Grassroots:1 - How early should I
start campaigning?
For those who are considering either supporting or running for
office as a Southern Party or other independent party we have
secured a great resource that may be useful. Many are aware of the
resources provided by Joe Garecht on
http://www.localvictory.com/. Mr. Garecht has graciously agreed
to let us use extracts of his articles.
Using his very educational material we will add commentary
based upon the experience we have gained from our four grass roots
campaigns as a independent candidates in Georgia. The principles are
very well explained by Mr. Garecht's articles. The differences are
that as independent candidates you will have additional obstacles to
overcome. We hope that by sharing our experience and what we have
learned that more citizens will consider supporting and/or running
for office.
For those who are strongly considering either you should take
a look at Mr. Garecht's web site, use it as a resource and probably
purchase his very reasonably priced books. He offers an electronic
newsletter which we recommend that you
sign up for.
With that introduction lets start with the first in this
series:
The Two Most Frequently Asked Questions About Grassroots
Politics
by Joe Garecht
This article appeared in the May 15, 2002 issue of the
Local Victory Newsletter
Local Victory receives over 300 e-mails
per month asking questions on winning local elections. The
majority of these questions deal with grassroots politics –
organizing a district, conducting canvasses, etc.
In
this article, we’re taking a look at the two most frequently
asked questions we receive:
1. How early should I start
campaigning?
This is one of the most common questions
for first-time candidates and campaign managers. The short
answer is: it’s never too early to
start. There are always activities you can carry-out to
help your campaign or future campaign. Even if the election
is four years away, you can be out meeting people, talking
with leaders and activists, building an organization and
writing your campaign plan.
Of course, you don’t want to announce
your candidacy or run advertisements too far in advance of the
campaign. While the best time to start these activities
varies by place, election and strategy, they generally should
never take place before the last election before yours is
complete (November of the year before the your election) and
in all but the biggest and/or best funded races should not
take place before January of the year of your election.
When deciding when to start running
advertisements, remember to wait until people are paying
attention to the campaign or ready to start paying attention –
if you run ads and no one cares, you are wasting your
campaign’s precious fundraising dollars.
Source:
http://www.localvictory.com/Articles/grassroots-politics.html |
Our Commentary:
The statement, " ... its never too early to start." is more
true for independent candidates than for candidates of either major
party. You are basically starting without the standing
organizations, campaign tools, built-in partisan vote and additional
obstacles.
In Georgia unless you are planning on running for a statewide
candidate as a Libertarian Party candidate you face some of the
hardest ballot access laws in the country. In fact depending on the
turnout in the previous election in Illinois - you are facing either
the hardest or second hardest access laws. Passed in 1943 the ballot
access laws in Georgia become more prohibitive every election.
So an early start and being fully prepared to initiate your
petition drive to get on the ballot is your most important and first
obstacle to overcome. Petition efforts start in January of the
election year and you are given 180 days to obtain the required
number of signatures that will pass the verification process.
Probably 30% will be rejected for both valid and invalid reasons
during validation and to be safe you need to plan on 40-50% over the
required number.
For those in other States, your first step if not already done
is to find out what your ballot access requirements are. Our
commentary will be based upon Georgia, so you should adjust our
comments to apply to your State requirements.
So right now - you need to start developing a plan to meet
this requirement so that on day one of the petitioning period you
are ready to go.
So between now and around this coming November, you need to
develop your campaign plan. To answer the question, "When should I
start campaigning?" for an independent candidate the answer is now.
It is never too early to start and you have additional steps and
obstacles to overcome in your march to election day. The early
planning for your campaign is just as important as the later stages
and may determine if you even get on the ballot.
Next we will look at the steps of building a campaign plan.
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