All Politics is Local

Vote Tellers waiting for the ballots to count

All politics is local.

Some of you know that I've been involved with a number of political campaigns, managing the phone banks, parsing the data, helping on the finances, training on technology, and prepping the candidate. Over the weekend I had the chance to wear all these hats at the same time.

On Thursday night I got a phone call from a very close friend asking me how much it would cost to put up a website. I asked what for. She replied: "Lynn is thinking about running for the election."

My reaction was two-fold: 1) If I had to pick a list of candidates that I would want to represent me on any political level, Lynn would be right up there. And 2) The election was in 4 days and there was little chance that he would win.

Mind you I'm no Karl Rove, but neither am I a Bob Shrum. But this was gonna be tough. Senator Mims, representing the 33rd district in Northern Virginia was called to serve in the new governor's office. A special election was ordered for his replacement. Two prominent Republicans entered the race: Mick Staton and Randy Minchew. Then at the last minute I get the call from Lynn.

Lynn is a brilliant guy who hasn't a pretentious bone in his body. I've known his family for almost a decade. Lynn is also the equivalent of a Arch-Bishop in the Mormon church (known as a Stake President). So, I encouraged him on, dreams of a darkhorse winner taking the big prize floating through my mind.

After the third glossy from the Staton campaign in as many days I knew our chances were slim. Still, it was a special election held on a holiday (yesterday). But the weather looked to be good and the push polls and GOTV calls were in full force.

Staton ran a classic sifting campaign. Being the front runner he knew that turnout was key. I don't know the details of his campaign, but based on the efforts I received at my mailstop here's how it probably worked:

1) Get a master list from contributors and from the party (Staton is Rep. Dick Black's son-in-law so there was already an engine in place).
2) Send a quick glossy to the whole group with a specific angle (Traffic issues, education, growth burnout).
3) Follow the glossy with a phone call and push poll determining the possible support of the candidates.
4) Get rid of the "no" votes, hold onto the "yes" and "maybe" votes.
5) Send a specific glossy to each "yes" and "maybe" based on the poll feedback.
6) Follow up with a call the day before the election (this was a "firehouse" election, meaning that there was only one polling location).
7) Call the day of the election and get your signs out.
8) Press the flesh all day in front of the polling place.

It worked like a charm. Turnout was expected at 1500 it topped 2700!

Needless to say, a big turnout was not good for our candidate. But we had a real grassroots ability that other candidates lacked. We made sure to avoid our church directory lists (very verboten in the Mormon church). But many of us have social and work relations outside of the church. We made good use of this and put together a decent calling campaign. By the end of the day we had called hundreds of people. We pressed all day Monday (since Lynn registered just on Saturday this was a difficult last-minute task - but enthralling nonetheless).

Here are the final results:

Staton	1539	56%
Minchew	837	30%
Chapman	345	13%
Smith	34	1%

"You made quite a showing!" - Opposing candidate

"Keep up the great turnout!" - Election official

"I hope we can count on your voters come general election. We need them!" - Election official

"You brought in that many people in 2 days?!" - Election official

I'm encouraging Lynn to run again (you can see the website I built here).

If you haven't had a chance to involve yourself in an election I highly recommend it. The best vantage point to observe democracy in in the trenches. And, again, all politics is local!