Your job hunting advice bundle

If you go into the Ask Nancy archives section of my blog you will find all the articles linked below. However I thought it might be helpful to put them all in one place. 

General Job Hunting Advice (part I) 

General Job Hunting Advice (part II)

Dealing with post-election anxiety 

Job hunt tough love 

Tips for writing a campaign resume 

Advice for college students who want to work on campaigns 

The advice I give on informational interviews 

What to ask on an informational interview

Welcome to your informational interview

 

Hello! Welcome! Did you want to grab a cup of coffee? Oh yeah no worries feel free to put your stuff down. I'll wait. That's better. Have a seat. I'm super flattered that you want my advice. If we were in the real world I'd be asking you about you and what you want to do next, but as it is this conversation is a little one-sided. I've already gotten a bunch of 1:1 requests and am happy to fulfill as many as I can but since I tend to give a lot of the same advice I thought I would put it down on paper for those readers who I don't know. Here are 6 pieces of advice I give at nearly every informational interview.

1) DO NOT feel bad for asking for these meetings. As of the end of this year I will be unemployed as well. It's the circle of life in this industry. We've all asked people who've been doing it longer than us for their help and advice. Just remember to be respectful and appreciative. For more on informational interview etiquette...click here!

2) It really doesn't matter that much what you do next so take the job that feels fun. This is really hard work to do if you're not enjoying yourself so the number one piece of advice I have for what's next career-wise is do something that feels fun. We've all spent a ton of time hemming and hawing over what looks good on a resume, what will open more doors etc only to have that job not turn out to be what we wanted or that decision feel inconsequential in retrospect. Especially early on in your career there really is no wrong move as long as you are learning and growing and continuing to make connections so worry less about what you think you should be doing and instead do a killer job at the thing you want to be doing and that will help you advance your career.

3) Get a variety of experiences.  Moving around the country I've noticed that people tend to get stuck in their ways if they don't broaden their horizons. Even the best operative who has only worked in California has only worked in California and if even she wants to stay in California there's a lot to be learned from how we do things in other states. Same goes for people who have only ever worked for one boss, only worked on large or on small campaigns etc. Getting exposed to as many different experiences in our industry as possible makes you a more prepared, more well-rounded operative. Jobs in our industry often last less than a year so there's little risk to putting yourself out there and trying something different. It also grows your network to interact with new and different types of people. The further you get in your career the harder it is to keep from getting pigeon-holed so push yourself to have a broad base of adventures now.

4) Keep going out on the campaign trail. This was difficult advice to hear in my mid-twenties when I just wanted stability (which basically meant an apartment and a boyfriend) and was feeling exhausted and deflated. More on how that worked out for me here. But if I had not tried so desperately to find a means to backdoor my way into the DC jobs I really wanted instead of just going out and managing more races, I'd be in a much different, and much further along place in my career. As I said above every campaign you do gets you new experiences and new connections and better prepares you for whatever is next. If you want to wind up as a consultant, at a PAC or a committee the best way to get there is to keep doing campaigns for as long as you are able. (Obviously if you don't want to keep working on campaigns/in campaign life, don't keep working on campaigns but if you want to have a job as an expert in the field, you gotta put in the time.) 

5) Get comfortable with imposter syndrome. It doesn't matter how far you get in your career, you will still have moments when you ask yourself "am I really qualified to be doing this?" I guarantee you Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for all their competence and confidence have moments where they're like, "Oh wow. I'm about in charge of this mother******." (Granted the bar for that office has been significantly lowered and they are exceptionally qualified but still.) If you see a job you want, but it feels like a stretch for you, apply for it. If a friend or mentor suggests you are qualified to lead a team, or manage, or put your resume forward for something, believe them. The person who believes they have nothing new to learn entering a new job is the wrong one. It may be there are more qualified applicants than you in which case the worst thing that happens is you don't get an interview and no one thinks about it again. As someone who has done a lot of hiring over the past couple cycles I can tell you the only times I have scoffed at an application was when someone was clearly under-qualified and smugly ignorant of their lack of qualifications. I'm talking about the one-time field organizer who applied for a senior management position on our African American outreach team with "I know what it's like to be a minority because I grew up as a liberal in a mostly Republican town." Barring that level of oblivious no one is going to fault you for shooting your shot and as they say, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. 

6) Be kind, to yourself and other people. We are coming off a cycle where you could make the argument that empathy was the biggest issue at play. And the good news is that broadly speaking, we won. I've heard this expressed a variety of different ways..."self care", "assuming best intentions", "radical hospitality" and I'm a big believer in all of the above. In a lot of ways I think this starts with not taking yourself too seriously. Because these jobs can become part of our identity when we don't feel respected professionally; because we are not getting the jobs we want, because other people are moving up more quickly than we are or because we don't feel like we're being heard and empowered at work it can be emotionally devastating. And sometimes that can result in us lashing out at ourselves or others. It's important to remember that there's a whole world at play that has nothing to do with you. Maybe that job wasn't for you. Maybe you're not getting the resources you want in your position because your boss has less leeway in making decisions than you think she does. I regret the times when I let my pride keep me from seeing the best in my coworkers and even more I regret the times when I let my pride keep me from believing in myself.  

So what other questions do you have? Happy to answer anything I am able to, especially here on the blog where it might help other people. For now, I hope this helped.

Campaign Love and Mine,

Nancy

From CampaignSick Kitchen to Yours: 5 easy recipes to power you through GOTV.

My Slack at work has a "cooking" channel and it reminded me that I have never posted my kale salad recipe, as I recently promised on Twitter. I also put out a call for recipes that organizers can make during GOTV and found that they landed in about 5 categories; salads, crock pot recipes, pasts with stuff in it sheet pan dinners, and hotdish/casserole. I got a lot of great suggestions and invite you to check out my Twitter feed for some of them, but because I am in the best position to recommend things I've tried before I am sharing my-go to recipes in each category .

I want to be clear, these recipes are for this particular moment. I'm not suggesting these can be made in a campaign office kitchen. I am assuming you are working from home so have access to a kitchen but maybe not a ton of time. The recipes I suggest below are among my go-to's. In order to qualify for this post a recipe had to 1) contain ingredients that can be found at almost any grocery store (or suggest a substitution) 2) be relatively healthy 3) be a complete meal in one dish and 4) do not require precise measurements and 5) take less than 20 minutes of active prep time. The aim here is simplicity- if I had to look up cooking time or ingredients it didn't make the cut. 

Try them and let me know what you think! From my kitchen to yours, campaign love and mine. 

Filling Salads

No shame in the bagged salad game. Especially when you dress it up with fresh tomatoes and grilled chicken. My recipe below is my favorite thing to make and eat and I often offer it at the end of a training because its as much value add as anything I have to say. 

Kale Salad (inspired by the Lincoln in DC)

The secret to a good kale salad is that you have to massage the dressing into the greens. Do not skip this step! 

Rip the leaves off a head of kale and place into a large bowl. Massage lemon juice and olive oil to taste into the kale. Warm about 3/4 cup of pine nuts in the microwave or toast them on the lowest setting. If you can't find pine nuts, crushed hazelnuts (as I used above_ or walnuts work as well. Dump about a half a cup of grated parmesan (def buy pre-grated, refrigerated) and about half a cup of dried unsweetened cranberries (you can substitute raisins) in the salad. Add your nuts once cooled. Mix and enjoy! 

Crock Pot

Mushroom Barley Soup

Slice an onion and carrot and add 16oz of presliced mushrooms to a skillet and saute in butter. Add to a crockpot along with with 6 cups of chicken broth, 1 cup of pearl barley. Season with salt and pepper. Cook on low for 6 hrs. 

Pasta and stuff

There were a lot of recipes that were like "make pasta and add stuff." This is adapted off a recipe from New York Times and I promise my version is better. It includes anchovies, which I think breaks my fancy ingredients rules, but you could substitute capers or briny olives if you can't get anchovies, don't care for them, or are a vegetarian. 

Better Midnight Pasta

Cook some linguine or whatever pasta you like. While that's happening, defrost some frozen peas in the microwave and chop some grape tomatoes in half. Chop up a tin of anchovies. Toast some bread crumbs in a toaster or on the stove. Drain cooked pasta and let cool for a minute. Add vegetables, anchovies and olive oil, lemon juice and parmesan to your desired level of sauciness. Top with breadcrumbs and another squeeze of lemon juice if desired. 

Sheet Pan Dinners

I like my salmon on the rare side but if you don't you will either want to leave yours in longer or up the temperature.

Teriyaki Salmon and Broccoli

Heat an oven to 375. Cover one salmon filet and bag of broccoli crowns from the store in store bought teriyaki sauce 

Hotdish 

Y'all didn't think I had lived in Minnesota this long without hotdish (extremely similar but ineffably distinct from casserole) coming to mind as a quick dinner staple did you? The following is a variation on my husband's favorite recipe growing up "Hall's Chicken" which after hearing about it 60 or so times I requested from his mother. In this version I add tater tots to make it more substantial and a true hotdish. While probably the least healthy combination on this list it is filling, keeps well in the fridge and pleases pretty much every crowd.

Hall's Chicken Hotdish

Preheat oven to 350

Cook about a 1lb package of boneless skinless chicken breast cut up into bite size chunks on the stove in some olive oil. Follow by cooking about an 8oz package of pre-sliced mushrooms.

While the chicken and mushrooms are cooking, mix a jar of salsa, a medium container of sour cream, and a can of cream of mushroom soup in a casserole dish. 

Mix the mushrooms and chicken in the salsa mixture. Cover the top with frozen tater tots and then top with a bag shredded cheddar and a can of sliced green olives. Bake for 45 mins. Top with sliced green onions if desired. 

Let me know if you try these!

Campaign Love and Mine,

Nancy

How to read a poll and what to ask your pollster!

Polling can be one of the most daunting adventures for a new campaign manager. Unlike mail or digital, depending on the department you came up through you may not have come in direct contact with a pollster's work before (although of course you have seen it at play!) I was lucky to have very patient consultants to guide me on my first couple of races, but in case you don't or you just want to seem prepared, I've asked a friend and former pollster to help you out!  It is a shame that he has requested to remain anonymous since he now works in another, "non-political" (I mean its not, is anything? but you feel me) industry because the below advice is so good. Enjoy! 

1) What does a pollster do?

Pollsters conduct surveys, focus groups, and alternative forms of market research on behalf of campaigns and other interested parties in order to help their clients figure out the best way to allocate resources both across and within campaigns. The work of pollsters is a key input into any campaign’s plan for success.

As a former pollster, I often get asked “Oh, so you’re the one that makes the calls?” In reality, almost all pollsters outsource the actual data collection to specialized firms. Pollsters are in charge of designing the survey instrument (writing the questions), selecting the sample structure (and back-end weighting), and producing data-based analysis to help the campaign and its other consultants decide on strategy and tactics.

2) When and why should candidates be polling or not be polling? What are polls good for and not good for?

Polls can be used to help campaigns in a range of different ways. The right nature (benchmark, tracker, brushfire, etc.), amount, timing, and frequency of polls for any given campaign can vary significantly based on strategy (and budget, of course!). Polls are all about informing what you do, so that you do it better. Polls don’t win votes. They inform actions that win votes.

Things polls are good for:

• Assessing the viability of a candidate
• Determining the right way to introduce a new candidate to the electorate
• High level messaging decisions (what to talk about)
• Nuanced messaging decisions (how to talk about it)
• Higher level targeting / understanding of which messages resonate with which voters and who is persuadable

Things polls are NOT good for:

• Detailed targeting (what age range of female voters in Region 3 is most persuadable?)
• Sample size generally doesn’t support this level of analysis
• Determining whether “positive” or “negative” messaging is more effective
• Idiosyncrasies of surveys can drive implications here, but best to avoid strong conclusions
• Identifying GOTV targets
• The sample is a likely electorate itself, and asking people if things make them want to vote / how excited they are to vote has some merit, but is not the best way to identify GOTVable demographics
• Getting to the “why” of public opinion
• Why is complicated. Pre-written response options with no time to reflect isn’t a great way to understand it,
• Deciding 2 weeks before an election that you have a big lead, will win anyway, and everyone can go home
• “Leading” in polls is not “leading” an election. You have no “lead” (nor vote deficit) until ballots are cast and there is time left on the scoreboard clock until polls close on election night…get to work!

3) What should I consider when bringing on a polling firm or consultant?

A few things to consider when choosing a pollster:

• Go with someone with experience in your state/district. Different geographies have polling quirks. Pick someone who has polled your state/district (ideally many times) and gotten it right.
• Ask about the methodology. As with many things, to do it right, polling has its commensurate costs (cell phone sampling, multi-lingual interviewers in certain districts, etc.). Understand the pricing offered by different firms and be willing to pay, but only for quality.
• Pick someone you’re willing to listen to. When interviewing, ask a pollster how they would handle a hypothetical situation or how they have handled past races. Make sure their approach is one that works for you. The best advisors are people who might bring different ideas to the table, while doing so in a way that you can understand and engage with in dialogue.
• Consider access and attention. The ideal consultant has the ears of high up powers-that-be (to help bring focus to your race) and also you have their ear anytime you call. Be mindful of any tradeoffs in that spectrum, depending on the profile of your race.
• Be mindful of the sales vs. execution handoff. If you pick a pollster based on someone whose name is on the shop door, be sure that person is involved! Reference checks can be helpful on this sort of thing. Chemistry is an important component of a working team relationship, so be sure before you hire a pollster, that you know who will actually be on the calls explaining the results to you!

4) What are the different types of polls? What circumstance are they useful in?

There are many reasons you could use different types of polls at different points in a campaign. Generally speaking, your first poll is the longest (a benchmark) and your last poll is the shortest (a tracker), but different campaign circumstances and budgets can inform any number of decisions along the way. Trust your pollster on what’s right here.

• Benchmark
• Determine viability
• Assess the best way to introduce your candidate
• Plan out your most effective messages
• Make a plan on geographies for media spend / ground resources
• Brushfire
• Assess impacts and nuances of new developments
• Tracker
• Inform tactical adjustments of spending based on where things have traction
• Refine views of persuadable universe

5) What are the main components of a poll?

Let’s take a classic benchmark as an example (other polls may skip much of the middle part of these)

• Introduction: The warm up to get respondents into a political mindset
• Initial Ballot Test: The first time the candidates get named
• Candidate Introductions and Informed Vote: Simulating what things will be like after exposure to each side’s first positive ads
• Messaging and Re-Ballots: Testing various lines of support/attack/defense
• Demographics

6) How do you interpret them?

Leave it to an ex-pollster to protect the industry, but…this is what you pay your pollster the big bucks for!

No question should be interpreted in a vacuum (nor should any poll). The best way to interpret the poll is to take it in its entirety, add it to your prior beliefs/knowledge of your situation, and then act on the combination of the two. The best person to refine your views of how that poll should play into your overall understanding is someone who has seen other recent similar data and can contextualize it appropriately in the current environment vs. years and years of prior experience (your pollster!). But enough of my Bayesian soapbox, a few things that I’m willing to make more general statements about:

• Significant movement between the Initial Ballot Test, the Informed Vote, and the Post-Message Votes can be meaningful and helpful in assessing viability and strategy; however don’t expect to see as much movement in reality unless you truly plaster the electorate with your ads!
• There are certain positive/negative messages that almost always get high “Very convincing” or “Major doubts” responses, but are not necessarily the best messages. These include any message where a respondent might feel like the “right answer” is to say that it’s a compelling message - be mindful of these (and…theme here…Trust your pollster’s experience!)
• Don’t make too much of the counter-intuitive results in the crosstabs - sample sizes can cause significant noise!

7) What are some basic terms someone should be familiar with (toplines, sample size etc) when trying to read and talk about a poll?

• Sample Size: The number of people who answered the poll and the sole ingredient in calculating “Margin of Error”
• Margin of Error: A statistical calculation of precision, based solely on sample size. Actual error includes systemic and execution components, so 
• Weighting: A statistical adjustment to raw survey data by which each respondent’s data is assigned greater/lesser influence on the total to appropriately correct for sampling variation
• Fielding Dates: The days that respondents were contacted to complete the questionnaire. Be wary of surveys with short field times (or that field over holidays), as calling people back is an important part of ensuring you get a good sample.
• Toplines: A report showing each question, potential response, and the percentage of the total that chose each response
• Crosstabs: A report showing how responses to questions vary by category (such as by for voters of different demographics)
• Party ID: How a respondent characterizes her/himself when asked
• Party Registration: A respondent’s party registration on the voter file (doesn’t exist in all states), which may determine eligibility to vote in a primary election

8) What questions should I be asking of my pollster/consulting team about our poll before it goes into the field?

As you approach finalizing a survey and fielding it, one of the best questions to ask your pollster is what they are seeing play well elsewhere. Your pollster is seeing races all across the country and your state, and their insights can help some of the best messages of the cycle pollinate across districts.

Along the same lines, as you are drafting, ask them what’s in your draft questionnaire that they’ve already seen a thousand times and works OK or not well. Cut those questions/messages, and then add others. It’s important not to let a survey get too long (it makes it hard to keep a representative sample’s attention and can impact the results). You may as well leverage your pollsters’ existing knowledge on those messages, and learn something new with your poll!

9) What questions should I be asking when I get a poll back for my candidate?

As a favor to all of my pollster friends, before the survey is done fielding, please don’t ask for partial results. They’re just not meaningful. There’s a reason that it takes time to field a survey, and a single night’s results are not informative, only leading to confusion when compared with final results.

As less of a favor to all of my pollster friends, don’t let your pollster just send you a data dump (even if they format it nicely!). When you get results back, ask for an executive summary of what is most meaningful from the pollster’s perspective. Too many pollster memos are full of statements like “Among Independents, Message X played better with Men (34% Very Convincing) than with Women (28% Very Convincing)”. That could be a junior team member simply putting crosstabs into prose (which may or may not be meaningful), or it could be a helpful insight into how to unlock the persuadable independent male vote - get the key takeaways from your pollster.

10) What should I be wary of, what questions should I be asking when looking at a poll that I didn't commission (who paid for this? Is this firm reputable? What is the sample, methodology etc)

Even pollsters with the best intentions can create misleading polls. A few things in particular to keep an eye out for:

• Sample/methodology: Look out for interactive voice response (IVR), opt-in online panels, and any methodology which doesn’t give everyone some chance of participating. 
• Demographic composition: Cross-check demographics against historical data / other surveys. Demographic variance from one pollster to another may give the false appearance of a “change in opinion”
• Question wording: Questions should be balanced and not lead respondents more to one answer than the other
• Question response options: Often the hottest media headlines on polls come from re-characterizing the options as presented to voters. For example, there are many ways to ask “Job Approval” (Excellent/good/fair/poor vs. Approve/disapprove)
• Question ordering: Respondents can easily be primed by prior questions. For example, a “most important issue” open ended question should be toward the very beginning of a survey (as otherwise people will be more inclined to say whatever they’ve just been asked about is most important)

11) I feel like a lot of campaigns under-utilize their pollster. Other than crafting and executing polls what else should I be asking of my polling team?

Of all of the consultants you retain, pollsters arguably have some of the best perspective beyond your district/state because they tend to work across a ton of campaigns at once. Too few campaigns pick pollsters’ brains on what messages are playing well and which demographics seem particularly persuadable/GOTVable in other races (you’re not alone!).

Additionally, consultants love to show off in each others’ territory. Fully looping your pollster in on media/mail drafting, etc. can make for added creativity (and also put the heat on your media consultants to bring their best)!

While pollsters only charge for polls, the good firms view themselves as full service consultants who are with you all the way through election day - no matter how you may need them. Don’t hesitate to ask!

12) Anything else you want us to know?

Congrats on making it this far down the interview. Given that you’re here, I’ll assume you’re into the weeds enough to hear me out on a couple of things I’d clear up on polling likely voters:

• Every election, there are many voters who show up who are “unlikely voters”. For every four voters with a 25% propensity to vote, one of them does! It’s important to reflect this fact in a poll, since these are some of the most persuadable voters out there (and GOTVable too!). A “likely voters” poll’s respondents should be a sample of the likely electorate - which is less homogenous and more persuadable of a universe than you’d get if you just called only “likely voters”
• Voters are terrible at predicting whether they will vote. Don’t rely on the difference between “Registered Voters” and “Likely Voters” in a public poll where the difference between the two groups is how they answer questions about how likely they are to vote.

The First Ever CampaignSick Book Club: Poll Dancer

 

A couple weeks ago I put out a call to read along with some campaign ladies and me on the first ever CampaignSick book club as we review Laura Heffernan's Poll Dancer. According to Google Books, the description is as follows: 

"When politics meets pole fitness, Mel's life flips upside-down.After Mel's disastrous promotional video goes viral, a "family values" group launches a protest against her dance studio. Their leader isn't just trying to stop her from teaching--he's using Mel as a moral scapegoat for his own senate campaign. If he wins, he threatens to change the laws to keep all pole dancing out of their community. Mel's not going down without a fight. Because running for office beats unemployment, she decides to face off against him. She hires a campaign manager and tosses her hat in the ring. There's just one problem: voters don't get pole. Now Mel needs to change her image, fast. If she can't get the people on her side, she won't have a business to save. To make matters worse, Mel's campaign manager Daniel is giving her some very UN-professional fluttery feelings. Who knew the hardest part about running for office would be not losing her heart? Fans of My Fair Lady will love this fun, witty twist on a classic." 

Note: Major spoilers in the video above, but if you've read long or you'd just like to see what we had to say please press play and enjoy the first ever edition of CampaignSick book club. Special thanks to Ilana Kaplan and Candy Emmons for joining me! 

 

Ask Nancy: DC vs the Campaign

Hey Nancy,

I used to work as a finance assistant at a committee in DC, then I got sent to work on a campaign for the last couple weeks of an election. I noticed that the local campaign staff seemed really suspicious of me. Now I'm working as staff on a targeted race and even though my boss on the ground is really smart and my national desk is awesome they seem like they are always frustrated with one another. Is this type of thing common? Why can't we all just get along?

__________________________________________________________________________________

Great question! This is indeed a common phenomenon and one I have often experienced myself. I also want to say I'm sorry you're getting caught in the middle. First let me address the why and then what I think we can do about it. 

The frustration between committees or endorsing organizations and staff on the ground is based on a couple of a vicious cycles. 

First off, DC and the committees have a map. By this I mean the DCCC, for example, has a certain number of seats it needs to flip or hold but doesn't really care which ones they are. When you're doing well--raising the money, polling competitively--you're generally going to get more support from them, both in terms of the direction you're going and in terms of resources. At the same time if/when the map changes and you're less competitive than other races, resources are redirected elsewhere. This can feel really frustrating to campaign staff and candidates since it's largely out of your control. In addition, campaign managers and candidates frequently make the point that early investment from a committee will allow the campaign to meet the polling and fundraising thresholds that DC has set forth for them in order to prove that their campaign is competitive and it's a lot easier to say, "raise $250,000 this quarter" than it is to do it. So there can be a little tension around this chicken and the egg phenomenon.

Second, not everyone is as awesome at their job as we are. Your DC contact might have 5 different campaigns telling them that the goals are too high, the suggested messaging doesn't fit their race, or that honk and waves really are important in their district. Even if you are the exception and these things (or others) really are true for you it's hard for someone not on the ground to distinguish between that and other campaigns that are just unwilling to cooperate. Similarly local activists and staffers are sometimes wary of DC politicos who have been known to come in with a one-size-fits-all approach and negate the value of local opinions and talent. 

The solution, in my mind, as it is to almost every kind of of intra-campaign tension, is for us to cut each other a little bit of slack and have some empathy. We all want to win. We all think we have something to contribute and so it smarts on either end of the equation when it feels like your talent and experience is being negated. (This is easier said than done and I am reminded of a recent incident in my own life when I did a B- job at exactly the advice I'm now giving you.) 

It also helps to come with evidence, or at least test a hypothesis. If you don't agree with advice you're getting,  "I 'feel' like this will work better" is a lot less convincing than running an A/B test or presenting Analyst Institute tested best practices. Especially this year, no one really knows, well, anything. So unless an idea is so far out of left field it could hurt the campaign, almost anything is worth trying. Then if it doesn't work you've made a good faith effort to work with your supporting partners and if it does, then great! I've often settled disputes with candidates by saying "just do me a favor and try making the ask that way and we'll reevaluate based on what happens."

And if you're caught in the middle, as it sounds like is the case, my best advice is to keep your head down and not get pulled into the drama. As I said, everyone in this situation is ultimately on the same team and when you win no one will remember who was frustrated with whom.

That's all I got!

Campaign Love and Mine,

Nancy 

CampaignSick Merch Is Here!

Good Morning CampaignSickles! I am so excited to share with you that CampaignSick merch is finally here! This week also marked my 14 year anniversary of working on campaigns, so I am all up in my feels. 

I write this blog because its really important to me that we have a collective team culture across our industry and that is even harder there days so I thought Big Dialing Energy perfectly encapsulates what 2020 campaigns are all about. Get yours here!

These are custom made and union printed by the same company that prints many large campaigns' merch so please expect similar turnaround times. If you like these designs and we sell them we'll make more! Let me know what you think and order yours here.

Super Tuesday Bingo! (Twitter Edition)

Hi friends! As you may know I am prohibited from sharing my candidate-specific Presidential primary takes on Twitter and apparently that includes comments about "Ernie Slanders" and "Spike Doomberg." However I have many takes that are not candidate specific and because of the semi-gag order plenty of time to scroll and seethe. It's not all seething. I am genuinely stoked by all the heartwarming voter contact anecdotes and adorable pictures of dogs and babies canvassing. So keep 'em coming! And while you're at it play along with me on lead-up-to-Super-Tuesday Bingo!

What Makes You Feel Optimistic About the 2020 Election?

A couple of weeks ago, it was a frustrating time to be a Democrat. The Iowa Caucuses were all sorts of crazy. People were being very mean to each other about it online. And the Senate had just acquitted Donald Trump. It was a bummer for everyone and an extra bummer when you're job is convincing people their individual vote matters and that they have the ability to hold elected officials accountable and make a difference. Stuck in a funk and determined not to spread my spread my negativity, I started asking everybody I came in contact with what makes them feel optimistic about the 2020 Election. Here are some of their answers:

(Note: I didn't ask permission to share so these aren't attributed, but if one is you and you'd like credit just let me know.)

First here are mine: (I gave myself permission to share)

1) The Caucus location I attended in Iowa was like 200 Latino voters (it was a Spanish/English satellite location) many of whom were not just caucusing but REGISTERING to vote for the first time. For the Iowa Caucus, which is not exactly a low threshold to engagement.
2) I feel 95% confident that the Presidential ticket will include at least one woman or person of color.
3) I can think of great reasons to get excited about ANY ONE of the potential Democratic nominees even those that weren't my first or second choice.
4) There's so much passion and energy for primary candidates. If we all came together we'd be unstoppable!


And verbatim from my friends/colleagues/Internet strangers:

1) THIS
2) The early, broad investment in voter protection programs in 20 states. (Thanks to ^^^ this woman)
3) I think we'll take back the [Minnesota] State Senate. That makes me happy.
4) Republicans constantly saying and doing dumb shit. It is a steady flow!
5) I think Georgia is going to finally get real battleground status, something I've been screaming into the void about for the better part of a decade.
6) I’m excited when I see my peers at school wanting to be engaged and slowly feeling more comfy talking about politics.
7) Okay, I’m a numbers person. When the numbers don’t work the only thing I can do is fight like hell. When they do, I still fight like hell but am happier all around. This little known person has a methodology much like mine and she sees some good possibilities for 2020.
8) My smart, beautiful friends working on campaigns.
9) The activation of new candidates and volunteers since 2016, turnout from the midterm, and seeing many of those people still excited for 2020.
10) Increases in turnout in every election since 2016. Gen Z is starting to be able to vote.
11) Based on the polling, the candidate I think will win the nomination is in the best place to beat Trump.
12) Other than the deep intelligence of so many of the candidates (which is real and important), I like knowing that this is a long game and the majority of voters will not remember what happens in these early days yet.
13) Late 30’s millennials aging into higher turnout years.
14) Trump barely won last time and has never had a net positive approval rating.
15) People engaging with new and more nuanced ideas on the Dem side.
16) The focus on state legislatures: mobilized candidates competing to complement top of the ticket dynamics, low dollar (and high dollar) investment, all coming during sky high turnout immediately prior to redistricting. Capturing trifectas or at least blocking Republican trifectas can have a positive impact on our politics for the next decade before it's too late.
17) Trump’s approval being underwater in most swing states.
18) Campaigns are investing in communities of color.


There were more but the ones I got told verbally I forgot to write down :(.

So tell me...what makes YOU feel optimistic about 2020?

Five Pieces of Bad Advice I've Given You

Look guys, I'm pretty smart. I'm mostly proud of the advice I've given on my blogspot, my tumblr and my social media. That said, nine years (which is how long I've had CampaignSick) is a long time and as my hero/fantasy best friend Oprah says, "When you know better you do better." I've learned and I've evolved my thinking on a number of things as I gained wisdom and life experience and since, unlike our current President, I believe in owning up to my mistakes I'm here to share 5 things I've gotten wrong either in person or on the blog throughout my career.


1) Race and gender of a candidate shouldn't matter. This one pre-dates the blog, but as many of you know, I was a Field Organizer for John Edwards in Iowa during the 2008 primary. At time I believed he was the most electable (gross) but also the most progressive of all the viable Democratic candidates. Despite the historic nature of his opponents' candidacies, I believe his policies would be better for women and communities of color than either of his rivals. In fact, I considered it sexist/racist to support another candidate "just because" of their race or gender. (I know, I can't stand myself in retrospect.) As I got older and learned more about the world, I began to see the ways in which the power structures of race and class and gender are all intertwined. I learned the value of a truly representative representative government and the ways in which a candidate's myriad identities can shape how they govern, how they lead and what they prioritize. Essentially I learned the difference between, and merit in both descriptive and substantive representation. (Disclaimer: this linked post discusses the 2016 during which I had some very strong feelings about the candidates and the ways they were running their campaigns. I'm glad to say both that I am blissfully neutral in the 2020 primary and that everyone, including the mentioned candidates, seem to have learned some very important lessons since then.) Race and gender do matter. Having candidates who look like and share experiences with the people they represent matters. And although it's certainly not the only thing that matters, correcting historical injustices and counterbalancing the racism and sexism (and homophobia and transphobia) that is still prevalent in our society factor much more strongly into my calculus when evaluating a candidate for public office.

2) Don't ever leave college or university to work on a campaign. Another SMDH. I think I maybe should've named this post "my privilege is showing." For years, I advised readers not to take time off of college (or at least no more than a semester) to work on campaigns. My logic was that you only get to be 19 once and campaigns will always be there, but college is a lot less fun if you are hanging out with teenagers when you're 29. But that was a very narrow view of what it means to go to college. I also had several friends who had left college for a semester to be field organizers and regretted never really finding their way back. Look, I had an amazing experience in college. I also went right out of high school to an elite four year institution that was paid for in full by my parents. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) As a working adult with at least a little more perspective, I realize that not everyone's experience is so idyllic. Many people are going to school later in life. People are working two jobs to put themselves through university. People are living at home and commuting to schools where their social life doesn't revolve around a quad. Some people have all the financial advantages I did but college is not working out for them at that moment in life for family, or health, or any number of other reasons. While I still believe you shouldn't throw away a shot at an education to work on campaigns, I now understand that not everyone's path is as paved or as linear as mine was.

3) Texting and social media don't work to get volunteers. While I still believe there is no substitute for a good old fashioned one on one hard ask, times and the way we communicate, are a changin'. As an elder millennial I am severely weirded out to receive an unexpected phone call and even more so if it's from a number I don't recognize. If we want to reach voters we haven't been able to reach, we need to try tactics we haven't tried. This is one reason I'm such a proponent of relational organizing. Similarly if we want authentic relationships with volunteers--and if we want to recruit volunteers in the communities we are trying to reach--we have to reach them where they are. This doesn't mean we can meet our goals by sending a mass email or blast text-targeted asks can still happen on a variety of platforms, but it's a mistake to rely on outdated modes of communication just because of traditional wisdom.

4) The long hours and demands of being a field organizer were good for me when I was sick. This seems like a weird point to make because it's so specific to me but I think it speaks to a larger misconception among my "generation" of field organizers: the idea that working ourselves into the ground was character building. When I see the quote at the top of this post making its rounds on social media, I can't help but think of the way we run field campaigns. Yes, I had transformative and rewarding experiences at the beginning of my career and I will admit a potentially unhealthy fraction of my self-esteem comes from the thrill I got from learning just how hard I could push myself and what I could achieve. I wouldn't be here if I hadn't loved it. At the same time, pushing oneself to emotional and physical exhaustion is no way to live and it probably wasn't the healthiest way for me to cope with my recent trauma. I really believe we are at a crossroads right now in our industry. If we want to attract more diverse talent to our field, if we want then we have to careers that are sustainable, then we have to reexamine our attitudes about what we expect from people when they are first starting out on campaigns. That doesn't, by any stretch, mean lower standards or goals, but assuming that workers can or should devote their entire being to their jobs is shooting ourselves in the foot and antithetical to everything we believe in.

5) You should never quit a campaign. There's a story politicians in Southern California love to tell about a party chair whose name escapes me. This man had three rules in politics:

1) Loyalty up loyalty down
2) Loyalty up loyalty down
3) They f*ck you, you f*ck them harder.

(This, by the way, was the runner up for my wedding vows.) Although I had not worked in California until last year, this was pretty much the mantra I used to live by. If you join a campaign you are making a commitment-to a candidate, to your coworkers, to yourself- and quitting is a major stain on your character. Simply put, that's bullshit. It is a not a good idea to be a perennial campaign-hopper. However, if you are not being respected, if the job is not what you were promised, if you no longer respect your candidate, if you are offered a phenomenal opportunity elsewhere or you are facing a major health or family crisis that makes your continued employment there untenable, GTFO. I had two people leave the Congressional campaign I managed in California for personal career reasons and honestly my first reaction was jealousy. Not because I didn't like that campaign, but because they had the confidence to recognize when something wasn't working for them. I promised myself I would not make the mistake of staying on a race out of blind loyalty again and later that cycle when I found myself "managing" a race with far less decision-making power than I had been promised, I left when a better opportunity came along. At the end of the day, if you were hit by a bus tomorrow the campaign you are working on would move forward with very little fanfare. Loyalty is great, and very important in many circumstances but as the say going don't cross the ocean for something that wouldn't cross the street for you.

May we all continue to reexamine our assumptions and attitudes so that we can grown and learn together in 2020!


Campaign Love and Mine,


Nancy

5 Biggest Career Mistakes I Made

Hello, Campaignsickles! I miss you and I miss writing. Watching the Iowa Caucus take place from my perch in the north is giving me some serious FOMO but also some serious gladness that I am typing this from my couch rather canvassing in Cedar Rapids. (Don't worry, I'll be back to working weekends soon enough.) Anyway, as the primary looms that means the number of campaigns is dwindling and campaigners are considering what to do next. For that reason, I'm sharing some career mistakes I've made with the hope of providing you the advice I wish I had gotten. Without further ado here are my five biggest career mistakes.

1) Not hopping on another campaign after the 2008 Iowa Caucus This is the reason I thought to write this post. I was physically and emotionally destroyed by the time John Edwards dropped out of the 2008 primary, shortly before super Tuesday.(Seriously, I had a TERRIBLE flu. Get your flu shot!) I drank the Kool-Aid hard on that campaign, (and subsequently vomited it up when it was revealed that he had indeed father a child with one of his staffers and lied about it). I thought I couldn't or wouldn't care for another candidate, but by being too proud I missed the opportunity to join either the Clinton or Obama campaign. Both were actively hiring and either would have introduced me to a whole new network of people that would have expanded my options moving into that general election and subsequent elections to come. Every election ends one way or another. Take time to decompress and grieve but not so much that you cut yourself off from possibilities in your career just so you can wallow.

2) Not managing a Congressional sooner The best career advice I ever received, which I will now pass on to you, is that it only gets harder to go out on the road. Every campaign you work on makes you more qualified for your next job and, especially if you are searching for a place at a consulting firm or PAC or committee job in DC, managing a marquee race is more or less a pre-requisite. I really resisted going out to manage after/before graduate school because I felt like it wasn't the lifestyle I wanted for myself in my late twenties. I wanted to date, and be in one place, and have a sense of security. Fast forward to my early to mid-thirties and I found (and find) myself out on the road with my then fiance, now husband, trying to navigate two campaign careers instead of one, because I wasn't qualified for the jobs I wanted in DC. Let's face it, working on a campaign can be exhilarating and rewarding but it's also physically, emotionally, and financially draining. While I'm so grateful for the opportunities I've had over these past few cycles, I can tell you it doesn't get easier. I wish I had bitten the bullet and managed a big race earlier to put myself in a position to have more options now.

3) Waiting on my life because of campaigns Here's the corollary to what I just told you: you gotta live your life. When we got married we decided to put off our honeymoon because my husband and I had both recently started on Congressional campaigns. After the election, I was unemployed and not in the position to finance a trip to Europe. Then we got great jobs for the 2020 cycle and long story short, by the time we go on our long-awaited trip we will have been married for three years. This isn't just for fun stuff like vacations. I've put off things like going to the doctor, losing weight, and learning new skills. There will always be another election around the corner and it's easy to confuse a necessary sense of urgency with a sense that we are indispensable. If there is something you really want to do, make the plan and work around it. What's great is that we are moving into a new era of campaign culture that places more value on self-care. I guarantee work will still be there if you take a moment for yourself and you will be even more productive because of it.

4) Not applying to jobs as they came up Applying to jobs is draining and the last thing you want to do when you finally get one is to keep looking. Granted it doesn't always make sense to be searching for other opportunities, (don't worry Minnesota, you're stuck with me through November) but there have definitely been times when I was miserable on a campaign or just stuck at at a job without a definite end date. In 2016 I was in both those positions but felt like I couldn't look a) because I was exhausted and b) because I had made a commitment. Turns out the organization I was at ran out of funding for the program I was running and I found myself unemployed with very little warning anyway. If you see an opportunity you want, go for it and then you can make a decision about the next right move for you. It never hurts to apply to to stuff even if the end result is just making more connections or being in a better position to negotiate with your current employer.

5) Not diversifying my experience My first job out of college was as a field organizer and I fell in love with it so hard that it quickly became part of my identity. It never occurred to me that I should try finance or comms or God-forbid become one of the Hill people. Once you get to a certain point in your career it's more difficult to find ways to diversify your skill set without taking a pay cut. There are jobs I'm interested in now that I'd be qualified for if I had done just one year as a Congressional legislative assistant or a deputy press secretary. Who knows? I might have discovered something else I also love doing. Even if it didn't change anything about my career trajectory, now that I manage other departments having those experiences would undoubtably make me a better manager.

Don't get me wrong, I have had such amazing experiences and a #blessed career, but if this blog's purpose is anything it is to be the resource I wish I'd had and so there it is! Coming next...more mistakes from yours truly!

Campaign Love and Mine,

Nancy