[The One.]

I know my own circumstances will probably not match yours, but I'm interested in getting my foot in the door and in hearing war stories.

If you want to PM, go for it.

[Daktoria]

I was part of the Young Republicans during High School, and College Republicans during college, but neither group was very well organized. They were very introspective, and very vague and professional when it came to socializing with outsiders. When it came to socializing within, they were all very awkward and elitist, refusing to stand tall on social issues because they believed the path to victory was compromise, not comprehension.

That's what turned me into a libertarian for a while until I became a deontological libertarian. Then, I realized that certain libertarian principles are how society decays because they lead to people forgetting about freedom of assembly. For example, libertarians support homosexual marriage, abortion, drug use, and oppose public education. They also don't address the matter of graduating children into adulthood very well, and ignore how properness is supposed to be preserved in a society with separation of church and state. They usually claim the social contract is implicit which is later corrupted by liberals into pragmatically claiming the necessity of health care, education, social work, and contractual unreasonability.

Eventually, I came back to conservatism a la the Russell Kirk, Eric Voegelin, Frank Meyer route, but today's GOP doesn't appreciate those organic principles. It's just a Rockefeller Republican establishment that treats people like they're too stupid to understand right from wrong.

[J Oswald]

I briefly affiliated myself with the College Republicans on my university campus (prior to my joining PoFo), but left once I realized they were a bunch of drunken fools who couldn't so much as organize their calendar, much less campus events. Since I left, they've fallen even further into irrelevancy. I say good riddance to them.

Besides that, I worked for a victorious Republican Senate campaign (again prior to my joining PoFo).

[The One.]

I briefly affiliated myself with the College Republicans on my university campus (prior to my joining PoFo), but left once I realized they were a bunch of drunken fools who couldn't so much as organize their calendar, much less campus events. Since I left, they've fallen even further into irrelevancy. I say good riddance to them.

Besides that, I worked for a victorious Republican Senate campaign (again prior to my joining PoFo).

I always was extremely wary of any college clubs for the same reasons J... Money talks and these guys don't have any.

[Someone5]

I know my own circumstances will probably not match yours, but I'm interested in getting my foot in the door and in hearing war stories.

If you want to PM, go for it.

I was a professional political consultant for Republican candidates. Incidentally, I am also a socialist, and got tired of the hypocrisy.

[The One.]

I was a professional political consultant for Republican candidates. Incidentally, I am also a socialist, and got tired of the hypocrisy.

Really? How did a socialist get to work on a republican ticket?
What's a good book on modern political tactics?

I work in marketing right now.I was always curious about the similarities or dissimilarities between selling and political agitation.

(does it pay well?)

[Someone5]

Really? How did a socialist get to work on a republican ticket?

I shut up, didn't talk about it, lied about the right things, and did my job better than others. I mean, the whole job is about lying and building a false identity for someone else so that he can seem to be someone he isn't. If you can't do that for yourself, you can't od that for the candidate. Most political consultants don't seem to believe what they advocate--because most of it is just targeted nonsense. My particular level of deception might have been somewhat higher because my own personal views are in direct contradiction to theirs--but they also have a lot more money in this state, and they have the only really functional party in the state, so if you ant to be a political consultant in South Carolina you're really going to have to work with Republicans. It wears on you after awhile. I stopped doing it because working with political campaigns ends up being something sort of like 24/7 because if you fuck up and say something you shouldn't it can come back on the people you're working for. I got tired of holding my tongue.

What's a good book on modern political tactics?

A good one? There aren't many generally, and even fewer that have worthwhile advice. Rules for Radicals is the best one I've seen, and it's way out of date (though it provides a useful perspective on how to think about political tactics). This is to a large degree inherent in the political process--every election is different (and moreover, it is different at a regional or district level even), and tactics must adapt to those different circumstances. By the time a book about "political tactics" gets published it's already at least one cycle out of date, and usually isn't relevant beyond the experience of the person writing it. Learning how to be a political consultant is something you learn from other people and by experience, nothing else will do.

And it really isn't a worthwhile goal in life.

I work in marketing right now.I was always curious about the similarities or dissimilarities between selling and political agitation.

Marketing techniques help, but the "political" part pretty much boils down to targeting and needing a very comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the issues at play in the specific district you're managing. It's like targeting a demographic market, but even more specific, because even a hundred votes can tip the scales your way. There are plenty of views on and forms of marketing that have useful lessons to teach political communications folks.

(does it pay well?)

Way better than what I'm doing now, but not nearly as well as a lot of people seem to assume. Political campaigns rarely have much money for staff, so you end up making more money by selling the campaign products and services than you do from actual payments. At least, that has been my experience.

[The One.]

I shut up, didn't talk about it, lied about the right things, and did my job better than others. I mean, the whole job is about lying and building a false identity for someone else so that he can seem to be someone he isn't. If you can't do that for yourself, you can't od that for the candidate. Most political consultants don't seem to believe what they advocate--because most of it is just targeted nonsense. My particular level of deception might have been somewhat higher because my own personal views are in direct contradiction to theirs--but they also have a lot more money in this state, and they have the only really functional party in the state, so if you ant to be a political consultant in South Carolina you're really going to have to work with Republicans. It wears on you after awhile. I stopped doing it because working with political campaigns ends up being something sort of like 24/7 because if you fuck up and say something you shouldn't it can come back on the people you're working for. I got tired of holding my tongue.

Makes a lot of sense.
Out of curiosity, why did you originally go down that path?

And it really isn't a worthwhile goal in life.

Well, it's not exactly a lifetime goal. It is more a way to earn experience, and keep myself occupied between projects.

Do you have any experience in direct marketing (espescially as it relates to cold calling or setting up call centres) for political purposes? Namely, what is the strategy used and what is the rough idea/goal of the script?

I have setup commercial call centres, and depending on the call volume and strategy I think it would be relatively easy to make the transition to a political one (with the added bonus that the list does not need to be scrubbed against the DNC) so I've been toying with the idea.

Marketing techniques help, but the "political" part pretty much boils down to targeting and needing a very comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the issues at play in the specific district you're managing. It's like targeting a demographic market, but even more specific, because even a hundred votes can tip the scales your way. There are plenty of views on and forms of marketing that have useful lessons to teach political communications folks.

It doesn't really surprise me.How do you get the data on your demographics?
Do you pay for it,gather your own or do you simply take an educated guess?

How did you get started in the business?

Way better than what I'm doing now, but not nearly as well as a lot of people seem to assume. Political campaigns rarely have much money for staff, so you end up making more money by selling the campaign products and services than you do from actual payments. At least, that has been my experience.

Do you mean the little candidate flags/ pins/stickers? What is a campaign service exactly:?:

[Someone5]

Makes a lot of sense.
Out of curiosity, why did you originally go down that path? :?:

Well, it's not exactly a lifetime goal. It is more a way to earn experience, and keep myself occupied between projects.

There are three kinds of people who work on political campaigns;

1) Rabid believers--they're usually crazy, but dedicated.
2) Career-minded professionals--they're in this for the long haul... as long as your fundraising doesn't drop.
3) Family--they don't want to be there, they probably think this whole thing is stupid, and they resent you taking their family member away from them... but they show up at the events and do what's asked.

If you just want to keep yourself occupied, volunteer--if you want pay it requires a ton of legwork (and networking).

Do you have any experience in direct marketing (espescially as it relates to cold calling or setting up call centres) for political purposes?

I've organized phone banks, called on phone banks (because believe me if the campaign is paying you to manage communications, you're going to be doing the scutwork too), called voters individually myself, called donors myself, hosted fundraising meals of various sorts, gotten other people to host fundraising meals of various sorts... I mean, political campaigning is pretty much the oldest sort of direct marketing--one vote at a time.

Namely, what is the strategy used and what is the rough idea/goal of the script?

There is no clear strategy, it depends on who you're trying to reach and for what purpose. If you are trying to reach voters to attack the other guy, you have a totally different set of priorities than if you're calling to get people to support your guy, or calling to beg for money. It also depends on if you're cold calling new prospects or calling back old ones. There really is no hard and fast set of rules.

I have setup commercial call centres, and depending on the call volume and strategy I think it would be relatively easy to make the transition to a political one (with the added bonus that the list does not need to be scrubbed against the DNC) so I've been toying with the idea.

You'll have to keep your prices ridiculously low--these days phonebanks are manned by volunteers using voip platforms from home. If you're trying to sell phone marketing services to campaigns, it's pretty much all robocalls these days. Now, increasingly sophisticated robocalls are a marketable service. If you can figure out a new and innovative way to trick someone into thinking they're holding a conversation with someone long enough not to hang up, well, you've got something political campaigns are interested in. If you've just got warm bodies to answer phones, well, not so much. Unlike businesses, political campaigns usually have piles of labor for an hour here and an hour there and that's perfect for making phone calls.

It's pretty hard to beat free labor, and political campaigns usually have enough volunteers if they have enough money to hire out the phonebanks.

It doesn't really surprise me.How do you get the data on your demographics?

I may have been presenting the wrong impression here. You don't care so much about reaching, say, military veterens in general (though if you can do it, that's great too), you're interested in reaching just the members of, say, the Central Midville Paralyzed Veterans of America chapter. It can be really ridiculously, absurdly specific--like trying to reach just the people in a specific church, or just folks who work in one industry in one neighborhood. Some managers take microtargeting more seriously than others, and if you can successfully microtarget individuals rather than broad demographics you have a product they'd be interested in. Actually, they're more interested in generated lists than they are the calling services--because of the aforementioned volunteers providing dirt cheap labor for phone banks.

Do you pay for it,gather your own or do you simply take an educated guess?

All of the above. A little of the first, a fair amount of the second and even more of the third. Parties also help--they can provide a starting point by giving you access to their own lists. Though my perspective on this is particularly southern, and politics is more local in the south than elsewhere. Campaigns in other parts of the country might have other requirements. For campaigns here, that I have worked on, personal networks are the number one way of generating call lists.

But do keep in mind that part of what managers sell to candidates is their own access and knowledge and lists. Tread too closely and you offend the people who'd be buying your services.

How did you get started in the business?

A candidate, whom I knew outside of politics, that I should have turned down convinced me to run his campaign. I was just out of college and needed the money, and he needed a campaign manager--and had been turned down by the others in the area. It should have been a clue, but it wasn't. It just kind of went from there.

Do you mean the little candidate flags/ pins/stickers? What is a campaign service exactly:?:

Sure, that's an example. Another example would be, you know, the consultant getting the campaign to buy robocalls from his own company. Or direct mailings. Things like that.

[The One.]

There are three kinds of people who work on political campaigns;

1) Rabid believers--they're usually crazy, but dedicated.
2) Career-minded professionals--they're in this for the long haul... as long as your fundraising doesn't drop.
3) Family--they don't want to be there, they probably think this whole thing is stupid, and they resent you taking their family member away from them... but they show up at the events and do what's asked.

If you just want to keep yourself occupied, volunteer--if you want pay it requires a ton of legwork (and networking).

Damn,I'm a mercenary. I think you just killed a large part of my motivation for working for politicos.

If you're trying to sell phone marketing services to campaigns, it's pretty much all robocalls these days. Now, increasingly sophisticated robocalls are a marketable service. If you can figure out a new and innovative way to trick someone into thinking they're holding a conversation with someone long enough not to hang up, well, you've got something political campaigns are interested in. If you've just got warm bodies to answer phones, well, not so much.

Well, how advanced is state of the art robocall today?

I know that big business use robocall(banks,pepsi, telcos,etc), but I never heard of anything much more complicated then a recording playing, with an IVR/menu connecting afterward.

these days phonebanks are manned by volunteers using voip platforms from home.
Unlike businesses, political campaigns usually have piles of labor for an hour here and an hour there and that's perfect for making phone calls.

It's pretty hard to beat free labor, and political campaigns usually have enough volunteers if they have enough money to hire out the phonebanks.

It is probably different in political circles (esp. with the crazed believers) and you probably already know this, but retention is very bad with commercial cold callers, even if in an office with a manager breathing down their neck.

How do you do to keep phone call quality/enforce dicipline? How many calls are your guys usually making per hour?

Though my perspective on this is particularly southern, and politics is more local in the south than elsewhere. Campaigns in other parts of the country might have other requirements. For campaigns here, that I have worked on, personal networks are the number one way of generating call lists.

What do you mean by personal networks? Do people actually provide you with their lists of customers/members/etc because you convinced them to do it for a good cause?

[Someone5]

Damn,I'm a mercenary. I think you just killed a large part of my motivation for working for politicos.

These days the money seems to be in services the campaigns can't realistically provide for themselves, like producing television commercials.

Well, how advanced is state of the art robocall today?

I know that big business use robocall(banks,pepsi, telcos,etc), but I never heard of anything much more complicated then a recording playing, with an IVR/menu connecting afterward.

The most useful thing I've seen them do are using personalized recordings using the target's first name a lot in the introduction of the recording. Preferably with the actual voice of the supposed caller--it works even better if that "caller" is famous, or the candidate himself.

It is probably different in political circles (esp. with the crazed believers) and you probably already know this, but retention is very bad with commercial cold callers, even if in an office with a manager breathing down their neck.

How do you do to keep phone call quality/enforce dicipline? How many calls are your guys usually making per hour?

Uhh, this might sound weird, but the key to it is pretty much keeping the manager from breathing down their neck, and providing some small rewards for doing the work. My favored method is offering free food for "phonebank days" when people would drop by the office and make calls. I got fewer calls when I set goals and had requirements--and fewer volunteers showing up because of it. I was getting a few hours of people making calls in exchange for $30 in pizzas. You keep volunteers making calls by being relaxed about it and making it fun to make calls. Small rewards for doing it, big rewards for being there, not much pressure while they're there.

It's the sort of "work" environment one would expect with a surplus of free labor who's doing this because they want to be there. There was a lot of self-disciplining occurring--other volunteers would keep volunteers from screwing up too much. The script was there, but it was more like a set of guidelines than something a person completed (because we weren't doing metrics and because I had no way to force them to follow it--if I pressured them too much they'd just stop calling or leave). Though I do have to question the utility of mandatory scripts anyway--if you just want a script read to people, a recording that pauses when the target speaks would work about as well as a human caller would. The whole point of having a person at the phone is so they can hold a conversation with the voter, to relate to that voter in terms another human being can understand. No script works well for that.

What do you mean by personal networks?

You get Joe to volunteer to pass out mailers for the campaign to all his friends; it's not much of a step to also get Joe to make some calls to his friends on behalf of the campaign--when you've come to trust that Joe is there for honest reasons. You use campaign supporters to build networks of their own friends and communicate to them on behalf of the campaign. This probably sounds like it would get undisciplined and off-message in a hurry, but one must remember that the professional communications folks aren't able to "know" everyone, but a friend usually knows how to communicate with a friend very well. If you happen to get Joe to use the campaign phonebank software (and thereby know who he called), or convince Joe to pass over his friend's phone numbers and email addresses, well... so much the better.

Do people actually provide you with their lists of customers/members/etc because you convinced them to do it for a good cause? :?:

Well, I suppose you could do that--some people can be really stupid about customer/member contact data if they fall into the believer camp--but it probably wouldn't be very effective. What's more effective is getting the organization itself to communicate with its members about the campaign. Like, say, getting a "constitution learning club" president to speak about the campaign--or let the candidate speak--at one of their meetings, or getting said president to make phonecalls on behalf of the club to its members. You have to be kind of picky about which organizations you try to work like this; there are legal issues with some of them (anything that's 501c3, churches, etc), in which case it certainly has to be the campaign doing the communicating even if the charity is providing the "educational opportunity" for its members (because they're allowed to engage in political education, just not political advocacy). There are ethical or disconnection issues with others--business customer lists, for example, aren't really very good because they don't usually deal with the business on a personal level. There are some businesses that do have personal relationships with customers and are willing to risk that by throwing politics into that, but that's almost always small businesses that do business with other small businesses (suppliers), not to the public at large.

[The One.]

The most useful thing I've seen them do are using personalized recordings using the target's first name a lot in the introduction of the recording. Preferably with the actual voice of the supposed caller--it works even better if that "caller" is famous, or the candidate himself.

Ah finally some good news.

I can do this, not out of the box, but I can deff. prepare something to this effect. Do you remember what were the rates they were paying? Chances are, I might compete with them as I do bulk and I can do robocalls for lower then the major VOIP/telco providers usually provide business orgs for.

If I wanted to sell to these guys, how should I go about it?

It's the sort of "work" environment one would expect with a surplus of free labor who's doing this because they want to be there. There was a lot of self-disciplining occurring--other volunteers would keep volunteers from screwing up too much. The script was there, but it was more like a set of guidelines than something a person completed (because we weren't doing metrics and because I had no way to force them to follow it--if I pressured them too much they'd just stop calling or leave). Though I do have to question the utility of mandatory scripts anyway--if you just want a script read to people, a recording that pauses when the target speaks would work about as well as a human caller would. The whole point of having a person at the phone is so they can hold a conversation with the voter, to relate to that voter in terms another human being can understand. No script works well for that.

Makes a lot of sense about the dicipline part.

I understand you couldn't enforce a script with volunteers, but surely there must be issues/objections that keep coming back repetitively and for which you have ready-made answers?

In my case,I found that it helps immensely to have a script and ready-made rebuttals at hand because the same objections keep coming back over and over (ex:"I have more business then I can handle" ). Of course I don't always stick to it word by word, but the general structure,ideas and meanings are the same. It helps me also to keep control of the convo so that the prospect doesn't fly into talking about his dogs/cats/goldfish/etc randomly or having the caller going er--- er--- er when something unexpected comes up.

You get Joe to volunteer to pass out mailers for the campaign to all his friends; it's not much of a step to also get Joe to make some calls to his friends on behalf of the campaign--when you've come to trust that Joe is there for honest reasons.

What kind of dishonest things could Joe do as a volunteer?

Thanks btw for taking the time to answer.... I'm learning a bunch actually.

[Someone5]

Ah finally some good news.

I can do this, not out of the box, but I can deff. prepare something to this effect. Do you remember what were the rates they were paying?

Not off the top of my head; the campaigns I worked on didn't have enough money to hire out of house phonebanking or robocalls. I've got some old mailers from robocall companies around here somewhere, but not on hand.

Chances are, I might compete with them as I do bulk and I can do robocalls for lower then the major VOIP/telco providers usually provide business orgs for.

If I wanted to sell to these guys, how should I go about it?

Well, the most effective method I've seen is to partner with one of the parties and offer to take part in one of their "training" (or, rather, marketing) programs. You get face to face contact time with the younger managers who actually make the purchasing decisions, and you get to distribute a lot of promotional material during your "training" session. Sure, you might have to talk about some general strategy and tactics in the process... but you also give them a direct line to you, and can build some level of trust.

Alternately, go dig up FEC/state ethics commission filings for campaigns and send mailers with price quotes to their campaign office. Make it a point to send those mailers as soon as the campaign actually files that information, so, you know, make sure you know when the FEC or state ethics commissions release the data. If you can call the manager, I guess that would work okay too, but I don't think I would have ever bought something that way. I would have just consulted the mailers at my own leisure if I was in the market for it (though a lot of campaigns--even House campaigns--don't have the money for it). Such advertizing ought to be done two ways; campaign managers are interested in metrics and prices, but they'll often have to convince candidates (and the candidate's friends and advisors) of the validity of the strategy. Provide materials that talk about metrics and prices to managers, but also provide the managers with materials that make it easy for them to convince less-marketing-savvy candidates (and friends and spouses of candidates) not only that your services offer the best value, but also that your services are indeed critical to their victory.

I understand you couldn't enforce a script with volunteers, but surely there must be issues/objections that keep coming back repetitively and for which you have ready-made answers?

You'd be surprised about that. Without a lot of major media coverage, people often kind of go all over the place on things. If voters stop getting their opinions fed to them, they stop being nearly as predictable. Certainly, you train your repeat volunteers (as best as you're able) to answer a set of basic questions, but that's part of general training of volunteers, not something specific to phone banking. About the only time you really end up needing to provide specific responses are when you're facing a well-publicized set of negative attacks on the candidate, or when there is one defining issue of a campaign. Your ability to actually train volunteers is kind of limited anyway; and getting them to follow prepared statements is even harder. If they can't memorize the answer in their own words, they're probably not going to use it, and it wouldn't seem very genuine anyway (and that turns people off).

Seeming/sounding like a telemarketer with a slick, well-practiced set of prepared statements is about the last thing you want to do when doing political phonebanking. That just gets people to hang up on you, or tune you out. It's better to just give the volunteers some general Q&A instructions, let them practice it a bit, then let them develop their own genuine way of communicating that to others.

Yes, that does mean you need to cultivate volunteers. It's something that one cannot really package as a product.

In my case,I found that it helps immensely to have a script and ready-made rebuttals at hand because the same objections keep coming back over and over (ex:"I have more business then I can handle" ). Of course I don't always stick to it word by word, but the general structure,ideas and meanings are the same. It helps me also to keep control of the convo so that the prospect doesn't fly into talking about his dogs/cats/goldfish/etc randomly or having the caller going er--- er--- er when something unexpected comes up.

If a voter wants to talk about their dogs and cats and goldfish, that's fine. If the voter gets called (or calls the campaign) and feels like he had a nice conversation with a campaign staffer, that just builds positives for the candidate. And if the volunteer can keep mentioning the candidate's name, it builds name recognition. Really, voters are all over the place. Trying to keep it about the issues isn't always (or even often) the right way to go. Human relationships do wonders, and if that means volunteers spend a fair amount of time talking about trivial non-political things to build that relationship, so be it. The goal there isn't to make a certain number of calls or impressions per hour, the goal there is to convince a voter that your candidate is better than the other candidates, and if that impression is made because the voter had a nice conversation about pet dogs with a campaign volunteer, that's still a vote for your candidate.

I suspect this is rather different for telemarketing for businesses, who are trying to convince people that one product is materially better than another.

What kind of dishonest things could Joe do as a volunteer?

Oh, you know, give bad impressions, use campaign resources to issue fake campaign statements (like, say, posting racist comments on the campaign facebook page), send out nasty letters, steal stuff from the campaign, provide information for another campaign, being intentionally disrespectful and cruel to other volunteers to keep them away, volunteer for a job but not actually go do it, whatever. There's lots of things that volunteers can do that can be harmful if they're not there honestly. Generally, it's pretty hard for volunteers to be honest and make a grievous mistake. But that's not hard at all if they're there with the intent of causing trouble.

Thanks btw for taking the time to answer.... I'm learning a bunch actually.

No problem. I'll point out again that my experience in this is largely a southern experience in races in small cities and rural areas, so it's not necessarily applicable to every campaign in every area. For example, in the sort of campaigns I worked on, most of the campaigns (even our competitors) didn't have the money for a lot of paid advertising. Usually if it cost more than direct mail and radio spots, it was pretty much out of the question except in the 72 hours before the election. Which, by the way, is just about the most critical time if you're thinking of offering robocalls to campaigns--they're really interested in pushing their message and suppressing opponent turnout in those 3 days. What you do in those 72 hours can matter way more than what you do the whole rest of the campaign.