It’s another Saturday, so for those who tune in, welcome to a Saturday Diary of Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic Campaign. If you’ve missed out, you can catch up anytime, just visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.
Until the new year, I’m taking the next few weeks to reach into the mailbag and answer questions that have come my way that I think probably should get an answer. This week, we’re going to talk about campaign credit.
A frequent question that comes my way is that after a campaign is over people look to lay credit or assess blame in a campaign. How exactly does campaign credit work? How influential or detrimental are party organizations?
Everyone deserves some credit
The emails I get on this subject fall into two categories: the first, email about someone taking all the credit for a campaign, and the second, someone who an email writer is mad about but isn’t getting enough grief over their work. Instead of getting right to that, I think it is important to remember that in good campaigns, everyone deserves some credit. Whether they donated $25, an afternoon walking a precinct or ran your field office, good campaigns thank everyone, sometimes profusely, and let people feel as though they were an important part of the win.
People love to tell others about their work in winning campaigns, or even their work in losing campaigns. It can build camaraderie and as long as it isn’t too egregious, it can build up their interest in continuing work.
Someone reading Nuts & Bolts a few years ago sent me comments from a precinct officer about their role in a US House race, how it was the over performance in their districts and state house seat that topped the US House district, and, they figured, set an example for others and that helped lead to the election of their US House candidate.
Now, that could be seen as a lot of dominoes to get to the punchline, but rather than attack the precinct officer for claiming too much credit, it is often easiest to just say: thank you for your fantastic work, come back and work this hard the next time too!
Division of credit
Now let’s get down to the part that does matter. In a campaign, there are many roles like campaign managers and communication directors. There are also outside entities, which can include national, state, and local parties and national, state, and local advocacy groups, and local activists.
All of them will have a role, and sometimes a significant role, in a campaign. But the people who really have to manage that entire circus? That’s the campaign manager and the direct staff. So, let’s look at how credit in campaigns work, and I’ll use Kansas as an example to highlight a few different races at different levels.
In a statewide race, like a governor or US Senate race, the campaign manager and their staff have a job that is even bigger than people realize. Not only are they tasked with handling the internals of their own campaigns, they are also the gatekeepers for the groups that work to support them.
Being inside the party infrastructure, people often ask how important is the role a county or state party plays, how big of a role do they play in an election, and how much credit should they receive for their work? This question comes up a lot as parties go through reorganization meetings.
No one deserves more credit than the campaign itself, but party infrastructure can play a big role. Well-organized county and state parties are better set up to succeed; organizations in disarray present difficulties for campaigns. Remember, campaigns deserve the lion share of credit, but you can make it a lot easier for them to achieve if their local organizations are in great shape.
This is why, for example, fantastic state parties with incredible infrastructure—see Minnesota—have the ability to overperform. Still, even for those of us who believe a lot in a healthy infrastructure will tell you, these organizations are at their best when we work with great campaigns.
But how do you assign credit to these organizations? Does the credit lie with leadership, with executive directors, paid staff, or somewhere else? Good leadership at the top definitely makes things possible, whereas bad leadership can cause ongoing problems.
Throw the bums out or cheer them on?
As county and state organizations come up for reorganization, officers will often claim credit for wins or performance in their district. In areas where parties have less success, leadership often looks at other fundamentals,
Victories have many parents, and losing campaigns no one wants to claim. Good organizations lead to everyone seeking their attention, bad organizations look to everyone casting blame. Before we get too far, remember that Democratic party offices are for the most part unpaid, volunteer work. Also remember that a big slice of their staff is not their choice—precinct officers are products of a state statute, not the party, also an unpaid post.
Before you start assessing too much blame, even in bad organizations, realize for the most part these are people just freely giving their time hoping to do good things for their city, county, state, nation. So, unless there is something truly egregious try to not shame or overly bash people who just wanted to help without pay. Even if they are not the future leadership of your state or county organization, they are still the people who you will need to keep supporting and working in the party.
For successful organizations, how much credit do you give? The reason why this question came forward was from a reader voting on their local party leadership next year. How can you tell how effective leadership has been? Do they deserve the credit they claim?
The easiest way to know the quality of leadership in your organization is the support of your elected. If your elected officials strongly support the leaders of your organization, that is a pretty good sign. The next step is looking at the development of candidates and leadership. Truly great leaders identify and promote great leadership below them, building a strong organization from top to bottom.
Still, not everything is as cut and dried as it seems. No one leads or has involvement in any organization without detractors. When you decide to vote for leadership in any organization, look at the data, listen to your guts, and be okay no matter how a race comes out.
Next week on your questions: Fake PACs