A few nights ago, I was at the NAACP School Board forum with Jim Jackson, one of the candidates I am working for this cycle.  As I was putting rack cards on each chair as people filed into the building, another candidate in a different race said hello to me and asked me where Jim finds such good help for his campaign.  The answer is pretty simple.  First, Jim has been involved in politics for several years.  He has donated to other candidates.  He has sweat in the streets as a volunteer for others.  He has made connections with local political figures and donors.  And he was also smart enough to scoop up some good talent and pay them.  If you’re thinking about running for office, start laying down those roots in the political world and start earning respect with your time and your treasure.  And if you don’t have much money, that’s okay.  You can still go to many events and your $10 or $20 check will be gratefully received by candidates.  Grab a beer or a glass of wine and start meeting people.

And before you think, “That’s great, but I can’t afford to pay somebody when I run for office.  I’m not going to raise that much money,” here are some examples why you can’t afford to not to hire smart, experienced people to assist with your campaign.

$777 – That’s how much a school board candidate spent on “water for multiple events.”  That is roughly 7% of her entire expenditures in her campaign…water!

$668 – The same candidate spent this much on magnet signs.  That accounted for about 6% of her entire campaign expenditures so far in the campaign.

$2856 – This one really hurts.  The same candidate spent 26% of her total expenditures to date on yard signs.  Although some signage is useful in some campaigns, they’re not a good idea in a countywide race.  Put 1000 signs throughout Pinellas County and you’ll be spending a ton of campaign money and volunteer effort, yet still being relatively unnoticed.

$1835 – Oh my God, I think this one hurts even more.  Over 16% of the campaign expenditures to date have been on hand-held fans which advertise her candidacy.  That makes 55% of the total budget so far on water, signs and hand-held fans.

$603 – Over 5% of the campaign budget has been invested in t-shirts.  That’s definitely on the high side.  If I’m giving away that many shirts on my campaign, I expect to have a lot of $500 donors and/or volunteers working their tails off.

And the candidate’s choice of printers for her rack card? Sir Speedy.  Using convenience printers is a good way to overpay for printing.  I haven’t seen Sir Speedy’s rates, but I bet this candidate paid at least twice what I have been paying for rack cards, maybe more.

Mail ballots were already out to most voters by the time this report cut off.  How much did the candidate spend on direct mail and/or cable television? $0.

In case you’re wondering, the candidate is Fonda Huff.  (You can view her most recent campaign finance report here.)  I actually personally like both Fonda and her opponent.  Both seem to be nice people and I think they both would make capable school board members.  But I think it’s painfully obvious who is making better campaign decisions.  Other than her filing fee, I was hard-pressed to find any expenditure that I would have approved if I was working on Huff’s campaign.

And the cost of having someone like me on her team for the last two months on a part-time basis? Roughly the same amount of money she wasted on hand-held fans.  She also would have spent $700 less on water, went without $668 of magnets, spent at least $1700 less on signs and saved large amounts of money on anything she printed.  And she would have taken all that money she wasted and used it for a mailer or cable television instead.  Not to mention, she would have a much smoother operation that would make few mistakes.

And speaking of mistakes…what a great transition to a discussion of election complaints.

First-time candidates, along with repeat candidates with reckless help, manage to get themselves into a lot of trouble.  The worst part about election complaints is that the fines aren’t paid with campaign funds; candidates are personally liable and must pay from their own personal funds.  Furthermore, the infractions are typically avoidable.  They tend to be incorrect disclaimers, absence of disclaimers and the like.

Nine candidates are running for the Pinellas County School Board this year.  Peggy O’Shea and Linda Lerner have been through enough of these to know the rules.  Terry Krassner and Jim Jackson have pros on their teams.  Of the five remaining candidates – Hunsinger, Huff, Hawley, Bell and Williams – I have managed to find campaign law violations on all except Hunsinger.  Of the four with violations, only Huff’s is not related to the required disclaimer under state law.  But I’m not planning on filing any complaints, nor do I intend to do so.  I file the info away and I’m ready to nail someone if they deserve it, but I don’t like sticking somebody for a $250 (or more) personal fine over something petty.  But that doesn’t mean that others miss these mistakes, and everyone isn’t as nice as I am

There’s also some protocol among campaign professionals.  If you respect your opponent (and their campaign staff), you don’t file complaints over petty stuff.  That’s a good way to get some retribution.  But if your opponent is unorganized, their careless mistakes are a good way to highlight how reckless they are.  Plus there’s little chance at retribution, because they don’t know the rules and it’s unlikely they will nail you back.  The campaign pros know that they may have to get along on future campaigns, even if they’re on opposite sides of a race today.  That’s why we don’t pick on each other too much.  Hell, politics makes strange bedfellows.  We all know that.

But if the other side doesn’t respect you and your team, you could be the victim of something like this.  So get some competent help that knows the election laws.

Here’s another good reason to meet some campaign professionals before you jump into a race…you may get some good advice for free.  Check out this article (and the comments too): Where’s Hawley?

If Brian met with me and told me his campaign plan, I would have told him that he couldn’t win, regardless of who his opponent turned out to be.  He should have just saved his money.  What’s worse is that he may have undermined his chances of winning a race in the future by running such a terrible campaign this time around.  If you take away the campaign element, he seems like a sharp guy who would make a good school board member.  But only about 10% of the voters will ever know that.  Maybe he will get 25-35% of the vote against Linda Lerner, just because his name is the only other option and there’s a big anti-incumbent sentiment.  Yet many voters who may be looking for another option just won’t pull the trigger for someone they’ve never met who is unknown to virtually all their friends.

And my final reason for hiring a campaign pro…most of them bring fundraising contacts from previous campaigns.  If you bring in the right person, the cost of hiring them will be partially reduced by their ability to introduce you to good checkwriters.

So there you go, hire a pro.

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