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
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