The Problem with Well Wishes and Good Intentions
By Pamela Gorman, Arizona Senator
In the governance of people, there is an American ideal that we get what we ask for. We have free elections and heavily regulated campaigns. There is every opportunity to elect people to the roles in public office that will represent the values of the nation. Your vote matters… but it isn’t enough.
At the risk of offending many good people, including my own supporters, I am going to put out some cold hard truths. Your “support” for a candidate is not as strong as you might think, if you simply cast your vote. You need to multiply your vote with the votes of others of like-mind, if you hope to make a difference in the policies that will affect you, your business, your quality of life, your safety, and your freedoms. One vote isn’t a bad thing, but it is relatively worthless when it is up against a legion of other voters who have been rounded up by a well-executed “community organizing” effort from the other side.
So, how do you multiply your vote in an effort to be properly represented? Two things work: money and time. When I am offered help in my campaigns, my inner voice says, “Really? Will that be help in the form of your time or your money?” That cynicism is not because I think people are lying. It is because I realize that they don’t realize that if they want to help, I need either their money or time (preferably both). And, experience shows that most people have good intentions, but lousy follow through. Most people are hard pressed to part with either their money or their time, but those that do are key to shaping a nation and here’s why…
Money buys a campaign the tools needed to get the message out to other voters, so their votes will come in to accompany yours. This is sort of why campaign donations are protected under the constitutional right to free speech. Postage, printing, graphic design, writing, mailing lists, polling, and professional campaign consulting all cost real hard dollars. Being the best candidate in the race and the best man/woman for the job doesn’t pay the bills. Money pays the bills. It is a reality that weighs on every candidate every day. If you don’t have money, you can help raise money from others. But, if you are serious about wanting a candidate to represent you, putting a little of your treasure toward helping them bring in additional votes must be a core of your strategy. Without money, there is no feasible way to communicate the candidate’s ideas or their suitability for the job to would-be voters. It’s a cold hard reality.
Time is finite and not transferrable. We each only get 24 hours in a day. Share even an hour a day or a few hours on the weekend, and most people will be investing an hour a day or a few hours on the weekend more than they ever have before. It is the sad but honest truth. Offering your time requires you to carve out time from some of life’s other activities for a few months. It might mean you don’t finish that scrapbook as fast or get to put in 45 minutes of cardio every day… Election day waits for no man, as I like to say. So, we don’t need your 3rd Saturday in November, when your bunko group is on break. Honestly, we are not trying to be picky, it is just that our elections are already over by then. Campaigns are a human resource heavy business in a time when people have very little time they can give without sacrificing another area of their lives to give it. But they must.
A curious but common problem is also that many people offer to “help” but then find all available duties of a campaign volunteer to be unpleasant or inconvenient. So, in the interest of full disclosure, consider that there really aren’t that many envelopes to be stuffed. Rather, what your candidate needs your time and help with are various hands-on voter contact activities, like knocking on doors in the district. They need folks sitting with a phone and a call list reaching out to potential voters with call after call after call. They need smiling faces outside the polls to talk to last minute undecided voters before they enter the polling places on election day. They need “handlers” to accompany them to campaign events and fundraisers to keep them moving in the crowds efficiently and safely. They need schedulers to be working to fill their calendar with opportunities to meet potential voters. They need pleasant people to stand at craft fairs and community festivals handing out information and asking for votes. If you don’t like people, or work strange hours, they need people willing to go out with a truck full of supplies and swing a heavy fence pole hammer to erect campaign signs around town. Or, blog and utilize social media, if that is your bag…
Time and money are how you change things. Time and money are the way the people “speak” to other voters to bring them to the polls to vote for the candidate who will fight for the policies you care about. Sure, you can hope for change. You can cast your one vote for change. But, while one vote, a lot of hope, and a dollar may buy you a cup of coffee, it won’t win an election.
