{"id":9184,"date":"2018-01-08T07:00:29","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9184"},"modified":"2018-01-07T14:12:39","modified_gmt":"2018-01-07T19:12:39","slug":"the-worst-part-of-campaigning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9184","title":{"rendered":"The Worst Part of Campaigning"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s the worst part of campaigning for office?\u00a0 Well, there is a lot of work, but most of it is not inherently awful.\u00a0 You have to show up at a bunch of events, but that\u2019s OK if you like bad food and flat soda.\u00a0 You have to talk to a bunch of self-important stuffed-shirts, but you eventually learn which ones have something to contribute and which ones should be avoided.\u00a0 (Hint: the ones who talk the most know the least.)\u00a0 Door knocking takes time, but you get to meet real live regular voters (and their vicious guard dogs).\u00a0 Here\u2019s a bonus: 2002 District 18 House candidate Sam Statland once lost 45 pounds from door knocking<\/a>.\u00a0 Fundraising bites, but that\u2019s only the second-worst part of campaigning.\u00a0 The worst part is:<\/p>\n

Filling out all the [expletive deleted] questionnaires!<\/p>\n

This is a part of campaigning that no one on the outside ever sees.\u00a0 MoCo candidates are absolutely deluged with questionnaires from anyone and everyone.\u00a0 OK, new candidates, we know that you have not received many yet.\u00a0 But just wait!\u00a0 In the 2014 cycle, roughly fifty of them went out.\u00a0 There are sure to be more this time.<\/p>\n

Now we are not questioning the legitimacy of questionnaires in general.\u00a0 Citizens and organizations have a right to know what candidates think and what they will do if they get elected.\u00a0 Endorsing organizations in particular should quiz candidates before supporting any of them.\u00a0 But many of these questionnaires are sent by groups with little or no membership, no distribution and no planned electoral activity of any kind.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t distribute the completed questionnaires to anyone and will undertake no electoral activity as a result of what they say, why should you expect candidates to fill them out?<\/p>\n

The best questionnaires are concise, focused and get straight to the point.\u00a0 For example, MCEA, SEIU and the Sierra Club usually ask fifteen questions or less (sometimes with sub-questions) that relate directly to their core interests.\u00a0 They do not ask about issues that are extraneous to their members.\u00a0 All three are important organizations whose endorsements carry weight.\u00a0 All candidates will want to fill these out.<\/p>\n

And then there are the other ones.\u00a0 As a general rule, the weaker and the less relevant the group, the longer and more tedious its questionnaire will be.\u00a0 Each of them takes several hours to complete, time that would be better spent getting chased by vicious guard dogs.\u00a0 See that questionnaire with fifty questions on it?\u00a0 We guarantee that it will have zero impact on the election.\u00a0 Truly influential groups don\u2019t care about fifty different things.\u00a0 They care about a few things that are really important to them because that\u2019s what they are working on.\u00a0 Last time, one brand-new group sent out a list of 33 questions ranging from the best way to cook an omelet to the candidate\u2019s favorite Pokemon character.\u00a0 (OK, maybe your author is exaggerating a little.)\u00a0 It took a whole afternoon to fill out.\u00a0 That group did nothing during the election and has never been heard from again!<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how crazy this can get.\u00a0 Suppose you really hate Candidate X and want to mess with him.\u00a0 Tell him you represent a group called MoCo Residents United that has a hundred thousand dues-paying members. \u00a0Then send him a questionnaire with 120 questions, each one with sub-questions a, b and c.\u00a0 X will go totally banana cakes.\u00a0 He will yell at his staff, \u201cWho are these guys?\u00a0 I\u2019ve never heard of them.\u00a0 How dare they send in 120 questions!\u201d\u00a0 The staff will all agree, saying the group doesn\u2019t exist and should be ignored.\u00a0 But then X will think of Candidates Y and Z, who are his bitter enemies and are running against him.\u00a0 What happens if Y and Z respond but X does not?<\/p>\n

You know the end to this story.\u00a0 X will fill out that questionnaire.\u00a0 Every single time!<\/p>\n

So for the love of Mike, if you are contemplating sending out a questionnaire, please observe the following rules.\u00a0 First, if you really don\u2019t care about something, don\u2019t ask about it.\u00a0 Don\u2019t waste your time \u2013 and the candidate\u2019s.\u00a0 Second, don\u2019t ask the same question three different ways.\u00a0 Ask it once and only once.\u00a0 Third, fill out your own questionnaire yourself before sending it out.\u00a0 Put yourself in the candidate\u2019s shoes.\u00a0 If you find it intolerable to complete it, trim it. Fourth, be aware that if you ask fifty different questions, the answers to each one will be shorter and less informative than if you ask ten.\u00a0 That\u2019s because candidates and their staff only have so much time in the day.\u00a0 In this case, less is more!\u00a0 And finally, make your best effort to distribute the completed questionnaires far and wide to your members.\u00a0 If you are going to ask candidates to invest the time and effort to fill them out, at least make sure that their hard work is seen by as many voters as possible.<\/p>\n

And if you don\u2019t follow the above rules, you just want to make people miserable.\u00a0 In that case, you should send your questionnaire only to Robin Ficker!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. What\u2019s the worst part of campaigning for office?\u00a0 Well, there is a lot of work, but most of it is not inherently awful.\u00a0 You have to show up at a bunch of events, but that\u2019s OK if you like bad food and flat soda.\u00a0 You have to talk to a bunch of … Continue reading The Worst Part of Campaigning<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[1545,651],"class_list":["post-9184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-candidate-questionnaires"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2o8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9185,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9184\/revisions\/9185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}