Kvelling!!!!

These are the things that make me cry friends. Priceless.

Ask Nancy: Coordination

Hi Nancy! First I'd like to say how much I appreciate your open source approach to your tumblr. Operatives across the USA rely on you for a place to vent their frustrations and be entertained. My question is about coordination. Do you have some best practices? I could really use some advice. THANKS!

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I do! I would like to spend more time on this subject but in the interest of cleaning out my inbox and responding to all (or most) of the queries here is the quick and dirty of my rules for coordination.

1) Coordinate as early as possible (and makes sense). This will give your team the most time to figure out the growing pains that inevitably come with coordination and it's more efficient.

2) Respect and preach respect. Up and down the ticket there is no race that is "more important" than another. Because inevitably some campaigns bring more resources to the table than others, some will have more power but this is NOT an excuse to bulldoze other campaigns. I know some of you are feeling me on this problem right now. You and the other senior members of the field teams need to be able to present a united front. You need to communicate and enforce respect for each others candidates and programs. Your attitude is contagious for better or worse. If you don't treat your partner campaigns with respect, your underlings will pick up on it and your entire operation will suffer.

3) Create a clear chain of command. No one likes to feel like they are giving up control. However, it's even worse when you're told you'll be in charge of a region/office/function only to discover someone else has been promised the same thing. This leads to duplicate work and a lot of unnecessary toe stepping. There is more than enough to do during GOTV, so give everyone a role appropriate to their experience and expertise and enforce those roles, even when it's a little uncomfortable.

4) Do what you say you'll do. If your campaign is supposed to ID for up or down ticket races, it is up to you to ensure that this actually happens and that the data is shared in a timely manner. Do not accept "people don't get that far" as an excuse from your field offices. Your leadership teams need to work out a script where a second or third ID is possible and you need to communicate that shirking this responsibility is unacceptable. It makes a huge difference for trust (and therefore the success of coordination) especially at the ground level if these agreements are carried out early on.

5) Thank everyone. Believe it or not we are all on the same team. Take every opportunity to thank your partners and praise them in front of other staff and volunteers. This doesn't mean condescend each other, and it doesn't mean just lip service. Make a genuine effort to make your partners on every level feel appreciated and they will work harder for you and for your joint campaign.


Be excellent to each other!

-Nancy

Paul Ryan Forces His Way Into a Soup Kitchen Like It's a Stranger's Uterus

How is this story not getting more attention?

Washington Post:

The head of a northeast Ohio charity says that the Romney campaign last week “ramrodded their way” into the group’s Youngstown soup kitchen so that GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan could get his picture taken washing dishes in the dining hall...

“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” Antal said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”

He added: “The photo-op they did wasn’t even accurate. He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall...”

Had they asked for permission, it wouldn’t have been granted. … But I certainly wouldn’t have let him wash clean pans, and then take a picture,” Antal said.

This story is shocking and unsurprising at the same time. Paul Ryan thinks poverty (not to mention health care and civil liberties) is a political game. He has no respect for the wishes or privacy of individuals or organizations. By forcing his way in for a photo op, he is trivializing the work that this organization does AND the conditions that make that work necessary. It doesn't register for him that these are real peoples lives. WHO IS VOTING FOR THIS MAN? Beyond despicable.

October Haze

I owe you all an apology, or at least we owe each other one. All week I have been reading my tumblr submissions thinking "REALLY? You guys are having petty turf wars? Do you not know there's an election in three weeks?" or "Stop telling me to update my tumblr! Don't you know I have A LIFE?" It's not that I don't empathize with your on the ground frustrations, nor I assume, are you unappreciative of my community building efforts, we're just suffering from October Haze. I've blogged before about Month Out Madness, the giddiness that ensues from the last weeks of an election where staffers start pranking each other and dancing in the office, but October Haze is a semi-distinct phenomenon.

The best way to describe October Haze to those who have not experienced it is like having a really bad cold, but not being able to call out sick from your obligations. All around you people are enjoying themselves, laughing, playing, making plans. Meanwhile you're on auto-pilot just trying to get through the day. You can barely taste your food. You can't think about anything other than the task at hand. When people contact you with extraneous requests or information, even with the best intentions, your immediate reaction is something like "AAAAAH!!! I cannot deal with this right now?!" Sound familiar?

While I am not on a campaign right now, I am going to be starting next week, which means that all my work for the following two weeks (midterms) has been crammed into this one. I understand the gravity of I saying this, but I truly may as well be working on an election.

I'm bringing this up for a number of reasons. First, to explain why I have been off my blogging game of late. When it comes to sacrificing writing about elections for the sake of actually working on elections, that's a no brainer (although tell that to my Elections Professor).

Second, I want to give you some unsolicited advice. As I mentioned in my GOTV article in 2010, now more than ever it is important that you be calm and kind to each other. I have gotten a lot of messages about frustration with coordination between campaigns, feeling like a coworker is not pulling their weight, etc. You have SO LITTLE extra energy to expend right now, do you really want to be spending it on that? I can't tell you how valuable your ability to keep a cool head will be as we go through this final push. I'm not sanctioning bad behavior, I'm just advising you to be aware of your own.

Most of my readers have never lost a campaign and let me tell you, it sucks. It sucks more to lose than it feels good to win, but winning is less satisfying and losing is worse if you look back and think, "I acted like an asshole." So while I'm all about leaving it on the field, I urge you to do so in a respectful and constructive manner.

Thus spake Nancathustra.

Obama Big Bird Ad

I am the acme of business lately and I apologize for not updating as regularly as I would like. However, I had to share this ad with you. As you may remember Mitt Romney made the comment "I love Big Bird" during the debate to defend his policy of cutting funding to PBS.

Official CampaignSick Debate Watch Drinking Game!

That's right friends! The evening of the first debate is upon us. I have to say I am pretty excited about the smattering of attendees I'm expected at my house this evening. They include Democrats, Undecideds (I know, right?), Republicans, men, woman, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, Whites, Asians, gay people, straight people Danes, Chinese, Mexicans and my past and future secret santas...so it should be very interesting! Some of these rules are borrowed from here. But most are from myself and my brilliant friends! Look for my tweets at #Campaignsick between hosting duties and feel free to tweet along!


Official CampaignSick Drinking Game Rules

1)Every time the candidates mention a % of the population (99, 1, 47) drink that % of your drink.

2)Any time candidates mention reproductive rights or equal pay, all the women take a drink (because you’ll need it.)

3)Any time the candidates mention welfare, entitlement, Medicaid or Medicare, refill your glass with a beverage someone else brought.

4)Finish your drink if either candidate accuses the other of making race an issue in the campaign.

5)If a candidate goes over time chug your drink until the moderater stops him.

6)Toast and take a drink every time Romney tries on of his “zingers.”

7)Toast and take a drink whenever the candidates reference a former President (Bush, Clinton, Reagan etc)

8)If either candidate says “Obamacare” or “Romneycare” raise your drink. The last person to raise her/his glass must finish her/his drink.

9)Drink if Obama starts a sentence with “Now Look” or “Listen” followed by a long pause

10)Take a small sip for “small business” references, take a large gulp for “big business.”

Ask An Election Nerd: Should I leave my current campaign to go work for another one?

I've gotten this question a lot in several different iterations and while my answer isn't very detailed, I wanted to put something out there once and for all:

Generally, I will not hire someone who had previously left a race they were on this late in the game, even if it happened in a different cycle. I think it shows a lack of loyalty and character. Remember, we work in a very small world.

I also think it is bad practice to poach someone else's campaign staff. At the end of the day we're all Democrats and no "level" of campaign, Presidential, Federal, Local, is more important than another. This is the kind of attitude that leads to messiness and resentment that lingers long after the campaign ends and frankly it's disrespectful and condescending. (That's right. You know who you are.)

That said, if you are on a non-competitive race and you get offered a position somewhere competitive, that's another story. Same goes if you have become genuinely disillusioned with your candidate or operation or if you are an intern or unpaid staffer being offered a paid position. Then by all means, go for it.

I mean really, do whatever you want. You will neither be the first nor the the last. It's just kind of a crappy thing to do unless you have mitigating circumstances as described above.

So close and yet so far!
-Nancy