How to Run for Local Office

by Robert Thomas

pay attention to the performance of your inner circle people and keep in mind that loya...

You are going to gain enough enemies without any help from yourself, so don’t put yourself in this position.

veteran politician. He or she is someone who knows about all the players in you community and has been involved in many of the campaigns in your community.

Be warned though, that political veterans do come with political baggage and usually a few political axes to grind and they will grind them at the first available moment.

In many cases, it won’t matter that much since the axes he or she may want to grind will be against your opponent or your opponent’s supporters and since they don’t support you anyway, you might just tell your veteran to go ahead and grind away. Just make sure you stay out of it.

SECOND AND THIRD LEVELS OF YOUR CAMPAIGN TEAM

Your second level of your campaign team should consist of the managers and coordinators of all your third level volunteers.

You will need someone to manage your sign crews, plan fundraisers, and oversee literature distribution. You will need a speechwriter, an events coordinator and someone to help write your political literature. You will need someone that understands computers and to work your database of voters and contributors and other managers as you see fit. This second level of your campaign team should not know everything about your campaign plan and strategy. Only your inner circle will know everything.

The third level of your campaign team is the volunteers who d...

They are the people who don’t know much about your campaign...

know how you stand on the issues facing the community and what you stand for and the type of person you are, but they will not know an...

They will be the people who will put up the yard signs, label and distribute literature, help at events and fundraisers and...

they are some of the most important people in your campaign so treat them like gold. Always make them feel important and always let t...

Your inner circle and your second level managers can put the most masterful plan down on paper but nothing gets done with...

YOUR CAMPAIGN...

Pick your theme or what is more commonly known as your message for your campaign.

Make out a list of the important issues that the community is concerned about.

Your job, along with your inner circle, is to target the most important issues that concern the majority of the voters.

Do not make the all too common mistake of building your campaign message or theme around only those issues that are important to you!

You, as the candidate have to get a little philosophical here.

Do you campaign on what is important to you, or what is important to the majority of the voters in town?

The voters are the boss and if you don’t or can’t follow their wishes, they can decide not to hire you by electing you, or worse, they can fire...

Do some research and make some survey phone cal...

Get together some focus groups and ask them what is important to them and make sure that your focus groups are a good cross section of your community. After all of that, formulate your campaign around those issues ...

each candidate has to make his or her own decision regarding his or her campaign theme and issues.

Once you have selected your message for the campaign, stick with it!

This is why it is so critical to get the message right from the onset of the campaign.

keep your campaign message and theme constant throughout your campaign.

Get some estimates on the cost of printing, yard signs, bumper stickers, advertising or whatever else you decide to use to get your message out to the voters.

You can call Sawicki and Son at 313-962-2725 and ask for one of their catalogues.

Do not share the campaign plan and strategy with anyone who does not need to know!

Your plan and strategy is as critical to your success

Take a drive around your entire community.

Take a notepad with you and use it.

This information can become invaluable to you later if you decide to target literature to a specific neighborhood regarding problems in their specific neighborhood.

ANNOUNCING YOUR CANDIDACY

Now that you have your campaign team in place, your inner circle picked and your campaign plan and strategy all worked out, you have to now go out and announce to the citizens in your community that you are running for public offi...

Putting together a press announcement is not all that hard.

First, write your first press release and make sure that you send it to all the newspapers, radio stations and television stations that cover your community.

write your first press release and make sure that you send it to all the newspapers, radio stations and television st...

most of the radio and television stations will not cover a local candidate for school board or city council, but the local newspapers ...

First, pick a good day.

pick a good day.

Pick your location;

Get as many of your family and supporters there to stand behind you when you are reading your announcement to the press.

Try to get someone who is well known in the community to introduce you at your press announcement.

not, have your campaign manager or maybe your spouse introduce you.

have your campaign manager or maybe your spouse introduce you.

“I am announcing my candidacy for the office of mayor for the City of Westland. I have lived and worked in our fair city most of my life and have seen it go through many changes. Some of those changes were good, and I believe some changes were not so good. However, I am not here today to criticize anyone. I am here today to tell you why I am running for the office of mayor. “I believe that I will make a good choice for mayor because I have the best interest of our community deep within my heart. I have watched our city grow over the years and I am proud to be a resident. Growing up, my father taught me one very important lesson. No matter how good we think we are doing, we can always do better. We should always strive to set our goals higher each time and when we achieve those goals we should set the goals higher than before. “That will be my approach to running our fair city if elected to the office of mayor. I will set my goals high and work endlessly to achieve them. I will work hard to serve and represent all age groups of our community including our seniors, our children and every other resident in our community. I am deeply committed to providing the best service to our residents including Police and Fire and all other basic essential services that people require. After all, isn’t that why we all pay taxes? “We don’t pay taxes so that city hall can have a lot of important people dressed up in suits and going to meetings and making decisions regarding the important is...

within my heart. I have watched our city grow over the years and I am proud to be a resident. Growing up, my father taught me one very important lesson. No matter how good we think we are doing, we can always do better. We should always strive to set our goals higher each time and when we achieve those goals we should set the goals higher than before. “That will be my approach to running our fair city if elected to the office of mayor. I will set my goals high and work endlessly to achieve them. I will work hard to serve and represent all age groups of our community including our seniors, our children and every other resident in our community. I am deeply committed to providing the best service to our residents including Police and Fire and all other basic essential services that people require. After all, isn’t that why we all pay taxes? “We don’t pay taxes so that city hall can have a lot of important people dressed up in suits and going to meetings and making decisions regarding the important issues facing our community. The people in city hall are there for one reason only. To attend those meetings and make those decisions to provide essential services to our taxpayers.