Introduction
My political activism began in the stroller. Every year, right before Halloween, my mom took us door to door through our neighborhood with election leaflets. Then a few days later we returned for trick-or-treating. To this day, we are not entirely sure whether those leaflets had any bearing on the kind of treats we received. Maybe all that excess chocolate from certain neighbors was a coincidence.
It was unfathomable to us then that she would become Speaker of the House of Representatives nearly forty years later. But politics isn’t about the big leap to power; it’s about the thousands of steps taken with family, friends, and neighbors every day, from voting to volunteering to full-time civil, military, and political service. Millions of Americans have heeded a personal call to service: a voice of conscience that springs from vision, ideas, and values and urges participation. For many of us, activism begins with the rhythms of family traditions in civic, political, or faith-based action before we hear a singular beat that resonates. Now a mother myself, I am taking my daughter in her stroller to neighborhoods around the country engaging in participatory democracy. My lesson to her and to others: answer your call to service, follow your passion, and send your message to the future today.
Campaign Boot Camp 2.0 has emerged from my own call to service as a lifelong grassroots activist in politics and policy. From the stroller, I have enjoyed the engagement of campaigns, the excitement of current events, and the empowerment of using my voice and my vote to make a difference. Walking precincts, practicing law for the City of San Francisco, studying legislation while serving in the Clinton-Gore administration and on Capitol Hill, winning campaigns for Democratic Party office, and managing political organizations have given me the opportunity to work with thousands of people committed to fulfilling their dreams and imprinting their humanity on our society. I’ve been on the road in blue, red, and purple states for historic Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008, heartbreaking defeats in 2010, and resurgence in 2011. All the way through, the common thread has been a fight for progressive values and participatory democracy: elections come and go, official power comes and goes, issues fade. My call to service endures.
Why a “campaign”? Meeting the challenges that America faces depends on our participation in our democracy. Performing service, and attracting others to it, requires a campaign—a mechanism to work with people in a disciplined way toward a common goal. A campaign can be an effort to be elected to office, to build capacity for a nonprofit, or to increase legislative recognition of civil rights. Whatever form it takes, a winning political campaign is a fusion of a large social movement and a small-business start-up. It takes a long-term dedication to values and a short-term, nuts-and-bolts strategy to earn the votes needed to win come Election Day.
Why a “boot camp”? Public service requires identifying and harnessing the inspiration, perspiration, and perseverance that transform dreams into actions. In my experience elections are like graduations—some folks come magna cum laude and others come “lawdy, lawdy.” The more magna cum laude campaigns out there with candidates and volunteers trained to put their best feet forward, the more vibrant and effective their service will be. This is where the boot camp format—short, concentrated training sessions that respect people’s time by providing questions and tools that hone skills and talent—comes in. We focus on a core curriculum of message, management, money, and mobilization to help people learn from others’ successes and failures. I used this format with the AFSCME PEOPLE/New House PAC Congressional Candidates Boot Camp. The American Federation of State County Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Public Employees Organized to Promote Legislative Equality (PEOPLE) convened boot camps with over 100 challengers and twenty-six members of congress from 2006 to 2011. My leadership boot camps have included seminars, regional round tables, a University of California at Berkeley Extension class called Public Service Leadership Boot Camp, and several Young Democrats of America trainings on creating jobs, performing community service and outreach, building labor coalitions, and keeping America safe and free.
My material for boot camps comes in part from the opportunities I’ve had to travel around the country following my two passions: baseball and politics. In 1993 I toured baseball parks while awaiting the results of the California bar exam, traveling to over twenty ballyards and following my beloved San Francisco Giants to four of them along the way. From 2005 to 2011, I visited over thirty states conducting campaign boot camps. Both tours allowed me a community-based introduction to the American people. On my 1993 baseball tour, I studied the architecture of the ballparks, the lore of the game, and the pride of the communities, paying special attention to the game’s fundamentals—teamwork, hitting, pitching, and fielding—without which no team can win.
On my political tours (which happily included a little baseball on the side), the stakes were considerably higher, but my approach was similar. I studied the architecture of the campaigns, the lore of political traditions, and the pride of the communities, paying special attention to campaign fundamentals—message, management, money, and mobilization—without which no campaign can win.
Sitting at a candidate rally is similar to sitting in a ballyard. Both give you the opportunity to assess the technical metrics and reflect on the intangibles—what politics calls “character” and baseball calls “make-up”—you look for in your heroes and admire even in your opponents.
As a baseball fan, I know that some of the best advice about hitting comes from the other team’s pitcher. That’s why as a proud Democrat I’m telling my story and learning from conservative Republicans and not just other progressives. Good organizing ideas come from institutions and from start-ups; from adopting childhood traditions and from rebelling against them; from friends and from opponents. As a prosecutor in San Francisco, I often sought advice on how to evaluate and try cases from defense attorneys. As chief of staff on Capitol Hill for Congressman John F. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, I learned management techniques from a campaign management manual issued by the office of Congressman Dick Armey, Republican of Texas. I blog regularly at the Huffington Post and POLITICO’s Arena, two venues where a variety of political views stimulate conversation and cross-training.
After campaigning across America in 2005 and 2006, I wrote the first edition Campaign Boot Camp: Basic Training for Future Leaders to capture the best practices on strategy and tactics from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Campaign Boot Camp 2.0 builds on the first edition by including insights from the dozens of boot camps and trainings I have conducted with first-time candidates, staff, volunteers, nonprofits, and students from 2007 to 2011. It includes more information about leadership attributes, ethics, and strategies in the brave new world of online politics, social networks, and electronic interdependence.
What has changed over the last five years? In 2006, while there was a broad range of issues that moved voters, nothing shaped the perceptions of the people I met on the campaign trail more than the events of Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq War. In 2008, a bit of Bush fatigue and a protracted Democratic primary ushered in Democratic President Barack Obama. In 2010, Tea Party Republicans swept much of the country fueled by an enthusiasm gap over Democrats due to a 9 percent unemployment rate through which progressive messages were unable to penetrate. In 2011, Tea Party overreach in restricting workers’ rights, women’s health, and voters’ protections awakened progressives who organized to fight anti-labor laws in Wisconsin and Ohio, defend Planned Parenthood, and literally Occupy Wall Street.
Looking to 2012, redistricting (which alters all state legislative and congressional district lines) and recession (which still affects too many families) will contribute to a fourth straight change election. Americans are anxious about the fragile markets for jobs, housing, and stocks. Middle-class families have already exhausted their coping mechanisms: women have entered the workforce, just about everyone is working longer hours at higher productivity for stagnant or lower pay, and homes are mortgaged to the hilt. Slow growth plus rising unemployment have eroded consumer confidence and increased exasperation at any politicians who do not appear to be working as hard to create jobs as people are working to find them.
We know that the two major parties will be rocked by this change election. The Tea Party will play a significant role in nominating the 2012 Republican candidate for president and continue to affect legislative races. The Occupy movement has captured the frustrations of working people fed up with waiting for Wall Street bailouts to trickle down to Main Street, yet whether that translates into coalitions that occupy the voting booth for Democrats (or anyone else for that matter) remains to be seen.
What we do know is that, quite simply, millions of people believe the American Dream is out of reach and under attack—and have decided to make incumbents and institutions pay the price. We are experiencing a cultural phenomenon and a political power shift: beyond left and right, the fight is bottom-up versus top-down, ranging from progressives quoting the old Hopi Indian prayer: “We are the ones we have waited for” to Tea Partiers saying, “There is no one Tea Party leader—we are all leaders.” An illustration for the visually inclined: in the twentieth century, the blackberry was a fruit and the beehive was a hairdo. Now, in the twenty-first century, the blackberry is one of many handheld technology tools that connect people, and the beehive is a social networking model—a series of concentric circles linking technology, coalitions, and human networks—that has replaced the old hierarchical pyramid. The beehive model maximizes personal participation, creativity, and impact. It also poses leadership challenges for longtime politicians or business leaders who came up the old way, because there are no more filters or layers that buffer them from public opinion. Today’s leaders have to adapt to this new reality: prepare to lose control and listen to the wisdom of crowds.
Adapting to this political and economic turmoil—in which no incumbency is safe, no nonprofit is sure of its funding stream, and no true leader is buffered from the public—means that aspiring public leaders will have to work harder and smarter in leaner and meaner times to gain trust and contribute to a culture of service where we ask the best of people. Working harder and smarter means having the grace and guts to make strategic choices about message, management, money, and mobilization, and to implement them under pressure. The strategic choices include whether to attract innovators and take risks against the establishment to define your message, whether to make pledges to special interest groups when you seek endorsements and money; whether to use one-to-many television ads or many-to-many social media messaging; and, how to mobilize supporters based upon those choices.
In my many interviews, a common theme from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents was this: two kinds of people enter public life—those who want to do something and those who want to be something. Campaign Boot Camp 2.0 is for people who want to do something. It’s basic training for future leaders who hear a call to service and are looking for a roadmap of how to transform dreams into actions through connecting with people and organizing with social networks, nonprofits, and policy initiatives. It sets forth seven essential steps: Identify Your Call to Service, Define Your Message, Know Your Community, Build Your Leadership Teams, Raise the Money, Connect with People, and Mobilize to Win. Each chapter concludes with a Get Real exercise to personalize and integrate these ideas into your own scope of service. Campaign Boot Camp 2.0’s online home, www.PelosiBootCamp.com, provides additional training resources and blog postings. Throughout the book you’ll find testimonials from prominent leaders about their calls to service.
Whether you’re a young mom leafleting your neighborhood, an aspiring public leader, or a veteran politician, Campaign Boot Camp 2.0 will help you answer your call to service, follow your passion, and send your message to the future today.