How many people here have actually worked on a political campaign?

[TheWraith]

Poll question: How many people here have actually worked on a political campaign?

I'm curious, because of a discussion I'm having with a friend. I've noticed that even among lefties who are knowledgeable on policy, there's often a lack of understanding of the hands-on reality of campaigns.

To clarify here, we're NOT talking about having any kind of role on a campaign, like phone-banking or knocking on doors. I expect almost all of us have done that. I mean having a serious core role where you had some kind of decision-making responsibility, and/or a voice in campaign strategy. A "big picture" deal. And no, I don't mean "worked" as in having been paid, necessarily, although that counts too.

[Rhiannon12866]

1. Nope, I've only knocked on doors and made GOTV calls for my congressman.

I worked for the guys who made the decisions and they told me what was needed to do. Does it count that the congressman and his family often hung around at campaign headquarters? LOL. :D

[patrice]

2. This is insulting. You should consider changing your Subject line. I'm pretty sure that LOTS of

people who didn't have "high level" jobs and PAYCHECKS (that influence one's understanding of whatever it is that you want to claim that such persons understand better than those with non-"high level" jobs) feel pretty justifiably so that they "actually worked on a political campaign" and hence have some understanding of the tasks and processes, understandings that, though not perfect, were valid in their own right for not having been biased by putting a paycheck first in their priorities.

[TheWraith]

4. Volunteering is not the same as having a serious role.

Sorry, but that's the case. And yes, someone who actually sees the decisions made and helps make them DOES understand better than someone who's just leafletting a neighborhood.

[geckosfeet]

16. 'Just' leafletting..... nice.

[patrice]

24. You're assuming that people don't participate in and make those TYPES of decisions in other venues

practically all of the time.

It's not exactly as though critical analyses, communication, organization, decision making, and planning in collective environments are rational processes exclusive to political manipulation.

Yes, there are qualities of the specific environments to which you refer that make them unique (as there are in all things), but it's not exactly as though the cognitive means to assess, communicate, process, test, and use those qualities collectively are also specific and unique to that context, nor that those doing so cannot continuously recycle results in order to explore and possibly discover the relevance and significance of those and other qualities.

[Rex]

40. Well then the OP obviously has never worked on a campaign before.

Since they don't seem to know any of that.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. indeed - click here to be insulted would be more honest.

[Rex]

41. Arrogant people never see it that way.

[reggie the dog]

3. i was on an electoral list for mayor of the extreme left

until they kicked me off to put a working class bloke on the ticket, they kicked off the only immigrant to put the only worker on the extreme left ticket so i didnt even vote for the bastards, i voted mainstream left socialist. they could have kicked off one of the many white bourgeois memebers of the list to put a worker but they kicked out the immigrant who was pro bicycle infrastructre, pro closing streets in the centre of town to cars, and for telling the cops to not bother to enforce cannabis laws, all mainstream green party ideas and our list was supposed to be communist, unionist, and green..... left a really sour taste with me for a long time.

[Liberty Belle]

5. Poll won't allow multiple votes, but I've worked multiple campaigns.

I was media director for both a state Senate and a Congressional campaign, acting campaign manager on a Congressional campaign, and a volunteer on several other campaigns at local and federal levels. Also done work as a political consultant and as a political reporter at various times in my life. I guess that qualifies me as experienced!

[LooseWilly]

9. Political Reporter?... That's not "part of" a campaign... just another Low Info voter...

Otherwise, I think I might need to change my vote... though the tone of the OP was definitely one denigrating any non-insiders. The reporters, by that metric, are non-insiders, until they become advisors, like Axelrod...

(Of course, media director is definitely an insider role... so your reporter experience probably won't be held against you...)

[Major Hogwash]

6. I've never had a so-called "high level" role in any of the campaigns I worked on.

But, I've been to many of the candidate's homes and shook many other candidate's hands, and worked for a lot of candidates who remembered me later, some even remembered me by name later.

I don't think you're going to find many mucky-mucks posting at the DU.

[Jim Warren]

7. Yes

Did you vote?

[BlueMTexpat]

8. I didn't respond to your poll because I believe that it has no place

for my answer. It lumps together those who have never ever worked on a campaign in any capacity with those troops who have been boots on the ground and who, in my own experience, are very necessary in face-to-face outreach.

While being a "grunt" may not be what you intend for your "high-level" campaign answers, you should at least have had a category for that. Otherwise, the poll is insulting to some who may actually have done the most physical labor of all, whatever their understanding of the "high-level" choices.

[Tesha]

15. Can't you just feel a whole bunch of "argument from authority" posts getting written? (NT)

[patrice]

28. ++++ a MILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for calling out the fatal error of assuming "small" things

are insignificant, have no real effect without "high level" things, don't matter, are useless without authority.

[AnOhioan]

10. You forgot "high-level role in a campaign for President"

[MannyGoldstein]

12. +1 nt

[deutsey]

13. I had a local leadership role in the Dean campaign n/t

[patrice]

27. The Democratic Party should respect Howard Dean waaaay more than they do.

[deutsey]

37. Agreed n/t

[aquart]

11. Strictly a volunteer foot soldier.

[Divernan]

14. OP either has no ability to design polls or deliberately designed this one to minimize responses.

As others have pointed out, your poll does not allow for multiple responses. I've worked "on the inside" if one could put it that way, on multiple campaigns - local & state govt. offices, as well as U.S. Congress - not least as an employee of a state Democratic caucus funding and coordinating multiple campaigns.

Your casual use of the descriptive term "lefties" says volumes about your personal perspective - but nothing surprising based on your typical posts on DU.

Do pray enlighten us all on YOUR understanding of the difference in perspective between the low level phone bankers/door knockers you appear to banish to the "Here Be Dragons" part of the political map, and the "insider" perspective of REAL campaign workers.

As to the "lowly" door knockers/phone bankers - most of the ones I've met have had high levels of formal education, were highly intelligent & informed re political and government matters, and were not corrupted by the "Oh my god - if the candidate who's paying my salary loses, I'll be out of a job, so I'll rationalize ANYTHING to win. Screw ethics, morality and the long term good of the country."

And I can just picture some of these political hacks sitting around a table strategizing to denigrate and challenge political posters on DU by implying that unless they've been on some politician's payroll, they don't really "get" politics.

[AsahinaKimi]

17. I worked on Gov. Dean's campaign.

I still Love Howard Dean, though never met him. Later worked to help get Obama elected.

[patrice]

26. I was a part of Dean for America here. We met him at the Uptown in KC, Mo in early '04

I have that picture on FB. A bunch of us went to Iowa for him.

I have been a supporter of Democracy for America ever since.

[LWolf]

19. You're poll doesn't match your thread title.

You didn't ask, "How many people here have actually worked at a high level on a political campaign, and the choices seem to denigrate the many hours people have spent in local offices, hitting the streets, on phone banks, writing letters, and the other things that all those tens of thousands of people referred to in your poll do.

You simply drop them out of the equation with your clarification.

It seems that you are suggesting that those at the top, who are "responsible" for all those people are working on the campaign, but those who are doing all that actual work are NOT working on the campaign.

Perhaps it would have been simpler, and less offensive, to simply ask, "How many people have had some kind of decision-making responsibility, or a voice in campaign strategy, on a political campaign?"

There are some here on DU who have; I could list a few but I'm sure they can speak for themselves.

[mmonk]

20. I have usually worked for the party from the precinct to the state level.

Campaign wise, several candidates at the district level.

[City Lights]

21. Not me. I'm just your average low-level volunteer. eom

[Brickbat]

22. I have, in two campaigns for state house. For one, I was one of a small core group of people who

served as strategists, schedulers, and PR people. For another, I was the only one who did that, plus served as writer/designer, and as the candidate's wife.

[woo me with science]

23. I agree. And how many people here have been President?

Until you've actually been President, you should really just be quiet.

[IndyPragmatist]

25. I worked for a Florida gubernatorial campaign when I was in college

My college roommate's father was running for Lieutenant Governor, so I was able to participate in a lot of high level discussions and events. It was a great experience. Although, it did open my eyes to how screwed up party leadership can be in America. Some folks from the national Democratic Party office were talking about big plans for my friend's father. They wanted him to run for US Senate in the next election, then they wanted to try and run him for President. When they lost the gubernatorial election, those people cut off all contact. He was an asset to them, but when things didn't work out as they hoped, they didn't need him anymore.

[HopeHoops]

29. Knocked on doors for Anderson in 1980

[JNelson6563]

30. Can choose only one?

I've been up and down the political spectrum. Managed some campaigns, was a Congressional District chair, did tons of work at the county level. You name it and I've about done it.

Interestingly enough it was DU that inspired me to jump in. The more involved I got the more I realized much of DU had no idea how it all worked in RL.

Julie

[TBF]

31. Unrec - I don't have to have experience being president to understand when someone

is incompetent. Fuck this poll and that attitude.

[woo me with science]

35. I really think

unless you are God, or maybe David Plouffe, you can't have an informed opinion.

:rofl:

[TBF]

36. Are you telling me God and David Plouffe aren't the same person? Blasphemy! nt

[woo me with science]

39. ...

:spray:

[undeterred]

32. Why does it have to be a "high level" role?

That narrows it down to very few people.

[Rex]

45. Because the OP doesn't know anything about actual campaigning?

Just more then a guess.

[lumberjack_jeff]

33. Does your own campaign count? n/t

[InvisibleTouch]

34. I've done some grunt work, nothing high-level.

I think I take your meaning. It's easy for those of us sitting on the sidelines to come up with "obvious" solutions and rant about how easy some fixes should be - without an understanding of the constraints involved. Likewise it's easy to criticize the President and say he "should" be doing this or that, without knowing what kind of pitfalls and barriers he may have to maneuver around.

[SomethingFishy]

38. Oh yeah you "high-level" campaign workers are

the people who truly know everything....

The rest of us are just idiots who knock on doors.


Nice. Really. Was there a point to your bragging? I can brag too. I have sat in on more classified government meetings than you... So there! Now if you'll excuse me, I have many other 3rd graders to talk to on the internet.

[Rex]

42. Pretty pathetic post

ain't it? The arrogance of some is amazing to behold.

[w8liftinglady]

43. I worked on several

David Harris-from the ground up- my kid was in Iraq at the time.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/09/04/242642/-Swiftboating-Iraq-War-Veteran-David-Harris-(TX-6)
http://www.dailykos.com/user/David%20T%20Harris%20for%20US%20Congress%20TX%2006

Bill White-after my brain surgery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_White_(politician)

[WilliamPitt]

44. Several.