Campaigning to Win

Rating:
Summary: Campaigning to Win Wins
Review: Campaigning to Win Wins

Gary Bosley has written a very good campaign study in Campaigning to Win. It challenges a number of prevailing assumptions of campaigns and has some rather innovative sections. On the importance of issues, how to handle them and what is "at issue," it is superb. His section on doing a prior inventory of the district is ingenious.

Most campaigns forget that the goal is obtaining 5O% + one. How to do that is never out of focus in Bosley's work. Most campaigns lose because they fail to resolve the decision-making problem, which is how to manage the campaign and the candidate. As Eddie Mahe, former Executive Director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said most candidates lose because they become managers and not politicians.

Most districts are gerrymandered so that losing is probable for most challengers. The districts are not competitive or marginally so, yet some incumbents are defeated even in the general election.. As a corollary losing incumbents defeat themselves. Gary Bosley's book provides ways of maximizing the probability of incumbents defeating themselves. Anyone can be defeated! The fool is the one incumbent who thinks he can't be beaten. Resolving the dilemma of being a leader and a candidate and of having to submit to management is the key to winning. Hence a campaign is something like a three-act play. The final act only comes on election day. In acts one and two the campaign manager directs the candidate, develops the organization where usually there is little, determines strategy and tactics and implements both. As a candidate expect the worst, the mediocre and the best of yourself to rise to the surface! The manager tries to maximize the latter and minimize the former. In short it is very easy for any candidate to make a jackass of himself. It is easy to lose and much more difficult to win, particularly against incumbents.

Then there are those who win and never understand why, who continue to misrepresent their districts and thereby set themselves up for subsequent defeat. For all of these people there is something of value from a pragmatic point of view in Gary Bosley's book. Bosley's book would have been a fine reference work for my losing primary campaigns for Congress and general, state senate in California. A campaign is the composite of a good candidate, good management, good organization, adequate money and finely tuned focus on the 5O% + one of the turnout needed to win. Issue focus must be on what is "at" issue in the district, how to discern what that is and how to concentrate on that in the campaign. I am reminded of an economist who told me his uncle was a Missouri state senator in the 1930's. Several months before the election he visited all of the towns and cities and listened to what was on the minds of average folk, then he spent the last part of the campaign advocating what was "at issue," which was exactly what those folks told him. The senator was always re-elected, for he was a one-man intelligence service. The three main ingredients of campaigns are time, money and manpower (the thought of a well-known campaign manager/consultant). The incumbent starts with all three whereas the challenger begins with usually just time. He who exploits most effectively these three elements to the maximum becomes the winner. Gary's Bosley's book is a winner in that regard.

Organizing against incumbents is very difficult. Campaigns are volunteer in nature and are chaotic. Only better management reduces the fog or chaos of campaigns, which are a form of conflict. Bosley provides some answers in chaos reduction.

By the time you complete his book you will have a heightened appreciation of why the U.S. Army decided long ago not to combine strategy and tactics under the command of one person. As they say the candidate who has himself as a manager has a fool for a candidate! Many of us who knew that ahead of time still fell into the same trap. You simply can not have the candidate controlling strategy and tactics! Bosley's study tells you how to avoid that mistake. Bosley has learned it, done it and reflected very wisely on the general and particular nature of campaigning. His work is no mere memoir.

Challengers usually underestimate the reality of what they are dealing with in running. They start on the five to twenty yard-line and rarely move beyond the thirty-five to forty-five yard-lines. Most need more experience with years of practical political experience. Most need to understand their districts better. Most need vast education on the real issues, not just parroting of campaign slogans. Most need to start fund-raising several years ahead of time; promises of it don't count.

Political parties get the kind of candidates they deserve given the fact that most political parties, particularly at the local level, are not well organized to create, run and win professional campaigns. Local, district and some state political parties must professionalize first and elect candidates later

All challenging candidates need to understand that while there may be a legal political party out there, it is not a campaign organization. It is impotent in most states. You, the candidate, must organize the real, campaign electing "party" or organization where there is none! Can you really do it? The enigma is you will not know unless you try. How well can you stand to be a turkey after the election? Read Bosley's on campaigning!

So you think you are a good candidate and not a flake! Do it; walk in those moccasins; walk the walk; talk the talk; weigh those thoughts; live the three act play, and then tell us why you were a good candidate! Don't bother to call if you have not analyzed Gary Bosley on campaigning! Many are called but few are elected!

15 March 2001

----------- (983 words)

Rating:
Summary: Campaigning to Win Wins
Review: Campaigning to Win Wins

Gary Bosley has written a very good campaign study in Campaigning to Win. It challenges a number of prevailing assumptions of campaigns and has some rather innovative sections. On the importance of issues, how to handle them and what is "at issue," it is superb. His section on doing a prior inventory of the district is ingenious.

Most campaigns forget that the goal is obtaining 5O% + one. How to do that is never out of focus in Bosley's work. Most campaigns lose because they fail to resolve the decision-making problem, which is how to manage the campaign and the candidate. As Eddie Mahe, former Executive Director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said most candidates lose because they become managers and not politicians.

Most districts are gerrymandered so that losing is probable for most challengers. The districts are not competitive or marginally so, yet some incumbents are defeated even in the general election.. As a corollary losing incumbents defeat themselves. Gary Bosley's book provides ways of maximizing the probability of incumbents defeating themselves. Anyone can be defeated! The fool is the one incumbent who thinks he can't be beaten. Resolving the dilemma of being a leader and a candidate and of having to submit to management is the key to winning. Hence a campaign is something like a three-act play. The final act only comes on election day. In acts one and two the campaign manager directs the candidate, develops the organization where usually there is little, determines strategy and tactics and implements both. As a candidate expect the worst, the mediocre and the best of yourself to rise to the surface! The manager tries to maximize the latter and minimize the former. In short it is very easy for any candidate to make a jackass of himself. It is easy to lose and much more difficult to win, particularly against incumbents.

Then there are those who win and never understand why, who continue to misrepresent their districts and thereby set themselves up for subsequent defeat. For all of these people there is something of value from a pragmatic point of view in Gary Bosley's book. Bosley's book would have been a fine reference work for my losing primary campaigns for Congress and general, state senate in California. A campaign is the composite of a good candidate, good management, good organization, adequate money and finely tuned focus on the 5O% + one of the turnout needed to win. Issue focus must be on what is "at" issue in the district, how to discern what that is and how to concentrate on that in the campaign. I am reminded of an economist who told me his uncle was a Missouri state senator in the 1930's. Several months before the election he visited all of the towns and cities and listened to what was on the minds of average folk, then he spent the last part of the campaign advocating what was "at issue," which was exactly what those folks told him. The senator was always re-elected, for he was a one-man intelligence service. The three main ingredients of campaigns are time, money and manpower (the thought of a well-known campaign manager/consultant). The incumbent starts with all three whereas the challenger begins with usually just time. He who exploits most effectively these three elements to the maximum becomes the winner. Gary's Bosley's book is a winner in that regard.

Organizing against incumbents is very difficult. Campaigns are volunteer in nature and are chaotic. Only better management reduces the fog or chaos of campaigns, which are a form of conflict. Bosley provides some answers in chaos reduction.

By the time you complete his book you will have a heightened appreciation of why the U.S. Army decided long ago not to combine strategy and tactics under the command of one person. As they say the candidate who has himself as a manager has a fool for a candidate! Many of us who knew that ahead of time still fell into the same trap. You simply can not have the candidate controlling strategy and tactics! Bosley's study tells you how to avoid that mistake. Bosley has learned it, done it and reflected very wisely on the general and particular nature of campaigning. His work is no mere memoir.

Challengers usually underestimate the reality of what they are dealing with in running. They start on the five to twenty yard-line and rarely move beyond the thirty-five to forty-five yard-lines. Most need more experience with years of practical political experience. Most need to understand their districts better. Most need vast education on the real issues, not just parroting of campaign slogans. Most need to start fund-raising several years ahead of time; promises of it don't count.

Political parties get the kind of candidates they deserve given the fact that most political parties, particularly at the local level, are not well organized to create, run and win professional campaigns. Local, district and some state political parties must professionalize first and elect candidates later

All challenging candidates need to understand that while there may be a legal political party out there, it is not a campaign organization. It is impotent in most states. You, the candidate, must organize the real, campaign electing "party" or organization where there is none! Can you really do it? The enigma is you will not know unless you try. How well can you stand to be a turkey after the election? Read Bosley's on campaigning!

So you think you are a good candidate and not a flake! Do it; walk in those moccasins; walk the walk; talk the talk; weigh those thoughts; live the three act play, and then tell us why you were a good candidate! Don't bother to call if you have not analyzed Gary Bosley on campaigning! Many are called but few are elected!

15 March 2001

----------- (983 words)