How to Staff a Political Campaign

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Jim Goettler on behalf of Expert Village and this is a video series on managing a political campaign. In this segment, I'm going to touch on developing a staff, hiring a staff, bringing folk in to help a campaign happen. Now obviously, I'm not going to be able to cover everything there is in these segments, as far as running a campaign. I'm hoping to bring enough to you to give you the confidence to in turn ask more questions and involve yourself in the process. I've told many people over the years that a campaign is not a job. A successful campaign might lead to a job but a campaign itself is a very unique animal in that you're trying, the whole purpose for your existence is to get an initiative on the ballot or to get a candidate elected. That's all it's about, that's what a campaign staff does. Unfortunately, sometimes people come into a campaign thinking it's a job and they approach it as a nine to five sort of thing. Those folks just don't last very long and chances are the campaign will not be that successful. There are no time frames in a campaign. Don't expect to have short hours. Don't expect to work banker hours. It's not going to work like that because you're working with the public, often they are at work during the day so you need to reach folks at night. In other words, the whole idea of a time is shifted. So this is something to keep in mind as you develop a staff and you start looking for people with whom you can work. In the next segment, I'm going to go into the three main areas of most campaigns which involve the field staff, financial staff and the media staff, and these apply, be it a campaign for a candidate or a campaign for an initiative. Thank you."