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

Chapter 9

Getting your message out

Before you begin to get out your message you must first have one. Yu must have at least three good reasons why anyone should vote for you. How would you be different form your opponent? What do you plan to do if you’re elected? What do you stand for? These are questions you must have answers to before you announce your candidacy.

You should assemble your supporters and discuss your platform. You do not have to have an opinion on every subject, but you must have a platform to run on. This platform should be eloquently written in 250 words or less and should be used as your voter guide candidate statement when you file your papers. The voter guide statement will reach every eligible voter in your district in the last 10 days before the primary, and again 14-30 days before the general election. If you do not spend the money to put your statement in the voter guide, you will regret it.

Your platform should focus on conservative solutions to district problems.

• Too much crime? Hire more cops, increase citizen patrols, police department man-hours and productivity. If you have the nerve, you might suggest a conceal/carry ordinance.
• Failing schools? Advocate a voucher system, testing for teachers and a mentoring program.
• Unemployment? Lower the cost of doing business in the district by cutting fees, lowering taxes and improving local infrastructure.

Most voters have no idea what a State Senator or Representative can and cannot accomplish, but I have seen successful local campaigns run on National issues. Never promise to do something beyond your ability; if a moot issue comes up, frame your remarks in the form of an opinion.

Assuming that you and your team have agreed on a platform, you will need to get it out to the voters. Again, you must give the people a reason to vote for you instead of the other candidate. The oldest way to get your message to the people and show them that your ideas are better than your opponents is debate.

The Debate: Debates are more common in Statewide races and close contests. In general, a safe incumbent will not agree to a debate unless tricked or guilted into it. You may ask the political science department of the local university to call for and sponsor a debate or go directly to the local media and “call out” your opponent. However, do not be surprised if your opponent is difficult to contact in the last three months before an election.

If your opponent agrees to a debate, they will come prepared, practiced and informed. Do not assume that because you can win an argument with your friends means that you can walk, unprepared into a debate with a seasoned politician. You must hire a debate coach and practice your debating skills as much as possible. It’s a good idea to review video clips of your opponent’s public engagements and prior debates, if any.

To learn all of the issues and their possible solutions, you may want to make “flash cards” and keep them handy; create a card for each issue with possible solutions and a brief history on the back. These cards can be used in the car, on the way to appearances or anywhere else you have some downtime.

Debates typically have an opening statement and a closing statement that should be written by a professional speech writer. Sometimes debates have pre-approved questions, agreed to by both candidates. If this is the case, you should have a private meeting with your top advisors to decide how to answer them. Once you have answered all of the questions in the best possible way, hand it over to your speech writer for polishing.

Some debates allow questions from the audience that may not be pre-screened and must be answered “off the cuff”. It is important to know in advance who will be allowed to ask questions, who will choose them and how they will be chosen. If it is open for negotiations, try to get as many of your people in to ask questions as possible. This will give you the advantage of knowing what will be asked and preparing for the questions.

Debate is as much about body language and diction as the arguments themselves. It’s incredibly difficult to watch your posture, grammar, diction, appearance and manners while giving a memorized speech, but you also have to make it look natural and unrehearsed. You should have a volunteer with a camera record you in a series of mock debates against different opponents. After each one, carefully review the clips to see how you did. This will show you how you appear to the audience and reveal nervous habits you may not be aware of. If you cannot find or afford a body language expert, have your top advisors and your debate coach review the clips and write a critique.

The debate is an important tradition in American politics, but it is not the only method for getting your message out. Only a small percentage of people pay attention to local debates and the news paper will burry the story on the back page if you do well. You will need to find other ways to gain name recognition and get your message to the voters. This is where the volunteer crews come in handy. The public relations crew, phone room and cardboard crew will be crucial in getting your message out. Just before the absentee ballots are sent out and in the last two weeks of the campaign (known as the crunch), these crews will need extra volunteers to complete their tasks.

The Public Relations Crew: During most of the campaign, the PR crew will be busy taking polls and surveys in different precincts, as well as conducting a letter writing campaign, conducting focus groups and assisting the media Director. During the crunch, the public relations crew will assist the phone crew and the cardboard crew to help get out the message.

The PR crew must find cost effective ways to get the candidates message to the people. You must encourage them to come up with creative solutions that will generate buzz among the voters. I have included some ideas below that have worked in the past.

1. Rent a billboard in the busiest intersection in the district.
2. Have volunteers walk around at public events with a sandwich board made from two large campaign signs.
3. Hire a sky banner service to fly over highly populated areas in your district. Sky banner services pull a large campaign banner behind a small, single engine aircraft. These services are usually cheaper than radio or television ads and more people will see them (you can also reuse the banner for campaign events).
4. Create rolling billboards from flat bed trucks or passenger vans. These billboards still attract a fair amount of attention and they can be parked in high traffic areas or driven back and forth through the heart of your district. In some places you can play campaign messages on loud speakers from your rolling billboards.
5. Train some volunteers to be “Sign Twirlers” and stand them on busy street corners or freeway off ramps. A moving sign is more likely to be seen.
6. Have campaign posters made into car door magnets and put on campaign cars. This is especially effective if the car is a convertible and the candidate is in the passenger seat.

To boost candidate recognition, some campaigns have resorted to publicity stunts. Stunts were very popular many years ago when politicians had little respect for the voters. Gone are the days of campaign mascots, childish pranks and race baiting (from our party anyway), but the political stunt is an old chestnut we occasionally dust off. Stunts are political cheap shots, blatantly desperate attempts for media attention and often the death shrills of a political career.

Publicity stunts should never be attempted under any circumstances… But if you’re going to anyway, you need to think them out very carefully. Stunts carry a great deal of risk and liability and (more often than not) they backfire. It may sound like a good idea to release 100 pigs into your opponents office while shouting “NO MORE PORK!”; it’s not (I’m still paying off the lawyers fees on that one).

Your Research Director may find things about your opponent that would cause a big scandal if the media reported it. The media doesn’t care about scandals involving Democrats; most reporters are partisan hacks and will burry any report that may give a Republican candidate an advantage. As outrageous as it is, you will be wasting your time and resources if you try to use a Democrats sins against them.

Phone Crew: Reserve the volunteers with the best voices and diction for the phone crew. Phone room volunteers report to the treasurer when they are fundraising and the Media director when they are getting out the message.

The Media Director should have a strategy prepared for the phone crew from the beginning to the end of the campaign. The plan should take into account crucial events like the last week of the campaign, fundraising dead lines and the two weeks before Election Day. Bellow is an example of a six-phase plan.

1) In phase one your volunteers will contact the individual donors of the Republican party, asking them for small donations or selling them tickets to an event. The event should be a dinner, silent auction and mixer with dancing and a no-host bar. The phone volunteers should all be attending the event and they can be used as hosts and greeters. The phone staff’s natural gift for gab and their previous contact with the guests make them ideal for the task.

2) In phase two the phone staff will call all Republican voters in the district urging them to vote, volunteer and attend a free event to meet the candidate. They will give voters the campaign contact number, web address and office hours. This will be repeated every two weeks for the first two months of the campaign. Expectations are that by the time this phase is complete, the Republican base will know the candidates name, positions and at least one person that has met them.

3) In phase three the staff will call registered Democrats in the district and invite them to a non-partisan BBQ to meet the candidate, hear him speak and ask him hard questions. The phone staff will mention the candidate’s liberal side, the free food and entertainment at the event but not the political affiliation of the candidate.

4) In phase four the phone staff will call back everyone that attended the previous events to sell tickets for a multi-candidate event with dinner, entertainment (like a roast for example) and dancing. If the other candidates involved in the event also call their contact lists and sell tickets, the event will succeed. Local media will be sent complimentary tickets to the event.

5) Phase five starts in the last week of September, almost three weeks before the absentee ballots are mailed out. We will call every Republican absentee voter and urge them to fill out their ballots and mail them in ASAP!

6) The sixth and final phase is during the last two weeks of the campaign. Half of the phone staff will call registered Republicans promoting the candidates conservative virtues, while the other half call registered Democrats telling them about the candidate’s liberal side. Both will use the phrase “He’s just like us” at least once per call.

The Cardboard Crew: A good crew works from 9pm to 5am during weeknights. The Media Director or their assistant prepares a map of streets with prime locations they want covered for the coming week. The Media Director will assign a crew leader to be responsible to supply the crew with the map, special instructions (if any), signs and necessary materials and tools. The only time the cardboard crew works during the day is during flier distribution.

Fliers: From my experience, 10,000 fliers can be distributed in two days with an experienced crew of 8 and a good crew chief. But since you will start with volunteers with no experience, you can expect it to take a week to distribute 10,000 fliers. Flier distribution allows the candidate the opportunity to get a longer, more detailed message to the voters at a lower cost than direct mailing. The cardboard crew should be well versed in the legal way to leave fliers and door hangers. Crew leaders will use street maps and highlighter markers to keep records of the blocks already delivered to.

The crew will also distribute tracts at farmers markets, swap meets, coffee houses, outdoor restaurants and churches. Tracts allow the candidate to explain their positions in detail and give the voter some background. Tracts work well when left in places people have time and nothing better to do but read it such as waiting rooms, barber shops, bus stops and benches in front of malls. Tracts and fliers with a moral message work well in front of churches while jobs, housing costs, government waste and other secular issues are better in shopping areas and malls.

The day time cardboard crew (also known as day walkers) is usually made up of less talented or new volunteers, while the night crew (also known as vampires) must be able to improvise solutions, climb ladders, use tools, endure cold and work quickly. The day walkers distribute tracts and fliers, assemble and deliver yard signs and scout finished locations to judge the condition of posted signs. If signs have been removed, the day walkers may be dispatched on a repair and replace mission.

The night crew will place the majority of posters and signs (called posting or carpeting). It’s important to carpet areas at night because of less traffic as well as easier access to fences, telephone polls, overpasses, parking lots and abandoned buildings. Because of the nature of the night crew’s job, it is important to issue each member a laminated, campaign ID card with the Campaign Managers cell phone number on the back. If done at Kinko’s it won’t cost much and it will save the crew (and some poor cop) several hours of hassle.

Yard signs and posters: When creating a design for your yard signs, keep in mind that most people will see them while they are driving; Do not have a lot of complicated nonsense printed in small letters, do not have the candidates name printed in colors that disappear at night. Always make the candidates name much larger than anything else on the poster/sign. Name recognition is vastly more important than a list of talking points that few will ever read; save that stuff for the website.

Ideally, you will want you’re your signs to be red, white and blue (red and/or blue with white lettering), 2’x3’ or larger with the website and a short slogan in smaller lettering. The candidates name must be visible from 100 feet away and must stand out even at night.

Proper placement of signs will give the campaign needed name recognition and advertise the website. You should ask your local Republican Party HQ for the contact information of any friendly printers that offer GOP candidates a discount. The three most common signs are cardboard folders, bag signs and posters.

Cardboard folders are the most useful and versatile sign available. Folders are two posters printed on one sheet of cardboard so that when folded it becomes a double sided lawn poster. They can be made with wire frames or wooden stakes to secure them into the ground. The bulk of your yard signs should be made from the same wire frames as the bag signs, but you will need at least two dozen wooded stakes for special sign placement.

Bag signs are made from plastic bags that slip over wire frames and are placed in yards. It is important to remember to secure the top of the bag sign to the frame with zip ties. This will prevent the wind from scattering your signs to the four winds and will make it more difficult for saboteurs. Bag signs are cheaper than cardboard or corrugated plastic signs and are easier to store and carry.

Wire framed signs can be “weaved” into chain link fences and secured by bending the ends upward. This will put your candidates name above the fence line and in plain view. For lawn sign use, make sure you snip the ends of the wire at an angle with bolt cutters. This will make the ends sharp enough to pierce hard ground.

Wooden stakes are best used by the most daring members of the cardboard crew that have no fear of heights. Signs with wooden stakes can be placed against a telephone pole as high up as possible with out reaching the wires and transformer. They are then nailed, screwed, taped or zip tied to the pole. This type of placement requires pole clamps, a tall ladder or a cherry picker to place the sign high enough to prevent sabotage.

Posters can be made from paper, corrugated plastic or cardboard. Paper posters can be used indoors, given to supporters and pasted to construction walls. They are the least useful type of poster but can be made cheaply. Cardboard and corrugated plastic posters can be stapled to telephone polls and wooden fences or can be fastened to chain link and wrought iron fences with zip ties. Corrugated plastic posters are best, but may be cost prohibitive.

Half posters or placards can be ordered in corrugated plastic or made by cutting a cardboard yard sign in half. These can be used in several ways including zip tying them to fences and poles.

Sign Placement: Depending on local ordinances, some of the places I recommend for sign placement may not be allowed. You should check with your local police or sheriff before the campaign is fined and your work is torn down.

Signs should be placed in major intersections where you can find the most daily traffic. It is important to place signs above the reach of potential saboteurs if possible, so telephone polls and trees are best. Make sure the cardboard crew does not nail or screw anything into a tree. To prevent damage to the tree, use tape or zip ties. Signs should face oncoming traffic, at a 45 degree angle from the sidewalk.

Vacant lots with chain link fences on main roads are great places to post your signs. A large sign placed every ten feet with placards in between has a good effect. Bag signs above each placard will complete the professionally saturated look. This also works well for fences next to freeways or in plain sight of shopping malls. It is unlawful to post signs on government property or within 100 feet of a poling place.

Although signs and posters are not allowed on most freeway overpasses, it is still the best location to get your message out. The highway patrol will eventually pull them down but they do not issue fines to the campaign. If the cardboard crew is caught posting on overpasses the will be given a warning and will have to take down the signs they have already posted. Post double sided placards and bag signs so that both people crossing the overpass and those on the freeway can see them clearly.

The Crew leader will need a detailed map of the district and a notebook to use as a log. Every sign location should be recorded in the log with a brief description and marked on the map. Because of vandalism and sabotage, each location should be checked every few days. The log can also be duplicated and sent to other candidates that share precincts with you, if you choose to put up their signs as well.

A favorite tactic of the Democrats is to tear down Republican posters and signs within 24 hours of them being posted. In Southern California, it is not unusual to loose 90% of your signs every night. Democrats have been caught pulling yard signs and stealing fliers as well. Of course, they justify this behavior by applying their “by any means necessary” philosophy to campaigning. It is a waste of time to try to video tape these reprobates destroying your signs; No one will do anything to a Democrat breaking the rules (it’s expected of them).

The best way to save your signs is to smear camphor grease on every 5th sign after you post it. Camphor grease is the concentrated form of the active ingredient found in sports creams like Ben Gay. This grease on the skin can cause a burning sensation, rash and gives off a strong odor that won’t wash away. It’s harmless, it fact, it will completely clear your sinuses. Other substances can be used, but remember that you will be held responsible for what happens.