With the advent of early voting over the past few years, Democrats have been able to create more electoral mischief at the ballot box and the ground game for Election Day has changed. Before early voting, the ground game had only two parts: Absentee Ballot Program and Election Day.  Early Voting Early voting in Maryland starts this week.  What to do . . . First things first: don’t drive yourself crazy during the next 11 days of voting.  If you are running for a county wide or statewide seat, you have a lot of ground to cover before Election Day.…

It’s October – the leaves are changing colors, and hopefully the weather will get cooler soon. You are 75 days away from Christmas; 82 days away from January 1, 2018, and 391 days from Election Day (Pls note: I’m writing this on October 11, 2017). So, what does this mean? First, you only have 74 shopping days left until Christmas. But more importantly, you have 82 days until January 1, 2018, the first day of another exciting election year. If you’re still sitting on the fence, you’d better make up your mind soon, because getting in the race now is far better than getting in…

Okay, you have been at it since last spring, or even longer for some of you. Tomorrow is your final exam, you worked hard, and most of you guys did all the right things.  I was very impressed with the quality of our candidates, yard sign designs, palm cards and over-all campaign collateral.  What to do: Remember that the polls open at 7 a.m.  You should have a list of polls you want to hit during the day.   When you go to the polls, shake hands with the voters who come to cast votes, but remember that since some voters…

Let’s Review What We Have Covered So Far You have filed for candidacy, put your finance team in place, and you’ve just finished your first campaign event.  You likely have a small core group of volunteers now as well.  Hopefully, you also have a war chest of $5,000 and $10,000 dollars in cash on hand. It’s Time to Build your Leadership Team When you are running for the House of Delegates (or in other states, the State House of Representatives or State Senate) you may have one, maybe two, paid staffers, if you are lucky. Most likely you will have…

It is very important for candidates to have dynamic interactive websites.  Nearly two-thirds of US adults use social media, and for many, it is the first source for news and information gathering. Online ads not only put campaigns in a position of power by bolstering efforts, but also provide an easy way to communicate relevant news and messaging to an increasingly captive audience. Your website and social media presence need to be interactive.  Don’t rely on pages of text and a few pictures.  Don’t be afraid to use videos, especially on social media, like Facebook and Twitter.  Social media platforms…

We are now covering Part III in the study of digital campaigning. We have done the overview and covered Facebook for campaigns and setting up campaign blogs. Now we embark on Twitter and Instagram. Twitter is akin to the elevator speech. Get your message out in 140 characters or less. Instagram demonstrates how a picture is worth a thousand words. Jumping onto Twitter First, get Your campaign name at twitter, @YourNameForOffice. Over the past few years, there have been many cases of nefarious bloggers on both sides of the aisle as well as rival campaigns squatting your social media handle,…

Recap Last time Dr. Politics covered the importance of a digital campaign plan. Spoke on various social media platforms from Facebook to LinkedIn. Now let’s focus on Facebook and Blogs. FACEBOOK CAMPAIGNS: First create a separate campaign Facebook page. You do that by going to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create/ . You want to select “Artist, Band or Public Figure.” Click on Category, then select from dropdown, “Political Candidate” Select your name or the name of your campaign committee, I’d recommend Name of Committee. However, you can use your name if you’d like. Important: Don’t forget to insert Authority Line on your official candidate’s…

Campaigning has changed a bit from when I first ran for MD House of Delegates in 1994. At that time, if I wanted to connect with voters, I had three options. Direct Mail, Door Knocking and Doing Media Buys. For the most part media buys are just too expensive, and when running for State Senate or State House of Delegates or County Council you will over-shoot your district. Direct Mail was good but you need to do three mailers before most voters start paying any attention. Door knocking was the most economical way to connect with voters, along with fairs…