Election campaigns bring both challenge and opportunity. As the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson remarked during a crisis with the sterling currency in 1964, "A week is a long time in politics" (Ratcliffe). Likewise, in the topsy-turvy of election campaigns, what is concerning today can be less or substantially more significant tomorrow.
My first experience of this was directing a local election campaign in my late twenties. This campaign sought the re-election of a less than ideal candidate who had managed to upset many of his constituents over the years.
Equal first priorities were to (1) find and engage the few party loyalists and a larger number of young folks willing to work for the campaign, (2) secure donations and media coverage, and (3) build and sustain the enthusiasm of volunteers for the myriad, repetitive clerical and logistical tasks needed to get the campaign underway.
And there can never be enough opportunities for people to talk with the candidate. One-on-one or one-on-two conversations defuse polarized views and ignite new commitments. For local campaigns or more widely, it's block parties, "meet-and-greets," door-to-door, or other opportunities for personal conversation that matter.
One initiative made possible by the generosity of volunteers and donors was to arrange for the candidate to give out tree seedlings to his constituents at local shopping centers. With each tree, the candidate also provided a leaflet explaining how residents could obtain an additional free tree through a little known "greening" program of the state's department of agriculture. This "meet-and-greet" was warmly welcomed and, as a bonus, stimulated some local media coverage.
During this fairly short campaign, small and larger issues for attention popped up endlessly. It was thanks to the support of some wise, new friends and a can do persistence of many that we kept up the momentum. The resulting win by 117 votes in an electorate of about 28,000 voters, like many such wins, proved important not only for the candidate, but also for the overall campaign effort.
When just six-months remains to election day, the key question to answer is what more can each of us do that's useful?
Reference:
Susan Ratcliffe (Ed.) (2017), Oxford Essential Quotations, (5th edn), https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00011621 [probably first said at the time of the 1964 sterling crisis by British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson 1916-95]
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