DON HOMUTH, OREGON

I've run for office, been elected and beaten. I've run political campaigns,
big and small, won some and lost some. I've been in statewide campaigns
and in local campaigns. I've consulted on strategies, developed theme/message
components, constructed polls and analyzed results, run focus groups,
written radio and TV political commercials, press releases, speeches,
position papers, opposition research, fund-raising plans, budgets,
personnel requirements, appearance schedules and advance plans, stuffed
probably 250,000 envelopes _personally_, knocked on well over 25,000
doors, and just generally been involved at a number of levels.
So, I have some observations to share:

1. Political campaigns aren't _anything_ like folks think.

The modern technique of polling, coupled with the ability to
absolutely know how voters group, the ability to get precise (>85%% correct)
mailing lists segregated by demographic characteristics and past voting
patterns and outcomes not only by ZIP code, but by precinct and block,
makes it possible for a well-funded political candidate to craft specific
theme/message units and put them in the hands of *precisely* the voters
who will most react to the message.

For example, it is not at all uncommon for a campaign to mail,
on the same day, a letter to registered voters (unregistered voters'
opinions don't count, so no one asks them any questions in the polls)
who are likely to vote in the upcoming election, segregated by party,
sex, age, issues of interest, and signatures judged most persuasive.
Work out the permutations and combinations, and one mailing on a given
drop date can have as many as twenty separate message approaches to the
same batch of voters in an area.

The TV and radio commercials are best used for "attack ads." They
cost so much, and the information is so broad-based, that there's little
sense in going a direct mail route, *unless* the issue is very local.

2. "Grass-Roots" campaigns are nice to talk about, but paid media is better.

"Grass-roots" campaigns (my specialty) are not terribly
expensive, but they are _very_ difficult to put together in a way that
makes them at all useful. Each candidate will claim a "grass-roots"
effort, but it's mostly nonsense. The winners know what works, and
what works is paid media, not necessarily electronic BTW.

Sometimes there are reactive "grass-roots" efforts that spring
up out of public reaction to other forces -- e.g. HRP's campaign last
time. Let me remind everyone -- he lost. Everyone said "Nice going."
and then _immediately_ put their pollsters, focus group leaders and
theme/message consultants to work to figure out (a) why he made such
a good showing, and (b) how to keep it from happening again. (I've
read the polls.) And so, it's not likely to.

Out here in Oregon, where HRP got something over 20%% in 1992,
the American Party (the HRP campaign's successor organization) ended
up with about 1500 _registered_ voters statewide. So, even they didn't
take the time to do the groundwork to capitalize on their good showing --
which, BTW, gave them "major party" status in Oregon. It won't last long.

3. It's not _ever_ about "issues."

It's about winning -- pure and simple. Everything else is simply
nonsese, and political professionals look at "issues" only as part of
an overall "theme/message" element strategy -- nothing else. Issues are
a means to an end -- not the end.

This will, of course, be denied. It is, however, the fact.

4. The _only_ important group is the "undecideds."

They hold the margin of victory. In our "plurality" (NOT majority,
and don't ever confuse the two. The concept "majority" is only a special
subset of the larger concept "plurality.) system, the mathematics of
political marketing bring out a fundamental truth. Let me provide an
example:

Suppose in a given district (any size), party registrations broke down
roughly as follows:

R: 40%%
D: 40%%
Ind:20%%

Let's also suppose that R's and D's voted straight-line party tickets
all the time.

In that case, no candidate would ever campaign to either the R's or D's,
because the campaign would _know_ to a certainty how those people would
vote. The statistical tendency of persons to vote that way can be
determined precisely simply by running an analysis of past voting
patterns that are now easily accessible electronically.

Lessons: (1) Except for bowing in their direction on rare occasions, don't
waste money talking to either your own people or the opposition's. It
won't make any difference in the outcome.
(2) Spend 80-90%% of your money on the "independents" (or whatever
you wish to call them). Poll the daylights out of them, find out what they
want to hear, and then tell them.

Funny thing about the "independents." As a group, they are
simgularly unmotivated -- they register as independents because, in
part, they don't want to be bothered by "partisan politics" -- they
think -- they really do -- that _they_ somehow, are above all these
mean-spirited, "partisan" things that give "politics" such a bad
name.

Fools -- the lot of them.

They abandon the field (they don't get to vote in closed
primaries) and leave the basic choice of who will run (thereby who
will be elected) to others. They really think that a modern, well-funded
campaign can't figure _them_ out.

It can. They're wrong.

5. Parties -- both R's and D's -- want to maintain their elected majority.

First priority: Re-elect incumbents running again.
Second priority: Elect "open seat" candidates to fill a
seat being vacated by a member of your party.
Third priotity: Capture a seat vacated by a member of the
other party.
Fourth priority: Elect a challenger to a seat held by an
incumbent of the other party.

If, by August, a party sees that its majority (in the polling)
is being pretty well assured by a combination of first and second priority
candidates, it will not only cut off its support to third and fourth
priority candidates, but (and this is hard to believe, but true) it will
actively begin to work *against* those candidates interests. It does this
at the state and national level, by passing word around the sources of
funds that a particular campaign should receive no support.

The money for the campaign dries up. It goes to other "safer"
candidates already assured of election in Priority 1 & 2 campaigns. After
all, if there is a comfortable majority assured, there's no sense in
wasting money.

The Priority 3 & 4 candidates, BTW, never know this happens. Things
just sort of hit a wall of marshmallow. Phone calls don't get returned;
promised checks never arrive, appearances get cancelled because of
"pressing business,; it just sort of fizzles out.

6. Incumbents don't help challengers of their own party.

Why make trouble with someone with whom you'll have to work
when the election is over by supporting his/her opponent? Too much
downside -- don't do it. Donate money -- you're expected to do that, but
be really careful about anything else.

(Unless, of course, the polls predict an upset. That rarely happens.)

7. If you work the campaign, don't expect a job afterwards.

Campaigning is one thing. Running an office for an elected official
is another. They are not the same skills. You might get a "gopher" job
for a while, but a highly partisan campaign worker isn't a very good public
contact person with an electorate 40%%+ of whom probably voted the other
say. You might get a job, but the tendency is to last for less than a
year.

(I never took a job -- never asked for one. Wouldn't have taken
one if it was offered.)

And, BTW, "candidates" change when they win elections. Strong
stands on issues become less strong over time. The candidate moves toward
the center on fundamentally everything. That's not surprising -- you'd
expect them to do that.

There's a great deal more to tell, and lots of anecdotes on how
things in campaigns really work, but, by and large, those are some broad
outlines of the "political" process as currently practiced.

Oh yes, one more thing: Don't be offended at _any_ political
advertisement you see/hear this fall. Simply because you are a subscriber
to this group, I can say this for certain: They weren't meant for you, but
for somebody else.

The American public gets exactly the kind of campaign it wants.

How do we know that? Because, in the polling and the focus
groups, it _asks_ for it. And when the voters ask, campaigns deliver.