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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In this electronic age, email remains the killer app of campaign communications. It’s efficient, it’s targeted, it’s cheap, it’s designed to go viral, and it works. Email is the topic of discussion this week on RunSmart2Win. Today we will look at 10 Tips for Maximizing the Effectiveness of Email Campaigns:

1. Keep your messages short and focused. People have short attention spans. Emails must grab the reader’s attention early, make one point, and conclude with one action step. Not only does this mean keeping the email short, but breaking your message into short sentences with headings for easy skimming. If you say three things, you say nothing. One point. One action step. That’s it. Remember the Five B’s of campaign emails: Be Brief, Baby, Be Brief.
2. Don’t just ask for money. Email is a great campaign fundraising tool, but you shouldn’t overdue it. Even your most avid supporters will spam block you if all of your emails are contribution requests. Mix up the topics you cover: campaign announcements, volunteer mobilization efforts, special event invitations, letters from the candidate, and yes, the occasional fundraising email too.
3. Don’t flood inboxes. Just as you shouldn’t ask for money in every email you send, you also shouldn’t send emails everyday! If you do, you will quickly discover that people have tuned you out. One email per week should be the upper limit. The exception to this is the last week of the campaign when you are turning out supporters and voters.
4. There is a time for urgency. On the heels of point three, the reason you shouldn’t flood people’s inboxes is so you can grab their attention when you really need it (for example, the last week of the fundraising quarter, the 72 hours prior to Election Day, etc.). By not spending your email capital too early — and not crying wolf with too many urgent pleas — you retain your right to implore your supporters to act, contribute, or volunteer with emotional appeals, deadlines, and countdowns.
5. Use the candidate wisely. Obviously, you want some of your messages to come from the candidate. But not every email should be from the man or woman in charge. If every email is from the candidate, people may assume that he or she is not the person behind it. It’s true that the candidate is the standard bearer of the campaign message, but use him or her wisely. Have the candidate author some of the emails, but include the candidate’s spouse, campaign staffers, and endorsements from members of the community.
6. Ask supporters to tell their friends. The most powerful method for starting a word-of-mouth epidemic over the Internet is friends emailing friends emailing friends. Encourage activists to edit messages from the campaign, then send them on to friends and family members. Ask supporters to remove “FW:” from the email subject line and personalize the message.
7. Link to online videos. Take a screenshot from a campaign video, making sure it looks like a video player. Then provide the link to the actual video (and embed code for people to place the video on their own blogs or social networking pages). Use your organization’s stories to bring people in, and then connect it to an “ask” at the end of the email. Capture their attention with video, then take them to a next-step — like contributing, volunteering, calling a radio station, or sending in a letter to the editor.
8. Be interesting and relevant. Don’t live in a bubble. Piggyback on the most talked about issues affecting your race. Is there a local corruption scandal or hot button issue that everyone is talking about? Don’t ignore the elephant in the room. Talk about what the voters are talking about. Address their concerns. Capitalize on grassroots anger. Relate your message to the day’s headlines. Talk about why your issue matters now.
9. Test and improve. Measure the success of your email campaigns by tracking open-rates, click-throughs, and forwards. Is there is an issue, action, or layout that people respond to more than others? Use that information to improve on future emails.
10. Say “Please” and “Thank you.” Mama was right: you should always ask politely, saying “Please,” and show appreciation, with a “Thank you.” Acknowledge the effort your supporters are making on behalf of the candidate and the campaign. Never take their time, effort, money, or support for granted.

The final results of the North Carolina Concerned Citizens Survey are in. One month ago we reported on the preliminary survey results, which didn’t look good at all for Gov. Bev Perdue and the Democrats in Raleigh. The final analysis isn’t rosy for the Dems either.

Over 1,000 North Carolinians responded: 86 percent of the respondents vote in every election, another 11 percent vote in most elections. (Politicians, do we have your attention now?) Here are some of the highlights:

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We’d like to introduce RunSmart2Win’s team of contributors, hailing from all corners of the country and continent!

Jeff Tillman is the founder of RunSmart2Win, a blog focusing on the recruitment of highly qualified GOP candidates to run for office in North Carolina. Jeff has worked in the marketing/advertising field for more than a decade. He is an Appalachian State University alumnus and lives in the heart of Starmount Forest, one of the best little neighborhoods in Greensboro, NC, with his wife, three children, and a pretty good dog named Beaufort. You can follow Jeff on Twitter at @GOP_NC.

Nathan Babcock is a missionary with Christ for the City in Nicaragua. His moonlighting job — and future career — is politicking: helping Republican candidates plan and execute winning campaigns by building online communities tied to grassroots movements. He is a Charlotte native and graduated from the University of North Carolina. Nathan and his wife, Amber, are in the process of adopting a child from Nicaragua. Nathan, Amber, and “Baby Babcock” are planning to move home to North Carolina early next year. (Twitter: @NathanBabcock)

Abigail (Abby) Alger works for Terra Eclipse, a political web development firm in Aptos, California. She is keenly interested in any combination of politics, policy, and web technology — especially as it relates to government transparency and political strategy. A Duke University graduate and reformed northerner, her heart — and, eventually, her home — are in great state of North Carolina. Aside from visiting North Carolina as often as possible, she enjoys horseback riding, following horse racing, and training to be a classic movie buff. You can follow Abby on Twitter at @AbbyAlger.

If you would like to become a RunSmart2Win contributor, guest blogger, Twitter or Facebook evangelist, please contact a member of the team above.

Like many government programs, voter-owned elections have a vaguely Orwellian, name, a noble purpose, and a hefty bill. Voter-owned elections–more accurately, taxpayer-funded elections–are a hot topic in North Carolina, so consider this your brief overview of a heated issue.

What are voter-owned elections? Voter-owned elections are intended to end political corruption and a host of other political problems. The argument is simple: money is a tainting force in politics since it favors the already rich and well-connected candidates and makes politicians feel accountable to their largest donors. There ore, to even the playing field, the taxpayers should foot the bill for a public program that provides money to candidates who wish to avail themselves of it, provided they do not spend any private funds.

The exact mechanisms differ by location, but in general (and in North Carolina), the program features a matching funds trigger. Once a privately-funded candidate in the race passes a threshold in campaign expenditures, the publicly-financed candidate is given matching contributions. Eventually, of course, proponents of the system would like everyone to be using the same amount of taxpayer money.

What are the problems with voter-owned elections? Unfortunately good intentions alone cannot make good policy, especially expensive, convoluted, and potentially unconstitutional policy like voter-owned elections. First, voter-owned elections do not solve the problems they set out to tackle. There is no evidence they have decreased corruption, encouraged broader political participation, or evened the political playing field anywhere they have been implemented. There is no strong argument to suggest they ever will.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, specific provisions of voter-owned elections can run afoul of the Constitution. Money is necessary for political speech, whether it is for buying public ads, yard signs, or even a website. Voter-owned elections laws try to curtail individuals’ political speech by curtailing the amount of money they may spend on political campaigns. In short, the state determines “how much” political speech is necessary for each political race, and then makes candidates dependent on the state for financing. Sounds frightening.

Third, there are practical considerations. There is no reason to send money to political campaigns over public infrastructure, public safety, or public schools, particularly in an economic downturn when local and state governments are struggling to stay out of the red. Additionally, it is fundamentally unfair to force taxpayers to subsidize political campaigns they find uninformed or even offensive. Freedom of association is enshrined in our legal history for a reason.

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The most important part of fundraising is making sure that you’re abiding by applicable campaign finance laws. Here we’ll provide a broad overview of North Carolina campaign finance laws. Nothing can replace the advice of an experienced lawyer or treasurer, so take this as it’s intended: a starting resource for further investigation, not the end-all of the intricacies of campaign finance.

1. Know who to ask for help. When in doubt, contact the people who do this for a living: your County and/or the North Carolina State Election Board. They will either know the answer or direct you to someone who does.

2. Research what laws apply to you. You are running as a candidate at the municipal (e.g. Town Council), county (e.g. County Planning Board), state (e.g. NC State House), or federal (e.g. US House) level. There are different rules at every level,  so be aware of them. This determines your main regulatory body throughout the campaign.

3. Find a good treasurer. Every candidate committee must have a treasurer, and it can be anyone but your spouse. The treasurer is responsible for maintaining your financial records and filing required reports with the Board of Elections. Your treasurer must be trained by a Board of Elections course within three months of his/her appointment and once every four years after that.

4. Know when you have to file forms. North Carolina has deadlines for filing forms for your candidacy as well as filing campaign finance reports throughout the year. (As a fun fact, the filing fee is 1% of the annual salary of the office for which you are running; for the State House or Senate, that’s $207.) Know these dates. Don’t be late.

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