SEVEN

Mobilize to Win

Whoever owns the ground wins the election.

HOUSE DEMOCRATIC LEADER NANCY PELOSI

Public service takes people. A passionate, engaged volunteer workforce can make your offices or campaign headquarters hum with excitement. That energy attracts people who want to join others who share their values, to promote a particular candidate or cause, or to gain recognition and respect in the community.

Whether you are running for president of the PTA or the United States, the team with the best volunteer operation will bring out the most voters on Election Day.

RECRUIT YOUR VOLUNTEER CORPS

Understand why people volunteer. People volunteer on campaigns for a number of reasons: to be part of a network of people who share their values, to promote a particular candidate or cause, or to gain recognition and respect in the community. Nearly all share the goal of making the future better.

Chris Finnie, a longtime Democracy for America (DFA) volunteer, expressed it this way: “After a Meetup, a woman stopped and asked me why I spent all the time and money I do on political activism. I told her I have a grown son. She said she did too. So I asked her if, when she had children, she didn’t feel that she had given them a gift—a gift of life. She said yes. I then asked her if this was what she had in mind. She said no. I said me either, and that’s why I do what I do—so I can leave my son the sort of world I promised him.”¹

That was in 2007; now, four years later, we hear this same sentiment expressed by many people at the Occupy protests: the American Dream is slipping out of reach and only transformative change can get it back. Deep concern about the direction of the country can turn “slactivists” who merely sign e-mail petitions into activists marching in the streets. Volunteer coordinators must address those concerns and give people meaningful work.

Once your campaign has engaged volunteers, the most effective messengers are often the first-name friends and allies you knew before you got to politics. Congressmen Mike Honda and Tim Walz both found this to be true when they attracted former students and parents to their campaigns.

Mike Honda, a former teacher and principal from San Jose, California, was running for Congress in 2000 when his opponent’s supporters put out a piece called “Honda’s Criminal Record.” In fact, Honda’s only brush with the law was as an infant, when he and his Japanese American parents were placed in a World War II internment camp. Honda engaged former students and their parents to counter the attack via phone banks. One woman who was contacted said she’d heard about Honda’s criminal record but was so glad that he had turned his life around that she’d vote for him.

Tim Walz, a former high school teacher and longtime Minnesota National Guardsman, earned the support of students he had taught and coached as well as of those with whom he had served in the reserves. When his opponent accused him of not understanding the military, Walz taped an ad on the football field pointing out that (in 2006) 3,000 troops had been killed in Iraq—about the number it took to fill the bleachers—some of whom he had seen dressed for football and dressed for war. Walz’s powerful personal message was amplified by his former students, who validated his views on education and the war, and reinforced his good character.

Draw from people who have worked with you. To activate your networks, start as Honda and Walz did, by contacting and involving your friends and colleagues or those of your candidate. Look for a leader who can keep track of other volunteers and start scheduling regular volunteer activities. Build on your existing base. Ask your volunteers to host house meetings to bring their own friends into contact with the campaign. Invite whoever attends the first meeting to bring five friends to the next meeting. Then request the same at the next meeting. Soon, you will have a core group of hundreds of supporters.

Draw from organizations. Approach existing organizations that support your cause or candidate. Ask them to send people over to help with a specific project—knocking on doors or putting together a mailing. These people can help find other members of their organization who will get involved in your campaign.

If you are working with a political campaign, ask everyone on your team to carry volunteer sign-up cards at all times. Team members should ask everyone who expresses interest in volunteering to fill out a card and then call to involve them.

Reach out to young people. Empower and involve them at all levels of your public service effort. Arab American Institute founder James Zogby says: “It’s like Field of Dreams—‘If you build it, they will come.’” Zogby has issued calls for service in activities including voter registration, volunteering at events, participation in community cleanup days, and internships in Washington, D.C. “Young people want to serve. All you need to do is ask them and provide them with the opportunity.”²

RETAINING YOUR VOLUNTEERS

When volunteers enter a vibrant campaign headquarters, your volunteer corps coordinator should greet them, give them a little tour to explain the activity, and then sit to talk about their call to service and reason for volunteering. The volunteer coordinator should match volunteers’ skills and networks to the needs of the campaign and should train these new ambassadors with campaign protocols. Make sure volunteers clearly understand the tasks they perform, the issues they discuss, and how their efforts fit into the big picture and campaign plan.

If you are working with new volunteers, take ten or fifteen minutes to talk with them to make sure they are confident in what they are doing. See which of the 3Ps they are good at—people, paper, or physical skills—and match their abilities to tasks. Pair them up with campaign staff or experienced volunteers to make a few calls or knock on a few doors together before you put them out on their own. Offer transportation if necessary. If people stay at the office late, offer to coordinate carpools for rides home. Give volunteers opportunities to meet other volunteers and campaign staff. Drop by the campaign office during the phone bank or precinct walk and thank volunteers for their time.

Give volunteers meaningful work and meaningful feedback. People who take time out of their own lives to help with the campaign expect to work when they arrive. Always make sure that you have a stack of work for volunteers to do. If someone shows up ready to knock on doors, get that person some materials and get them out into the community. Receive them when they return and find out how things went. A snack, a feedback form, and a brief chat will make them feel appreciated and give you valuable feedback. If volunteers feel that you do not need them, they will not come back, but if they believe that there is always important work to do, they will start showing up regularly.

Set and keep schedules, including regular training. Volunteer coordinators should set regular schedules for volunteers. This allows the campaign to schedule work to fulfill the service mission and tasks. Also, volunteers will come to think of the campaign as a regular part of their week. For example, the 1987 Nancy Pelosi for Congress Campaign gave volunteers a simple Campaign Calendar so that they could see how their work on the phone bank team or Ironing Board Brigade fit into the larger get-out-the-vote goals.

Feed your volunteers. An army marches on its stomach. The same is true for your volunteer army. Alec Bash and the Democracy Action network in San Francisco set up popular phone banks with coffee and bagels. The volunteer appreciation parties were sources of great food, lively conversation, and, of course, more recruitment.³

Thank your volunteers. Keep your regular volunteers updated on the campaign, and let them know their contribution is making a difference. For example, “Thanks to your efforts on the phones last week, we’ve identified three hundred new supporters. We’re right on track to reach our goals.” Thom O’Shaughnessy, who was active with Veterans for Kerry in 2004 and now serves with the Los Angeles–area SoCal Grassroots network, says, “Volunteer recognition is vital.” In 2006, the SoCal Grassroots network made campaign sun visors for people who walked three times and personalized sweatshirts for “Team Ann Richards,” the cadre of people who walked weekend after weekend throughout the fall, dedicating their service to the late Texas governor. “These are some of my most treasured campaign items that I have received over all my years of field work,” he says.⁴

Recognize volunteers officially. Thank-you letters, walls of fame, voter contact charts, and other forms of public recognition in your headquarters and on your Web site let volunteers know how much you value them. To use California Governor Jerry Brown’s word, “tangibilitize” the volunteer experience: give them official recognition, research assignments that yield writing samples for a résumé, and certificates of appreciation.

Avoid—and do not condone—behavior that could lead to embarrassment. You never want to send your candidate on television to explain that your campaign was indeed responsible for some embarrassing act. The opposition is working hard enough to cause you problems, so there is no reason to cause your own. Beware of engaging in illegal or provocative behavior. Many a campaign has been forced to apologize when people were arrested for stealing or defacing signs. Internally, campaigns should offer basic training on anti-bullying and anti-harassment laws, and should post personnel procedures. As mentioned in chapter 2, campaign fraternization or transgressions can unfortunately become everyone’s problem.

Track your volunteers. Maintain an electronic, regularly updated database of everyone who has volunteered or expressed an interest in volunteering on your campaign. Back up your database on a CD or other portable storage medium. Whenever possible, choose one person (your volunteer coordinator) to invite volunteers back to the campaign.

WALK THOSE PRECINCTS

Best practices for making house calls. A few tips for volunteers before you go knocking on doors.

First, think locally: when you go into a community, remember politics, sports, and revenge. Politics: if a popular elected official supports your candidate or cause, let voters know. Sports: some communities rally around athletic teams, and games are often played on weekends. Find out when the Big Game is, and don’t walk or call then. In the special election of 2004 in Kentucky when Ben Chandler was elected to Congress, the Kentucky Wildcats football team was playing the Georgia Bulldogs the Saturday before the election. Precinct walkers for both Chandler and his opponent took a break between noon and 3 p.m., resuming work when the game ended. Revenge: if you are working for a ballot initiative that has been voted on before or canvassing for a candidate who lost to this opponent before, remember to show growth and not a grudge by keeping your approach oriented toward the future.

Second, act locally. What you say and do matters. Be polite and respect people. Your appearance matters, so dress comfortably and neatly. “The nose ring belongs on the bull in the field, not on the volunteer on the porch,” advises national field strategist Donnie Fowler.⁵ Be aware of the practices of different faiths in communities: Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Wednesday nights are for worship, so voters could be headed to mosque, temple, church, or prayer night when you come knocking. Be ready to listen because voters may vent, especially if they are Independents, undecided, or people who are subjected to a lot of ads. You are not there to argue with people in their homes but to persuade them through your enthusiasm and responsiveness to their feedback.

Third, know whom to call when a voter needs to know where to vote, wants to vote early in person or by absentee ballot, or talks about possible fraud or abuse of voting rights.

Fourth, keep an open feedback loop so that you can report back to headquarters what is or is not working. Use a message-box worksheet to set forth any new counterarguments coming from the volunteers or voters. If an attack mailer comes out and you can bring a copy back to the headquarters, the campaign can call in the kitchen cabinet to determine the best response.

Set up a canvassing operation. Go first to the areas where you are likely to find supporters. Pick the voters who are persuadable and who vote regularly. Pick the houses that have the largest raw numbers of voters in them. Then send your volunteers out to talk to them. The success of your canvassing program will depend on two things: how early you start and how organized you are. Once the basic research on your community is completed, you should know how many votes you will need to win. For each voter your canvassing program records as a supporter, you are one step closer to this goal.

Recruit precinct captains. Precinct captains are your most trusted and experienced volunteers who take responsibility for a precinct or geographical area. Precinct captains are well versed in how a canvassing operation works, the campaign’s message, and the numerical goals in the particular precinct.

They are in charge of collecting walk sheets and reporting numbers from all the volunteers each time they walk and relaying them to the field manager. Good precinct captains will canvass and phone their precinct several times on their own and will recruit volunteers. In campaigns with limited staff, precinct captain systems provide invaluable levels of organization and ensure quality control in terms of volunteer training and accurate voter assessments.

To the extent possible, send the same volunteers to talk to the same voters. Then, on Election Day, send the volunteers to the polling places associated with the neighborhoods they have worked. The goal is make voters feel obligated to keep the promise they made to your canvasser to support your campaign.

Watch out for round numbers. Canvassers are talking to real people, so it is unusual for them to come back with exactly fifty supporters, thirty opposed, and ten undecided.

PLAN YOUR FIELD OPERATIONS

You must set a strategy to accomplish your goals that answers these questions:

How will we get the petition signatures needed to get on the ballot?

Who has custody of the most up-to-date voter file? How do we get it?

How many new voters do we need to register?

How will our canvassing program run?

How many volunteers will we need, and where will they come from?

How will we chase absentee and vote-by-mail voters?

How will our phone-banking program function?

How will our get-out-the-vote programs run?

Lay out your field plan. Design field work to fulfill three objectives: (1) identify the key demographic groups, geographic areas, or specific individuals who are most likely to support the campaign; (2) repetitively deliver the message to key groups, areas, and individuals to persuade them to support your effort; and (3) get those identified supporters out to vote on Election Day.

A successful field operation brings viability to a campaign and brings thousands of uninvolved people into the political process. A visible campaign becomes part of the message: when a campaign has grassroots support, it demonstrates that the cause has broad and deep consensus in the community or that the candidate is someone who is involved in the community and who cares about people.

Hire field organizers. Hire one field organizer at the start and use volunteers until you have the money and viability to hire more.

Open field offices. The job of a good field office is to hold literature, give volunteers a place to meet, and give workers a place to make phone calls. In the minds of many of your workers and volunteers, where you open field offices is a question of respect. Use house meeting hosts’ homes for neighborhood headquarters sites so that you cover the entire community. Remember, people who cannot donate money may be able to donate garage space to store your campaign materials. Don’t miss this opportunity.

Have field tools. You will want to have signs, literature, campaign fashion (hats, T-shirts, etc.), creative outreach (campaign song, video, map, poster, nail files, fans, etc.), and bilingual materials.

There are two times when campaign signs matter most—at the beginning and on Election Day. In the beginning, signs show strength. On Election Day, a few people may move in your direction if all their friends and neighbors appear to side with you. Focus on getting signs in homes and on lawns for that personal endorsement.

Budget your literature according to your ability to get it to voters. If you have three county chairpersons, each with twenty volunteers who are willing to work for ten hours each weekend, and there are three weekends remaining until the election, you have 1,800 hours of volunteer labor. If the average volunteer can deliver ten pieces of literature an hour to homes, then you should order 18,000 pieces of literature. Never order based on what you would like to get out—only on what you can really deliver.

PLAN YOUR VOTER CONTACT

Choose voter contact depending on your strategic objectives. If the initiative or candidate has a low level of name identification, the campaign must educate targeted voters about the candidate and the candidate’s message before voter-identification efforts begin. If the campaign has financial assets, you can use early media and mailings to targeted voters. Campaigns with less money, but a large number of volunteers, can drop literature in targeted precincts or canvas door to door to raise name identification.

Mix your voter contact techniques. Low-intensity activities are not individualized and not high impact. Low-intensity voter contact programs impart information about the candidate and can move voters but are not as persuasive as high-intensity programs, which are more individualized. High-intensity voter contact techniques often involve two-way communication. They give voters an opportunity to express their opinions about the candidate and the campaign.

Identify voters’ priorities. Organize staff or volunteers to talk to voters and ask their candidate preferences and opinions on specific issues. This high-intensity method of gathering information allows campaigns to contact voters in a persuasive manner. Say your phone bank operation polled voters on the issues and the candidates they were likely to support in the election. Many respondents will report themselves undecided on the election, but most will be willing to rate the issues. Such a program allows you to contact those undecided voters by mail with the campaign’s position on the issues they consider most important. Concentrate your high-intensity voter contact in areas of poor party performance, where you have to do the most persuasion to move voters.

Respond to feedback. Whatever your voter contact techniques are, all require response to feedback. Remember your open feedback loop: voters give information to your volunteers who give it to your campaign. There must be a venue for the candidate to hear what voters think of the candidacy and the message and to provide answers and feedback. Voters’ concerns will range from micro issues, such as a particular bill, which a follow-up phone call can answer, to macro issues, such as a character attack slung by the opposition, which warrants a much more publicly broadcast response. Either way, voters will expect you to respond to them. Use your kitchen cabinet, house meeting hosts, finance council, and election protection team to find out what questions are out there and what responses are (or are not) resonating.

CONVENE A CAMPAIGN TEAM BOOT CAMP

Public service campaigns are marathons. They take months to build before the public tunes in. A marathon is 26.2 miles, but the public is tuning in at mile 24, just when you are getting tired. Set aside some time approximately seventy-five days before Election Day to convene a campaign boot camp to lock in a winner or adjust while you can.

With your team, perform the exercises from each of the chapters to assess, update, and take an honest measure of your campaign. Hope is not a strategy: base your final planning on what you actually have accomplished and build from there. Review the seven steps of the Boot Camp to lock in or adjust your tactics and take the Get Real exercise at the end of this chapter to plan ahead.

PLAN YOUR GET-OUT-THE-VOTE STRATEGY

Encourage early voting. In many communities, voter registrars allow people to vote up to thirty days before Election Day. This means that canvassing must include an early voting strategy. If you have a good voter file, you can identify people, get their addresses into the system, and send them an e-mail at the start of early voting. Shortly before the election, crosscheck the voter file against the list of voters who have already voted. If your targeted supporters are not recorded as voting, send them another e-mail the weekend before the election.

Promote vote-by-mail/absentee balloting. Votes cast by mail have a major impact on elections in many states. Check the rules of your state and plan accordingly.

A good vote-by-mail/absentee-ballot program requires your campaign to identify your supporters, target those with a weak voting history and those who have voted by mail in the past, and walk those voters through the process of casting their ballots by mail. This process generally means mailing and calling voters several times. Before launching a vote-by-mail program, you must have a reliable method to track the voters you have targeted.

Start with the voter file you purchased to prepare your Community Inventory. Then update your file with information from your Community Inventory, networks, publicly available data, and canvassing contacts. Get an updated list from the voter registrar to include people who have registered to vote since you began this process.

If your polling or other research indicates that your initiative or candidate has strong support among the most infrequent voters, you may choose to immediately target this group for your vote-by-mail program. Otherwise, you will probably start with canvassing and phone calls to identify supporters who do not frequently vote.

The key is to conduct a sustained conversation between the campaign and your target voters. This may mean mailing to the group several times and then following up with phone calls to make sure their ballots have actually been mailed. A final phone call should remind those who have not already returned their ballots to vote in person on Election Day. As with every other part of the campaign, your goal should be to walk the voters through the entire vote-by-mail process, so they know when to request a ballot, how to fill it out, when to mail it back, or where to drop it off. And check with the Department of Elections to see that it was received.

Study the different voting patterns among the absentee voters. Divide absentee voters into two categories and track them separately: (1) people who always get absentee ballots and always vote; (2) people who always get absentee ballots but do not always vote. Obviously, the second group needs a bigger push to send in their ballots. When ballots are mailed out to absentee voters (usually four weeks before the election), canvass to encourage people to send in their ballots. Later, in the final days before the election, canvass the people who have not voted and encourage them to mail their ballots or drop them off at their polling places.

Your goal should be to start Election Day with as many votes already in the bank as possible. A well-run vote-by-mail program can get your votes in early and inoculate your campaign against last-minute attacks.

RALLY THE ALL-STARS

The final days of a campaign sum up what the election is about. If you are running for office or volunteering on a campaign, bring your people together now and persuade voters to go to the polls. To get last-minute media attention and rally the troops, bring in the all-stars.

For candidates, the all-stars bring a final boost to campaign efforts. For volunteers, this is a reward for hard work and a motivator for the last push to the polls. For voters, it is an opportunity to see the individual campaign in a larger perspective.

Democrats’ top draws aside from sitting politicians are former President Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and First Lady Michelle Obama; Republicans have been drawing former potential 2012 candidates like Mississippi’s Haley Barbour and Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan as well as various FOX News personalities.

Remember that if you bring in talent like musicians or comedians, they are viewed as political ambassadors for your campaign, so keep them on message.

THE HOME STRETCH:
DEMONSTRATE STAMINA AND LEADERSHIP

It is also the time to stay focused: at the end of a marathon, people are tired and are more likely to make mistakes or lose focus. Disciplined campaigns run like they are behind even when polls say they are ahead; they stay focused and use rapid response to counter late hits. As a candidate, campaign worker, or issue advocate, you will have to demonstrate stamina and leadership in the final pressure-filled days.

Stay focused in the final days. Candidates and volunteers often go without sleep or get nervous, and that’s when a gaffe can derail the best of campaigns. In the recovery movement, they say that people are most likely to relapse when they are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (HALT).

In that spirit, think HALT—and literally halt. If you are hungry, eat something. If you are angry, shrug off political attacks rather than taking them personally. If you are lonely (politically speaking), reach out to a broader audience and connect with people who are there to help the campaign come together. If you are tired, get some sleep. In the last few days, candidates may be asked trick questions, so be especially careful that everyone on the team—the candidate, volunteers, or issue advocates—has the presence of mind to HALT and display grace under pressure.

ELECTION DAY

To run a good Election Day operation, you need a Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) team consisting of an election protection team, field director, precinct captains, poll watchers, passers, drivers, phone callers, and office staff in place. These are their assignments.

Your GOTV Team

Election protection team. These legal observers should include attorneys specializing in election law to answer any questions coming in from the poll watchers or precinct captains. In the case of disputes, it helps to have an attorney available to send to a precinct if there is a problem. They can use cell phone and video cameras to record incidents and work with election incident clearinghouses. Donna Brazile counsels, “The election protection team’s primary responsibility is to anticipate and address uninformed poll workers, new voting systems, purges of voter registration lists, voter suppression, misinformation, and intimidation tactics. The team’s goal is to ensure the elections are being administrated in a fair and transparent manner. The more issues addressed in advance, the more access voters will have to the process.”⁶

Field director. Your campaign must make adjustments throughout the day in response to information coming in from the field. This may mean shifting volunteers to areas when large numbers of your supporters are not showing up to vote.

Precinct captains. Precinct captains must be your generals who keep field operations in their precincts running smoothly, use resources judiciously, and notify headquarters immediately of any potential problems. Specific responsibilities of the precinct captain include making sure that all volunteers get to the polling place on time, that the polls open and close on time, that all volunteers get breakfast, snack, and lunch, and that all identified voters get to the polls to vote. Your precinct captains must be reliable. Test them at various intervals throughout the campaign to identify who can perform and who cannot. Ask precinct captains to phone or text in their numbers to the office when the polls open, at 10 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m., and after the polls close.

Poll watchers. This is the most important job inside the polling place on Election Day. Poll watchers track everyone who votes. You must have an accurate list of all supporters who have not voted so you can get these people to the polls. Because this is a tedious, all-day job, assign a morning and an afternoon poll watcher for each precinct. Poll watching is also a technical job, so your election protection team must train these people.

Passers. Assign a minimum of two people to each polling place. These people are responsible for visibility. They start their day by placing your signs around the polls one hour before they open. They finish by removing all campaign signs. During voting hours, they should station themselves outside the polling place to distribute your literature and sample ballots. Consult your state election law for any restrictions on passing out literature at or near the polling place.

Drivers. There are two functions for drivers. The first is to help walk precincts. As the California SoCal Grassroots and Take Back Red California networks did, adopt the term strike team from firefighting. Use a coordinated strike team of a driver and two or three walkers so as to blitz a precinct in a short time for maximum penetration. A team of travelers can be used most effectively if it includes one local volunteer who knows the territory. Drivers drop off the walkers at the top of the hill and then wait at the bottom to collect the walkers and continue on.

Drivers also pick up supporters who need a ride to the polls. During the day, the poll watcher should supply the precinct captain with a list of names of nonvoting supporters at 10 a.m., 2 p.m., and 5 p.m. The captains pass along these lists to drivers, who visit each house on the list, remind the people to vote, and offer them a ride to the polling place.

Phone callers. Assign at least one person per precinct to remind all supporters to vote. The reminder calls can start as early as 8 a.m. and should continue throughout the day.

Office staff. Everyone should be in the field with only a skeleton staff at the headquarters to make sure that things are flowing smoothly and to patch holes where there are problems.

Protect the Vote

First, know your voters. Your election protection team must have the final list of your voters and be aware of voter ID laws or hot button issues. If your election authorities allow same-day registration, know the eligibility requirements.

Second, know your voting rights. The three most basic voting protections to remind voters of are these:

You have a right to view a sample ballot at the polling place before voting.

If you are in line before the published closing time, you are entitled to cast a ballot.

If you have problems, you are still entitled to cast a provisional ballot (although I recommend calling a voter helpline and a judge before casting a provisional ballot).

Third, know your ballot. With several races on the ballot at once, you will want voters to find your candidate or ballot initiative easily. If your candidate is running against a dozen people for city council and voters can pick up to three choices, let them know that in advance. If your community has ranked choice or instant runoff voting, be sure your supporters and poll watchers have explained the process to your voters. Finally, if you have paper ballots, be sure that people know to vote on the front and back sides of the ballot.

Fourth, know your voting systems. Your election protection team will have a list of the types of voting machines (paper ballots, punch cards, touch screens, optical scanners, etc.) used at each precinct. That way, your poll watchers know the types of equipment for casting and counting ballots, the challenges unique to particular systems, any research regarding possible tampering and computer malfunctions of the machinery—particularly with the touch screens—and whether there are sufficient protections for disabled voters so that, pursuant to federal law, they can vote independently.

Fifth, know your legal options. A smooth election protection operation allows poll watchers and hotlines to solve election problems before anyone casts provisional ballots. When your poll watchers identify problems, they should contact a member of your election protection team who can work on the problem—and even call a judge if necessary. Better to work out the challenge beforehand if possible, rather than adding a vote to the pile of provisional votes that may or may not ever be counted.

Sixth, document everything. In case of a recount or challenge, sworn affidavits and cell phone videos of the challenges make the evidence more tangible. In the end, your election records should demonstrate that your team took exquisite care to ensure that the laws were followed and that the votes were counted as cast.

The goal is to wake up after Election Day with no regrets. You have performed according to the highest ideals of your call to service, you have excelled at management, message, money, and mobilization, and you have done your best to make sure that everyone has voted and that all the votes were counted as cast.

GET REAL: BOOT CAMP CHECKLIST

As you head into the last seventy-five days of the campaign marathon, convene a campaign boot camp to lock in a winner or readjust as needed. Gather your team together and consider the following:

Identify your call to service

Does your campaign reflect your service mission?

Are you fulfilling the promises and commitments you made?

Did you commit the necessary time, energy, and resources?

If not, what would you change?

How is family life? Is everyone still on board?

Does the campaign reflect the vision, ideas, and values that inspire the call to service?

Define your message

Is your message getting out there?

How have allies and attacks affected people’s perceptions of the campaign?

Anything you need to change here?

Know your community

Has the campaign visited every possible neighborhood and major event?

Do you have the coalitions built and can you engage networks of support?

Have you identified your winning number and can you reach that goal?

Build your leadership teams

Do you have the people in place to succeed?

Did you fully commit yourself and hire people who work well together?

How has the kitchen cabinet handled surprises and setbacks?

Are the house meeting hosts having events and building the volunteer corps?

Did people come through?

Did the money calls get made?

Are there people you can still pull in before the filing deadline to fund the last push?

Should you add more fund-raising at house meetings or during call time to get the funds needed to meet the budget?

What is your adjusted plan—according to what is real, not what you hoped to raise?

Connect with people

Have you reached the people where they live?

Any positive debate moments to broadcast or gaffes to overcome?

What is your online presence?

Who have been your best allies and ambassadors? Are they available in the final days to help?

Mobilize to win

Have you recruited a volunteer corps who will talk to strangers, walk precincts in the rain, and sleep on floors or open their homes?

Where can you conduct more house meetings?

What networks might you tap for additional support to achieve victory on Election Day?