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

Chapter 8

Pressing the Flesh

The best way to get a swing voter or Democrat to support you is to shake their hand and ask for their vote. Personal appearances and voter access to the candidate are essential elements of any campaign. You should be meeting an average of 100 people a day and asking for their vote. You should attend every meeting or event in your district to meet the people you hope to represent.

Before you go out to meet the public, you will need to be prepared. You will need to have a few speeches ready, campaign literature and donation envelopes, business cards to hand out and volunteer cards. You will also want to keep a campaign road kit in the car. The road kit contains hand sanitizer, breath mints, safety pins, a map book, an umbrella, cough drops, Motrin, a pen, sunscreen, band aids, a fresh shirt and tie, wet-wipes, spray deodorant and a shoe polish sponge. If you take medication or have other special needs, stock your road kit accordingly.

You will want to attend local PTA meetings and church functions throughout the campaign, but it is especially important before the primary. This is where you learn what real voters want and what you must do to get their votes. These are not places to push a partisan agenda; they are opportunities to learn the key to any political race… the will of the people. Every public appearance you make increases your name and face recognition. Again, people want to know someone is serious and dedicated before the are willing to support them.

You can generate free publicity by scheduling a tour of a local plant, factory or large business. These are good opportunities to meet working people, have photos taken and deliver a campaign speech in front of the press. These tours are generally free of charge for office seekers. Your Campaign Manager can call the plant manager to work out the details of a tour, including a press reception, speech, and a Q&A from the workers. Other tours you may consider include Veterans hospitals, correctional institutions, power plants, treatment centers and historic sites. NEVER TOUR A DUMP!

On any given day during a campaign, there is an event, tour, meeting or function you should be attending. Your scheduler should have you booked solid for the last 8 weeks of the campaign. Every person you meet is another vote, another donation and/or another volunteer.

Walking Precincts: Precincts are smaller divisions of districts. Prescient lists can be obtained through the County Central Committee or the Registrars office. Prescient lists give you a street-by-street, block-by-block accounting of Republican Voters in your district. To keep Republican voter turnout high, a candidate and their volunteers must walk precincts every week-end and most evenings from August until the election in November.

Walking precincts is not the most glamorous part of campaigning, but studies show that it is the most effective. People want to meet the candidate, hear the candidate’s views and feel confident that they are voting for the right person. The Prescient Director must find and appoint a precinct captain for each precinct in the district. It is important to find enthusiastic volunteers for this task to assure that each precinct is covered.

Prescient Captains can and should walk precincts without the candidate and staff. The candidate may not be able to get to every precinct before the election, but the precinct captains and volunteers can. A precinct Captains job is to contact every Republican voter in their precinct twice and urge them to vote. They may wish to have an open house or block party and invite the candidate to meet the folks. If you are able to find a good captain for each precinct, it may be worth as many as thirty percent more votes on Election Day. Whether alone or in charge of several volunteers, the Prescient Captains must have access to the Prescient Director to keep the campaign appraised of local events. Even though your District may have up to three hundred precincts, you still need to try to recruit a Captain for every one of them.

Many candidates make the mistake of taking Republican voters for granted; they ignore the fact that voter apathy and low voter turnout are growing problems. It seems strange for politicians, but most registered Republican voters don’t bother to vote. This is why everyone that walks precincts should carry several voter absentee ballots in their walking kit.

A walking kit consists of a notebook, three pens, a highlighter pen, several voter registration forms, precinct sheets, voter absentee applications, campaign literature and any buttons, stickers or give away items the campaign may have. You may also wish to provide your volunteers with sodas and sandwiches or hot coffee and doughnuts.

Public Appearances: You should never show up to a public appearance unprepared. You should always have at least one staff member (usually the Campaign manager), your spouse and two volunteers with you for any public appearance. The staff member’s job is to gather business cards for the candidate and the volunteers make notes on the back of the card and hold them until the end of the event. Volunteers should be chosen carefully for this assignment, based on their social skills and contacts.

When you meet people at events, look them in the eye, give a firm handshake and speak clearly. Don’t give anyone the brush-off; if you have to cut a conversation short, apologize, exchange cards and say thank you. When you pass the card to the staff member, discreetly give them a short message to write on the back of the card. These messages will remind you of who the card was from and what you spoke about. This will prevent you from trying to sort them the next day when you’re making your re-contacts list. These cards will come in handy during fundraising.

The most common event a candidate will attend is a ‘rubber chicken dinner’. These events serve tasteless, rubbery chicken and are usually devoid of any entertainment value. Often they are held in Ballrooms of nice hotels that have expensive parking and drinks. They are the perfect example of how not to have a fundraiser and they are basically a waste of money, but you still have to go. You should use your contacts to try to get free tickets. They may ask you to sit at the head table and give a speech, but your volunteers and staff will most likely be seated elsewhere. Though most organizations end up having “rubber chicken dinners”, remember that there are other events that should be attended as well.

You should memorize a few short speeches that you can draw from when speaking in public. Try to deliver these lines as if they were “off the cuff” remarks; make sure they are relevant to the conversation or topic. Have more than one speech about a serious topic, an amusing story about politics and a fund raising speech. These speeches will cover 90% of the events you will need to attend. If an event or appearance is for an interest group or special event, you must write (or have written) a speech for that specific event.

An important element to campaigning is the candidate’s spouse. Your spouse should attend every evening event with you, be on their best behavior and assist you in your goal of gaining support. For this reason, your spouse must be briefed on the campaign message by the staff before each event. Marriage is a partnership… even more so in politics.

If you are unmarried, DO NOT BRING A DATE! There are good reasons for this:

1. It fosters questions about the nature of your relationship, taking focus away from your message.
2. Petty losers will start rumors to hurt you or your political allies. If your date is too good looking, they will say you hired an escort, for example.
3. Wealthy older women will take more interest in you if they think they could “fix you up” with one of their unmarried grandchildren.
4. Political events make lousy dates.

If you are unmarried and you want to bring your mother or aunt to an event with you, so much the better. Mothers tend to be good at two things when it comes to politics; they can gather support for the candidate and soften the candidate’s image. However, mothers make lousy Campaign Managers.

You may find that meeting the public and being charismatic are not as easy as you thought. The smoothest people can get nervous in front of crowds, but like anything else, it gets easier with practice. This is an area where you should consult with seasoned politicians to solicit tips to combat stage fright.