facebook theme, below is an excellent “tip sheet” for campaigns using Facebook to reach voters and supporters. This is an article from David All and Jerome Armstrong in Politics Magazine on “Ten Ways to Use Facebook to Get Your Message Out”:

With more than 225 million users throughout the world, Facebook has surpassed MySpace as the world’s most popular social network. Nearly every politician, political organization, product, person and non-profit are “on” Facebook—but are they using it correctly to help them achieve their online goals? To help ensure that you’re taking advantage of Facebook to do just that, here are our top 10 ways to use Facebook to get your message out…

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One of the questions I hear most often about Facebook involves the differences and advantages between profiles, pages, and groups. Facebook is growing and evolving quickly and it can be confusing at times. So, to help your group avoid confusion, here is my short and simple breakdown of who belongs where in the Facebook universe complete with a little example using my favorite North Carolina Senator.

Profiles: These are intended for individuals and their personal relationships, friends, contacts, etc. Everyone who is on Facebook has a profile and profiles are needed to set up all other accounts on Facebook.

Groups: Groups are informal and can be set up by anyone about any topic. These are best for ideas, opposition to certain bills, informal functions, etc.

Pages: Pages work best for public figures, organizations, websites, etc. Pages are more formal than profiles in the sense that they are run by the organization and function much like an extension of the group’s website. These are hands-down the best choice for most formal conservative entities (politicians, GOP groups, Conservative websites, advocacy groups, etc). For more information on pages, see “6 Tips for Building Effective Facebook Pages.”

Here’s an example of how Sen. Richard Burr could use each of the different platforms:

• Profile: Sen. Burr could set up his own profile where he could connect and interact with his friends, family members, staff, etc. Profiles are intended to be personal and work best when they are run by the person they represent.
• Page: This would be for his public presence. Ideally, Sen. Burr’s staff would treat his Facebook page as a media outlet where they could update fans on his voting record, publicize campaign stops, discuss his opposition or support for certain legislation, etc. Successful pages are frequently updated and experience a high level of fan engagement.
• Groups: A group for Sen. Burr would be set up by a staffer, friend, or supporter and would ideally be more specific. Here supporters could talk about a specific goal for Senator Burr (i.e. reelection) or their agreement of his position on a certain bill.

If the difference between Profiles and Pages is still confusing, note the different terms used for connecting with others through the two functions. On a profile, a personal connection is listed as a “friend” whereas a person who is connected to a page is termed a “fan.”  Profiles are personal. Pages are public.

There’s a lot more that goes in to deciding the best approach, but the general rule of thumb is that if you are looking to set up an official Facebook presence for your candidate or group, you need to be setting up a Facebook Page.

Jessica is the founder of Majority Connections, LLC, a new media and social networking consulting and training service for conservative groups, leaders, and activists. She is committed to seeing another conservative revolution, believing that sites like Facebook, Twitter, Ning, and Wordpress will be the tools to help us achieve majority status across the nation. Connect with Jessica on Twitter @jessicanwood or at MajorityConnections.com.

If you are interested in politics as a career, the article below from Politics Magazine has some sobering suggestions.

If this article ties your stomach up in knots, you’re probably not meant to be a political operative. But if you’re like me — and just reading about the six months of manic, caffeine-aided insanity we call campaigning makes you want to start canvassing your neighborhood right now — maybe it’s time for you to consider a career in politicking!

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Here’s a reminder of the ways you can subscribe, follow, become a fan, and connect with RunSmart2Win and like-minded conservatives committed to taking back our state and our country:

Subscribe to the RSS Feed. We’re realists. We understand that you probably don’t visit RunSmart2Win.com everyday for new blog posts. People are busy. But what if RunSmart2Win.com came to you through email or a Web notification? RSS (Really Simple Syndication) gives you this option. RSS allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from RunSmart2Win. You save time by not visiting the site’s homepage (unless the blog entry that day is especially interesting to you and you’d like to dig deeper into the content). Best of all, RSS is free! Try it for yourself and you’ll be hooked.

Follow RS2W on Twitter. Twitter is sweeping the nation. Just a few short months ago, Twitter was one of many obscure social networking sites. Today it’s the fastest-growing social media website in the world; it is quickly gaining on Facebook – and even Google — in terms of page visits and influence on the Internet. Remember during the ‘08 campaign when Democrats mocked John McCain for not using computers or PDAs? Well, he figured it out. He has over one million “followers” on Twitter (and counting). RunSmart2Win doesn’t have quite that many followers yet, but we’re trying! Don’t be left out: sign up for Twitter, “follow” RunSmart2Win, and tell us “what you’re doing now”!

Become a Facebook Fan. Facebook is the reigning king of social networking websites. It currently has more than 200 million active users worldwide. Now you can add RunSmart2Win to that list! We launched the RunSmart2Win Facebook Page last week and people are already becoming “fans”. This page is the “water cooler” of RunSmart2Win: where you can meet other people who are interested in conservative grassroots activism, network, post comments and join conversations. (And coming soon, where you can view pictures, videos, and download campaign handbooks.) We encourage you to stop by our Facebook page, become a fan, and tell your friends!

Patrick Ruffini wrote a fantastic blog entry at The Next Right a few weeks ago that I want to repost here. He writes about the subject that is the heart of RunSmart2Win — recruiting talented, passionate conservatives to run smart and win in 2010…and beyond!

I am a strong proponent of the idea that candidate recruitment is the ultimate futures market of elections. Collectively, the decisions made by candidates on both sides tell a lot about where politicos on the ground see the political environment headed in the next year to 18 months. It was not surprising that in 2006 and especially in 2008, candidate recruitment on our side sucked wind. Only one Senate race — Louisiana — was even remotely considered a Republican pickup opportunity in ‘08.

For 2010, the story is different. We are by and large getting our top-tier recruits in Senate races, and in more and more House races. And the White House is not getting theirs. The bumper crop of good candidates we had in the 2002 and 2004 cycles appears to have returned.

Though it’s early — I don’t think people thought 1994 could be a really big year until at least February of that year — I do think we have to prepare for the idea that 2010 could be a big, big year that could put us back within striking distance in both the Senate and the House. Normally, I wouldn’t want to raise expectations — but going back to that candidate recruitment futures thing: if you are remotely thinking of running for office in the next few years, 2010 could be your best shot, and here’s why:

• The horrendous 2006 and 2008 cycles have depressed Republican totals in Congress to far below the historical mean. Though the fact that there were two successive 20+ seat losses in the House and 5+ seat losses in the Senate in the House is historically unique,  collectively they equal one 1980 or 1994-style wipeout — after which Democrats finally began to recover.
• The unique confluence of youth and African American turnout for Obama padded vote totals for Congressional Democrats by about 4 points — and in a midterm — I’m sorry — those votes won’t be there. We saw this pretty clearly in the Georgia Senate runoff. In 2012, however, those voters might be back — making 2010 an opportune moment for a promising Congressional challenger to gain a foothold.
• The Democrats are now clearly responsible for everything, and trying to blame Bush and the GOP wears thinner and thinner by the day. Even if the economy recovers somewhat, and with massive job losses still on the horizon, I don’t see people feeling that recovery, let’s remember that the economy was in a clear recovery by 1994 but that didn’t help Clinton and Democrats.

On a micro-tactical level, Obama may be taking great pains to avoid Clinton’s fate on health care, as Ezra Klein details in Sunday’s Washington Post, but the broader optics are starting to converge for Obama and Clinton: young, energetic change agents who are being proven ineffective, overexposed, and prone to ADD (Clinton held 38 press conferences his first year, drawing this comparison to Obama’s first few days in office).

In many ways, the proving ground for this hypothesis won’t be Congress, but the states. There we have 50 distinct political cultures than run in parallel to Washington. And, as Michael Barone notes, the mood there seems to point in the direction of belt-tightening and more humble government, not grandiose new infrastructure or health care schemes.

What is said about you is oftentimes more important than what you say yourself. So it is crucial to stay on top of the latest mentions of your campaign in the news and elsewhere online. Fortunately, Google has made this a largely pain-free process.

Google Alerts is a free service that allows you to set up news alerts based on specifications you enter. You can select search terms, the type of online media you will search, and the frequency of alerts you will receive–either as news is posted or in a once-daily digest. Below are some tips on getting the most out of this option.
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Several weeks ago I went through “15 Questions You Must Answer Before Running for Office” (here, here, and here). Kimberly Scott, writing in Politics Magazine, gives another perspective on “25 questions that need answers before you can begin a campaign…”

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In campaigns, the three most precious resources are these: money, time, and the attention span of voters. That last one–voter attention span–makes each contact you have with a voter important, especially in an age in which it is easy for voters to shut you out. In an ideal world, you’d want to know each voter well and tailor a personal message to deliver. But in the real world, you are forced to make a best effort to narrow down a mass message.

Good thing there’s list segmentation.

List segmentation is the simple practice of breaking down your contact list into sublists. These sublists are based on criteria you choose, e.g. people in the 27705 zip code. You can then send more focused and more relevant emails to the people on these sublists. This tactic is not new, but it is newly simple thanks to the advent of affordable commercial marketing services.

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Yesterday we reported the final results of the Concerned Citizens Survey. The responses do not paint a pretty picture for North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue. Politico has also noticed the early rocky road for Gov. Perdue:

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