Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapters
01 - The Candidate
02 - The Staff

Chapter One

The Candidate

03 - Volunteers
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The volunteers needed to man the crews can be recruited from Young and College Republican clubs as well as political service organizations and the local party headquarters. They must be contacted early to assure their assistance. Some political science professors will give course credit to students that are willing to volunteer.

The Young/College Republicans are particularly effective in the following ways:

1. They have experience in running effective voter registration drives.
2. They are in a position to host a forum or primary debate.
3. They can host or sponsor a rally for your campaign.
4. They are better suited to walking precincts in the dorms.

College/Young Republican clubs and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) are particularly good organizations to recruit from. Besides being more “on the ball” than average volunteers, they are more attuned to the latest technology and pop culture. Many of them know the party system and have good contacts.

You may also want to attend PAC meetings of organizations friendly to your platform or causes. To attend these meetings, some PAC’s the may require you to join their organization or make a small donation of between $5 and $10 or they may want to have you speak. Volunteers can also be found while walking precincts.

The campaign manager should have volunteer cards printed for the precinct walkers to hand out. These are post cards addressed to the campaign with places to fill out contact information on the back. The Volunteer Coordinator must respond to the incoming cards within 72 hours of receiving them or risk loosing potential volunteers.

The Volunteer Coordinator will assess their abilities and assign them to a crew. Although most of these volunteers will not be paid they must be taken care of with food, snacks, drinks and an invitation to one of the Republican election night parties. Whatever is left over in the campaign budget should be used to treat the volunteers to an election night dinner. Volunteers are crucial to any campaign; if they are loyal and happy they will return to help in two years for the candidates re-election bid.

You may find it difficult at first to find people willing to volunteer for a political campaign. The secret is simply asking people to help; people want to be asked to participate and be praised when they do. They want to know that they can make a real difference.

Hopefully your Volunteer coordinator will have experience with making personnel decisions and choosing the best person for each crew. However, sometimes people will need to be pulled from one crew to help another. This has been known to cause inter-crew ‘drama’ that the Volunteer Coordinator needs to be able to defuse before it affects the campaign. Every campaign has some gossip, drama, intrigue, inflated egos and general high school behavior that must be addressed early. Keeping the volunteers busy with campaign tasks will keep their minds on the business at hand; if there is nothing to do, make something for them to do. If you find yourself with more volunteers than work to do, send people out to key precincts to register new voters.

Fundraising crew: Political campaigns can cost a candidate their fortune if they paid for it out of pocket; Fundraisers make it possible for non-millionaires to run for political office too. The fundraising staff work under the treasurer and are used in all aspects of generating contributions. They are generally recruited from business, marketing or political science majors and should have knowledge in merchandising. They must possess excellent communication and language skill and be computer literate.

It is advisable to find a reputable fundraising firm with good party connections to handle this portion of a campaign. However, it is well worth a few hours research to choose the right one. Do not allow your fundraisers to take over ANY other aspect of the campaign, nor should you allow them to have any legal claim to your voter lists. Also remember that a persons connections to faith based coalitions or famous preachers does not make them an honest person. Above all, ask to see who else they have worked for; you will be judged by the voters for any connection to hate groups, fallen politicians or extremists. This is about all I can say without getting sued.

If you cannot find a reputable fundraising firm, you need to set up your own fundraising crew with as much sales experience as possible. Fundraisers must be self motivating and goal driven individuals.

Duties:

1. They contact corporations, PAC’s, clubs, safe incumbents and large private donors to bring support to the campaign.
2. They plan and execute fundraisers, silent auctions and dinners.
3. They run candidate sponsored special events.
4. They contact local businesses and ask them to donate needed goods and services.
5. They assist the webmaster in fundraising related email campaigns.

If the fundraising crew is successful in generating a sufficient budget they should be paid for their efforts and given their own desks. Keeping good fundraisers happy is essential to keep the money coming in. The efforts of the fundraising staff can be supplemented by the Executive Committee, online donations, the phone crew and professional fundraising firms. This is one instance where too many cooks improve the stew. Fundraising is the fuel the campaign runs on; without operating capital the candidate will loose.

Phone room crew: Telephone volunteers are a crucial tool for fundraising, candidate recognition, generating more volunteers and packing events. At first the volunteers make calls from their homes, but they will operate from the office phone bank when it opens. Train your phone crews to be comfortable enough with the script that they can improvise; getting the information across without sounding rehearsed is what you’re looking for. Phone room volunteers should assist the fundraising crew when they are short staffed. An auto-dialer can be obtained for a few hundred dollars but should be used to supplement not replace the phone crew.

Remember that political campaigns are exempt from the National “No Call List” restrictions. Call lists can be obtained from the County Republican Party or the registrar. In California, the State party has an online list of all registered voters divided by districts called “Voter Vault”. The party should allow you access to that information after you file your candidacy with the county registrars office.

Phone staff should be among the first to receive salaries when a sufficient budget is reached. The best and brightest should also be given job offers in the new administration if and when the candidate is victorious.

During each phase some phone room staff will be used to assist the Research Director in gathering surveys.

Cardboard crew: The sign, tract and flier crew handle print media placement and distribution. They plan and document sign and poster placement within the targeted district using traffic density maps and other factors. Twice weekly the crew will monitor the signs, replace those that are missing and repair ones that are damaged. Signs will be placed in plain sight but high enough to prevent them from being damaged and they will use plastic bag signs whenever possible to cut costs. To foster party support, the sign crew may also post signs for friendly candidates and propositions.

As a rule of thumb, the cardboard crew works at night and will have little contact with other volunteers. It is important to have coffee, sodas and food available for the cardboard crew at the headquarters. Make sure the crew leader has a key to the front door and access to supplies. The work that the cardboard crew does is difficult, dangerous and hard to get people to do. For this reason, cardboard crew members should be given special privileges and praise. Good cardboard people are hard to find.

The essential tools for a cardboard crew member are a hammer type stapler, a backpack, a (light) collapsible ladder, a pocket knife (Swiss army or boy scout), two rolls of packing tape, three packages of zip ties, a pair of heavy shears, a flashlight, a pocket sized notebook, two ballpoint pens, a highlighter and a black permanent marker. Crew members willing to go the extra mile to place signs in hard to reach places may also consider a harness, rope and a safety chain.

Public Relations team: This team assists the Research Director in conducting polls, organizing focus groups and research projects. The polls will be taken by phone and in person in front of grocery stores. Accurate surveys will help the candidate and campaign manager address the needs of the voters. Team members with exceptional research, analysis and writing skills will be assigned to create reports and give recommendations on their findings. Members of the public relations team may also be used to assist the Scheduler with clerical work.

The public relations team will attend bi-weekly brainstorming sessions to create new campaign and fundraising ideas. Good ideas will be developed into reports and presented to the staff. This team should be created from the best and brightest of the other crews.

The public relations team will also set up candidate forums, BBQ’s, block parties and gatherings to give the public an opportunity to meet the candidate. Voters will be able to ask questions that matter to them giving the candidate an understanding of what the people want from their government.

The team will need a photographer/cameraman with a good eye for a photo op. and a videographer. A political candidate should have as many photos to choose from as humanly possible. They will record each candidate appearance with a camcorder and critique them at the weekly meeting. Their report will be diplomatically presented to the candidate on the following morning.

Temporary and Occasional Volunteers: These volunteers will be used to reinforce the crews except in special cases; Volunteers with skills such as office machine repair, video production, sales and other useful abilities will not be assigned to the cardboard crew. It’s important to match even temporary volunteers with tasks that fully utilize their talents. Some professionals or service clubs may donate a specific number of hours; or we may have students donating time to get course credit in political science. You must find the best way to use their valuable time.

Temporary volunteers can always walk precincts, register voters, pass out fliers at local events, data entry and filing or deliver yard signs and voter information. Another good use for them is voter registration drives at local malls.

Volunteers must be made to feel vital to the campaign; to do this you can have a weekly volunteer meeting to brief them on the campaign’s progression. The Campaign manager and candidate should be available for a question and answer session at the end of the meeting. Take the time to meet everyone that volunteers to your campaign and learn their name.

You must also keep the volunteers happy and busy during the entire campaign. Remember that volunteers may stop coming at any time and for any reason; especially if your volunteers become bored or overworked. It is the responsibility of the Volunteer Coordinator to solve and volunteer problems that may arise.