Translation of excerpts from Robert Heinlein’s book, Take Your Government Back - part 21

Conditionally effective campaign management techniques

And now I will talk about how to choose those events in which it is really worth participating.

During your campaign, hundreds of public and private events take place in your district, most of which are not politically motivated. All of them are a possible source of new voices, however, if your candidate tries to visit them all, it will end in mental and physical exhaustion for him. Business breakfasts with big businessmen are worth a visit: they can be entered in the schedule of the candidate's day, as needed to maintain the strength of the meal. The candidate may have dinner at a meeting of the local Chamber of Commerce, a charity club, or a Rotary club, especially if the charter of the company he attends allows him to be presented as a candidate for the election, or even allows him to speak with a seven or eight minute speech social life. So he can get into his piggy bank a couple of guaranteed votes, and acquaint voters with undecided voters with his person.

Housewife societies are usually not worth visiting during the election race. Although, if the candidate is given the opportunity to speak there on a political topic, and this does not prevent more effective types of campaign, then you can spend time on it. However, most likely, bypassing the voters at home, in less time, the candidate will be able to meet with a greater number of housewives, and the percentage of the target audience - the voters of his party among them will be higher.
Frankly political in nature are some societies of veterans of recent wars, actively seeking to change the country for the better. At the moment, veterans of the recently ended World War II have not yet fully decided on their political views, however, they should be considered as potential voters. I think that in the coming decade, many young veterans will come to volunteer policy.
At the same time, there are a lot of completely apolitical public organizations - some societies of war veterans, trade unions, unions protecting taxpayers' rights, retirement mutual aid societies, and others. Avoid spending time on speaking in them, if you are not sure that your election program has paid attention to the protection of their interests.

I neither approve nor condemn all these societies, but a reasonable candidate will not be able to protect the interests of all these groups in his election program, if only because there are many obvious contradictions between them. So, even if they invited you to speak, it is not worth wasting the candidate’s time, and at the same time risking averting his dislike to the audience. Such societies can rarely provide tangible political support in elections. Instead, their members will ask your candidate questions, such as “A crushed man, and what about the post, do you specifically for us?” A politician must take concrete obligations, and not be a weather vane, ready to serve “both ours and yours” , limiting in their election program general terms. It’s not at all necessary for your candidate to travel through the entire city to any pensioners' organization in order to refuse to undertake an obligation to do something “specifically for them”.

Some public organizations invite each of the candidates to themselves in order to arrange a formal interrogation for them, conduct a full investigation of their biography, and prepare for their members a list of candidates recommended for voting. In my opinion, this is a reasonable approach, and such organizations deserve a visit, even if you are not sure that your candidate will be on their list. This is not the case when you are being pushed out onto the stage, under the eyes of a crowd of unfamiliar members of a club or society. The atmosphere at such “interrogations” rather resembles a business and polite court session, your candidate will be allowed to speak with all the dignity of a free person, and will give the opportunity to directly and honestly express his opinion on all the questions asked, even if the audience does not support his political views.

I hope you do not maintain contact with such radical groups as the Nazis, the Communists, and the Ku Klux Klan, but all other more moderate movements probably deserve your attention. In many cities there are non-political discussion clubs, or study groups, educating the public on various issues of public life. You will not collect many voices in them, however, they are a great place to look for volunteers among the audience there, who are really disposed to benefit society, and these societies themselves deserve full support.

But on the other hand, many purely political events are not worth the visit, even if they are held in your constituency. So, let your candidate visit them only when he has time and energy for this. If they are not there, then go there yourself, or send a representative to give a short speech, apologizing for the fact that the candidate cannot be in two places at once (it’s not necessary to say that he is now at home in beds). Nevertheless, it is advisable for your candidate to appear on as many political events as possible, but again, as far as his employment permits to conduct the campaign with more effective methods described above. He may appear at the event for only ten minutes, and then go to the next event, or go home - go to bed early.

I will tell you later on how to use advertising posters, distribute campaign leaflets, brochures and newspapers when I talk about advertising. However, such methods of campaigning are rarely effective, rather, it is one of the many ways to waste money (which is for some reason more than ways to collect votes).

Campaign Committee

In fact, it will be as many as two committees - external, public - for representational purposes, and internal, executive, which will actually work. The first of these committees will include the second. The public committee should be as large as possible, and everyone who you can convince to sign under the words “I have the honor to support the candidature of Jonathan Chestnyagi in congressional elections” should be in it.

Just do not write further "and allow my use in the advertisement of the candidate," otherwise people will not subscribe to this. But you can still use the names of the signatories in your advertisements, because the above wording contains actual consent.

The signatories will not object, and the wording with the “appendage” will refuse to sign only because it looks like a commercial contract. You can write in another way - “I have the honor to participate in the election committee of such and such a candidate,” and explain that this wording does not impose any obligations on the signatory to it.

It may also happen that a person, from among those who pour into the mill and ours and yours, signs up for the support of both rival candidates, after which, in confusion, will call you asking to destroy, for example, the entire circulation of your campaign, where name. He may even threaten you with a lawsuit. If you have his signature on the list of the public committee, then you have the right to refuse to do this, and without paying attention to the threats, say to him: “Sorry, but I cannot destroy the entire print run, unless you publish a new one — at your own expense ". Or you can tell him that you cross out his name on the list in red ink and assign a “turncoat” near her. Does this option suit him? Do not meet him and do not give him the paper signed by him.

The resulting lists of signatories for the support of your candidate will become your “election committee”. Spread them throughout your party organization, among all its employees. You can use the names from the list of signatories in political advertising, each item in this list will bring you a couple of votes. If you know that someone who has signed too few friends and too many enemies, you may not mention some names in your ad, and no one will tell you anything, because you have not pledged to use all the names. If someone who approved your candidate wonders why he wasn’t mentioned in the list of members of the election committee, resort to diplomatic lies: “How is it that you weren’t mentioned ?! It must be that the list of the committee submitted to them was not fully printed. I am afraid, now you will not fix anything, we have already paid a lot for printing lists. But I will definitely tell Mr. Chestnyage that your name should be on the list of committee members. ”

In general, a little lie, if of course, it will allow you your conscience. My conscience may well experience the need to deceive someone a little, so as not to hurt someone else’s feelings.

The public electoral committee should be headed by persons whose duties on the committee are more likely nominal, unless they work simultaneously on the executive committee. These, in fact, honorary chairmen of the committee, must be chosen on the basis of the maximum representativeness of various groups and organizations, as well as on the basis of their maximum prestige. Here is an example of an ideal list of a public election committee in a typical US constituency:

The list of members of the election committee of Mr. Jonathan Chestnyagi, the candidate for the thirtieth district

Mrs. Busy (you yourself), in fact, will be the only working member of the committee, all the rest will be just loyal extras. The names included in the committee were specially chosen by you so that it was clear that the committee includes one Protestant, one Catholic, and one Judaist. For the greatest effect, each of these members should be known and respected by all groups in your county. If Dr. McDonalds is a well-known Presbyterian, Freemason, and a successful physician who is actively involved in charity, Mr. O'Toole is a successful lawyer, an active participant in the Catholic Society of Knights of Columbus, and Mr. Weinstein is the leader of the scouts, and famous among the Jewish diaspora, then you your committee filled in full.

To strengthen the composition of a public committee, you can come up with various prestigious posts for its members, such as the chairperson of the women's subcommittee, the vice chairperson, the head of the press service, the head of the subcommittee for interorganizational cooperation, the chairpersons of various political groups in your district, the director for research, the chairperson of educational subcommittee, and so on - ad infinitum.

Be sure to sort your list in alphabetical order - so as not to offend anyone with considerations of primacy in the list. And, of course, having a person on this list does not mean that a person cannot take an active part in the work on the campaign. Sometimes it is possible to include in the work a capable but busy person, first having obtained from her consent to be included in the list of the public committee, and then by inviting them to meetings of the executive committee.

Your executive committee should consist of the following people, no matter how their positions will be called:

• the candidate you are nominating
• campaign manager
• campaign fundraiser
• advertising and press and public relations officer
• office secretary
• Responsible for work at polling stations
• agitators

Some of this list may sit at once in both committees, but their presence in the composition of the executive committee means that they are not just listed in it, but in fact do election work. The office secretary and the spokesperson can be hired, and they have to do their job professionally, regardless of whether they are employees or volunteers. All other posts may be held by volunteers.

As for the candidate's relatives, the best post for them on this committee is the Chairman of South America and the Eastern Hemisphere. I mean that they should not be included in it. You can still accept the fact that a family member of the candidate will be his confidant, but no more. Relatives of the candidate are even more susceptible to candidacy than the candidate himself, and if you nominate any of them to the executive committee, they will cause you a lot of trouble, forcing you to distract from the work on the election campaign, and to fill in the holes created by their clumsy intervention in your impeccably built campaign.

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