2009 Elections: If I Were Running for Jacksonville City Council
Filing for 2009’s municipal elections are over and the slate of candidates for November’s ballot is complete. It’s time to stop guessing who will pony up to run and prognosticate about the campaigning.
Since there’s not much campaigning to analyze so far, I figure that it’d be useful to lay a baseline…Which is how I would campaign for Jacksonville City Council, were I a candidate.
Follow the jump for the details on how I’d reach out to the residents of Jacksonville.
The key to a successful campaign in Jacksonville is voter outreach. There’s a ton of ways to get your message to the voters today. Not only do you have snail mail and newspaper advertisements, but there’s email, Twitter, Facebook, web pages and internet advertising (which is significantly cheaper and can be more effective (depending on your target audience) than print advertising). If I were a candidate, the first thing I’d do is set up a web-presence. Twitter and Facebook are free, so I’d start there, but you could purchase a website domain and hosting for not a whole lot of money and set up a proper website. I’d sketch a budget for print advertising, but hold my fire until October (any print ads read before 30-days prior to an election are forgotten by voting day).
Those aren’t necessarily the most effective ways to get name recognition in Jacksonville…Especially considering that the primary source of voters in municipal-only elections are the elderly and politically-fanatic. The key to winning an election in Jacksonville is individual communication. Once you’ve developed your platform and message, you’ve got to be the one out there. The candidate has to knock on the doors and dial the telephone numbers. It’s the only way to win in this city. I’d spend $25 at the Onslow County Board of Elections and purchase a CD of all the voter data they have. That would give you names, mailing addresses and telephone numbers for the nearly 85,000 voters in Onslow County. Why the whole county? Running a political campaign isn’t cheap. You can make calls-for-cash to County voters and, if you’re good, you’ll be able to convince them that Jacksonville controls quite a bit of revenue for the county. That may net you a few hundred dollars, not to mention volunteers for your campaign.
I’d spend no-less-than three hours a day on the telephone calling voters. Provided that you have your message in a five-minute speech, and that you can keep someone on the phone that long, that’s approximately 3,000 contacts between now and November.
Telephone calls alone will not guarantee a win, or even much name recognition. Getting on the streets and knocking on doors and talking to residents will. Every weekend between now and November I’d be walking through Jacksonville and knocking on doors. Pre-plan the neighborhoods. Get smart on the issues that are important to those residents. Find an issue where you agree and push the message. In conversation with voters, find out what they want for Jacksonville and their neighborhoods. Find out what they’re looking for in a City Council-member.
In addition to that, as a candidate, you’d want to tap the most knowledgeable, active and experienced citizens for information. The obvious place to find those citizens is Jacksonville’s citizen advisory commissions. If I were running for City Council, I’d visit every commission at least once and my preferred appointments (Council-members are assigned commissions as liaisons) several times. I’d take those citizens to the side, before or after meetings, and ask them for their concerns, ideas and opinions.
And that’s how to win an election to Jacksonville City Council: Meet the people. Talk to the people. Learn about the City and the people and their needs.
It’s not pretty and it’s not fancy and it doesn’t take a lot of money for signs, t-shirts or bumper stickers. It takes time and sweat and effort. But, my guess is…It’d be worth it.
July 27th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Great thoughts, thanks for posting them.
Given your discussion of the process, it begs the question: “why didn’t you run?” Especially since your suggestion is the labor-intensive approach and yet you still believe that ‘it’d be worth it.’
It’s a bit ironic, because part of why I am running is demonstrate the kind of campaign I’d like to see. I don’t intend to run a perfect campaign. I only intend to highlight what I felt were two deficiencies in past elections: 1) online material and 2) greater discussion of issues.
July 28th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Mr. Bryan,
I’m glad you think my ideas are worthwhile. I’m hopeful to see some candidates do a little more reaching out instead of just getting by with yard signs and print ads.
I confess to being on the fence about running for City Council this year, up until the filing deadline, even. At the end, though, I decided that Jacksonville isn’t ready to vote for someone like me. I’ve already got a reputation as a young, liberal and progressive guy and I don’t own property (which is a bigger thing than you’d think).
Jacksonville isn’t ready to vote for that kind of guy. Maybe in four years, I’ll have a better chance.