Democrat or Republican - Choosing Sides
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You are a Democrat if you:
1. Embrace national government resolutions to public problems.
2. Believe that the national government should intervene in the economy to ensure its health, to support social welfare problems to assist the disadvantaged, and to be tolerant of social change.
3. Identify yourself with pro-women’s rights position, pro-civil rights policies, and opposition to increased defense spending.
4. Increase taxes.
5. Negotiate first and take military action only if sanctioned by the UN.
6. Block drilling for oil in Alaska.
7. Sign the Kyoto Treaty.
8. Protect the rights of the accused first and foremost.
9. Allow doctor-assisted suicide.
10. Scrap the missile defense program.
11. Increase age of initial retirement eligibility (e.g. 68 or 70); increase salary limits subject to tax.
12. Propose 100% government-controlled reform.
13. Maintain separation of church and state; stop faith-based government initiatives.
You are a Republican if you:
1. State that the national government has grown too large.
2. Insist the private sector needs less interference from the government, that social welfare programs should be limited and state and local governments should be able to make their own decisions, and that the nation’s defense should be strengthened
3. Are not tolerant of gay rights laws.
4. Cut taxes.
5. Work with the UN but take unilateral pre-emptive action to show the United States is not under anyone’s thumb.
6. Pursue this and other domestic oil sources.
7. Don’t sign environmental treaties.
8. Provide maximum punishment and protect the rights of the victim first and foremost.
9. Argue against any kind of suicide.
10. Boost international military programs.
11. Privatize; i.e. oblige citizens to handle their own retirement money and allow stock investments.
12. De-regulate health care and introduce free market health care.
13. Introduce more religion in schools and public ceremonies; promote faith-based government initiatives.
Get Ready
Before you make a decision to run for President, you must determine for yourself if you can handle the Oval Office: Are you willing to accept such a huge responsibility and put the rest of your life on hold ? Are you skilled in dealing with big groups of people ? Can you motivate the nation to action ? And think about your biography, which is, of course, not perfect.
Then you must:
1. Decide how are you going to impress party leaders.
2. Make intensive preliminary polling to determine your chances.
3. Poll big demographic groups as well as smaller groups of people from selected demographic groups.
4. Determine the rationale for your candidacy. What is your political record?
5. Delay announcing your candidacy until late in the year before the election to minimize expenditures and risk, avoid legal spending limits, avoid voter fatigue, avoid getting ensnarled in unnecessary controversies and contradictions.
6. Carefully study applicable election laws before you start fundraising and spending.
7. Write your campaign plan (strategic objective, tactical targets, key message, target audiences, methods of delivery, timing, your progress evaluation — polls).
8. Learn the political and economic issues and develop your campaign message.
9. Prepare the “speech” and the “book” (the “speech” is the standard speech that you deliver and it should answer the most important question — why are you running for President; the “book” contains the message and all possible questions on your program.
10. Take a benchmark poll — it will provide the road map for your campaign.
11. Establish your strategy and message
12. Study the results, polls and “successful” areas of previous election.
13. Establish a perfect graphic look (image).
14. Develop a fundraising plan, put the fundraising team in place and start asking for money. No money — no campaign.
15. Create a personal contacts pyramid (priority and general contacts) because personal popularity is your starting point.
16. Set up offices.
17. Get professional candidate training.
18. Determine the focus of your presidential policy (taxes, crime, education, health, social security, national security).
Working with the Staff
Basic campaign staffers include:
1) campaign managers — they plan the campaign, organize and recruit the staff, supervise daily campaign operations, make priority contacts with key special groups big business and big media, correct the strategy and make quick decisions. It has to be someone you trust completely.
2) campaign consultants-specialists in both direct (personal and public meetings) and indirect (media, advertising) campaigning
3) strategists
4) analysts
5) issues researchers
6) speechwriters
7) lawyer (interprets election and campaign reporting laws)
8) personal assistants (work on issues in foreign and domestic policy in cooperation with the whole team).
9) fundraisers (plan and execute fundraising events — dinners, parties, auctions, direct appeals through telephone and letters, receptions, computerized fundraising). Big business has to be approached by rich fundraiser only.
10) scheduler (determines events and locations — TV and radio talk shows, news — conferences, meetings with students and professors at college campuses and with professionals at their associations’ annual meetings, special events and fundraisers especially with ethnic leaders in big cities, as well as festivals and big shows where celebrities demonstrate their support, large extravaganzas, meetings at civic clubs, farm warehouse auctions and special auctions, local civic events. Also, scheduler makes arrangements with local media before your visit and sends media the copies of your speech; insures that good crowd will attend the event and takes care of transportation arrangements). The purpose of the campaign planning and strategic scheduling is to draw press attention to the candidate for transmission to the voting public. That’s natural — the candidate who has enough media attention has much better chances of recruiting public acceptance and raising campaign funds.
During the “invisible primary” which is the nomination, campaign you have to make visits to party organizations especially in pivotal states, such as the above mentioned Iowa and New Hampshire where you have to make as many handshaking and personal contacts as possible. Key staffers must travel with you.
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