Organization
The campaign organization communicates the candidate's message to
the voters, highlighting his or her strengths and downplaying his or
her weaknesses.
American presidential campaigns represent the state of the art of modern electoral campaigning. They are able to attract the best people and put the most recent techniques into play. Modern political campaigns have many areas of responsibility including political, field, communications, new media, research, outreach/coalitions, data/voter file, scheduling and advance, operations, get out the vote, legal, and finance. Ultimately the success of a campaign depends on the qualities of the candidate, but a candidate's campaign team can make a difference.
From the campaign manager or state director and top staff in
headquarters to the field organizer toiling away in a ramshackle office
in a small town, to the unheralded intern or the volunteer making calls
at a phone bank, a campaign depends on people willing to work long
hours for modest or even no pay. Because of the demanding nature
of the job, many campaign staffers are in their 20's and 30's, but
there are also the "gray hairs" who can call on their experience
working on a succession of presidential campaigns. Any candidate
has a trusted inner circle of advisors, some of whom may not even be
part of the campaign staff. Senior advisors make greater or
lesser contributions to the campaign. The candidate's spouse
sometimes is quite involved in the campaign. Campaigns seek
endorsements from current and former elected officials, and these
individuals, depending on their inclination, can also play an active
role in the campaign.
Campaigns also have a stable of consultants and vendors to help with
specialized tasks such as polling, fundraising and paid media.
From an historical perspective, campaigns have become increasing
professionalized in recent decades, and they are using increasingly
sophisticated means to communicate with voters, ranging from
micro-targeting to social media.
In 2019-20 Democratic campaigns placed a major emphasis on attracting small donations, and many of them highlighted the fact that they were not accepting money from PACs or federal lobbyists. Some of the campaigns built large teams, while others, with more limited resources, had tiny staffs and had be "nimble." A large campaign team can "cover all the bases," but a campaign that is able to stay in the game despite limited resources merits attention. Staff diversity is a major concern for the 2020 Democratic campaigns.> In the MeToo era, campaigns are taking measures to address sexual harrassment. In May the Sanders campaign released "A Blueprint for Safety, Inclusion & Equity in Political Campaign Work (+)." As part of their efforts to ensure a positive workplace environment and working conditions, a number of campaigns have unionized (Castro, Sanders, Swalwell, Warren, Booker, Buttigieg, Biden, Klobuchar, Steyer).
Pre-Campaign to Post-Campaign
Even before the campaign starts, a potential candidate
usually has a political organization, be it a leadership PAC, a Section
527 organization, a 501(c)(4) or a re-election campaign. In the
pre-campaign period, that is the period prior to the midterm elections,
the glimmerings of campaign organizations start to take shape. As
a next step a potential candidate may opt to form an exploratory
committee or he or she may directly form a campaign committee.
The first staffers get to work setting up
headquarters, sometimes in a temporary space. The location of the
national headquarters can make a difference. Recent campaigns
suggest there may be an advantage to being situated outside the
Beltway; Donald Trump (New York), Barack Obama (Chicago), George W.
Bush (Austin) and Bill Clinton (Little Rock) all located outside
Washington, DC. In 1999, when Vice President Al Gore's campaign
appeared to be floundering he shut down his DC headquarters and moved
all those willing to go to Nashville.
Fundraising is a key part of the early months, and the campaign
strives to bring in the resources that will enable it to compete.
While money is important to building a campaign organization, it cannot
in itself guarantee success.
In 2015 the Clinton campaign launched with a very sizable
organization in place and the backing of much of the establishment,
discouraging most other potential candidates from entering.
Nonetheless, the Sanders campaign was able to make a race of it by
attracting many small donations. The Warren campaign stood out
for its early
investment in a large organization in Iowa, comprising about 50 staff
by the end of April 2019. Almost all the campaigns put
significantly more resources early on in Iowa than in any other
state.
As the campaign progresses, the organization grows, opening
field offices in early states and perhaps a few offices in other
states. Growing campaigns
develop sizable organizations in the early states, adding waves of
field organizers.
If a campaign lags, the candidate may eventually decide to make some changes and bring on new people to try to revive the effort. Shakeups in a campaign are usually not a good sign, but can be overcome. In statewide and congressional campaigns one will sometimes see a change in leadership after the primary. On presidential campaigns, Donald Trump won despite his campaign disorganization in 2016, John McCain survived the near implosion of his campaign in 2007, and Newt Gingrich managed the same feat in 2011. Among the 2020 candidates, Kamala Harris' campaign drew the most media attention for having a problematic management structure; she implemented significant cutbacks in early Nov. 2019 and refocused on Iowa to no avail.
In the weeks before voting in a particular state primary or caucus,
the campaign implements a get-out-the-vote plan, and volunteers
come in from around the country to help. If a candidate achieves
success in one of the early states, the result can be an influx of
people, money, and interest that challenges the ability of the campaign
to make effective use of it. More staff are brought on.
Surviving or growing campaigns redeploy staff to
later states, and may absorb staff from failed
campaigns.
The challenge presented by Super Tuesday, where 14 states
held contests on one day, was immense. Campaigns focused
resources
on states where they believed they could do
well, and devoted few resources to states seen as out of
reach. In some states a campaign may be active for just a few
weeks or not at
all. Looking at a particular presidential
campaign across the fifty states plus DC and territories, the quality
of the organization can be quite uneven.
2020 presented a unique case in the campaign of former NYC Michael
Bloomberg. Bloomberg skipped the four early states and
poured virtually unlimited resources into Super Tuesday and later
states. He paid top dollar to bring on top talent and built
sizable state organizations, but it did not work.
Once the nomination is secured or in view, the campaign will bring
on additional talent as it builds out a national organization.
The campaign will also place its own people in key positions at the
national party committees (DNC and RNC) as well as naming people to
work with the convention committees. Some staff will be assigned
for the vice presidential nominee, and he or she will also bring some
of his or her own people.
In the Fall, out in the states, three entities help bring a
presidential candidate's message to the voters: (a) the candidate's
campaign organization; (b) the unified effort designed to elect party
members at every level from the court house to the White House (known
as the coordinated campaign for Democrats and the Victory campaign for
Republicans); and (c) the state party. In the case of an
incumbent president, the White House is also closely involved.
Additionally, there are independent but allied groups that reinforce
the campaign's messages. Electoral math and the quest for 270
electoral votes dictate that a presidential campaign should focus its
resources on certain states, while other states may be largely
bypassed.
Once the election is over, the process of packing up and winding down the campaign, built up over so many long months, takes place, bringing with it a sense of nostalgia. Many members of the winning campaign team find places in the inaugural committee or on the transition, while hoping for jobs in the administration. For members of the losing campaign it is also time to dust off the resumes and try to figure out what to do next.
Campaign Management
A campaign manager needs to be able to make tough
decisions, often working with limited resources in a tight time
frame. Usually the manager does not make the big strategic
decisions; although he or she weighs in on them, his or her task is to
implement the strategy. That requires creating an environment
where the staff are working towards the goal of electing the candidate,
not battling and sniping amongst themselves. To be effective, a
campaign must be organized so as to present a consistent message.
It would not work for one campaign staffer to say one thing and another
to say something contradictory. Thus there is a process to ensure
that communications are approved. As an example, reporters out on
the campaign trail may find that campaign staff will not answer basic
questions, instead referring them to proper channels. At the same
time, the campaign must be flexible enough to respond to changing
circumstances and to present a message that is not so scripted it is
devoid of life and interest. A consistent message is important,
but if the message is not working, the campaign must be willing to
change it. Sometimes just a little tweak or refinement will do
the job, and other times a major overhaul is required. Data and
analytics have come to assume an increasingly important role in modern
campaigns because they allow a campaign to test and refine its messages.
How a candidate runs his or her campaign can offer clues as to how he or she would govern. Although Mitt Romney strove to build a "nimble" campaign in 2011, by Fall 2012 tweets, Facebook posts, blog posts and such famously had to be approved by 22 people.2 Certainly the disorganization and ad hoc nature of the 2016 Trump campaign have continued into his presidency.
Notes
1. Joshua Jamerson. "Women Have Most of Top Roles in Campaigns
for Leading 2020 Democrats." Wall Street Journal, May
24, 2019.
2. In a Jan. 2011 article
Time's Michael Scherer quoted Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom:
"Last time, Mitt's campaign was like IBM. This time, if he runs, he
wants to be like JetBlue... Which is to say, more nimble and more
efficient and ready to respond." (Michael
Scherer. "Mitt Hits the Road Again." Time. Jan. 20, 2011).
Daniel Kreiss. "Seizing the moment: The presidential campaigns'
use of Twitter during the 2012 electoral cycle." in New
Media
&
Society. Sage Publications. Dec. 5, 2014
- Useful Links
- American Association of Political Consultants