Reflection On Winning Your Election The Wellstone Way

This reflective writing is about the qualities of good candidates, good campaign managers and campaign workers. Reading the Chapter 1 of the book Winning your Election the Wellstone Way allowed me to further extent my knowledge regarding the qualities of good progressive candidates, campaign managers and workers. For me, the key takeaways from the readings were the need for campaigns to maintain discipline and that campaign strategy must accompany the candidate’s authenticity.
In the book, Winning your Election the Wells Stone Way, Blodgett and Lofy (2008) mention that “along with hard work comes discipline, or staying focused on a plan, strategy, and timetable” (p. 15). I found this lesson quite important. I’ve worked on electoral campaigns
in the past, and after reading this chapter, I can now understand that one of the biggest downfalls is when the candidate and the campaign do not stay on message. The candidate and campaign must keep saying the same thing over and over again so that the message gets to the voters. Blodgett and Lofy (2008) warn that “saying something different all the time means voters have a hard time hearing anything from you” (p. 15). I remember canvassing with a candidate who didn’t have a consistent message, always reacting to rumors and attacks - even argued with constituents at the doors. Eventually, he didn’t win the primary elections.
Another important takeaway from the reading is where Blodgett and Lofy (2008) points out that strategy and authenticity go hand in hand.
He argues that “authenticity alone doesn’t win elections… this is where strategy comes in, making conscious choices about what to emphasize considering your convictions, values, viewpoints, and issues” (p. 12). He further says, “good strategy can be found in places where the candidate’s values and experiences overlap with the values and experiences of large numbers of voters” (p. 12). I always knew that connecting with the voters is very important to be able to persuade them. However, I didn’t have the knowledge on how to make that connection happen. Now I have a better understanding that in order for that to happen, we must find a way to overlap the candidate’s values and experiences with that of voters. The questions that linger for me are - What are the best practices to find out what are the values and experiences of the constituents? For example, do you survey the district with specific questions tailored to find out what are the values they appreciate the most? Or do you make assumptions about values and experiences of constituents based on the socioeconomic and demographic make-up of the
district?
Reading the Chapter 1 of the book Winning your Election the Wellstone Way by Blodgett and Lofy (2008), helped me understand the importance of having discipline during a campaign and also the importance of campaign strategy accompanying the candidate’s authenticity. I’m very eager to continue learning more about how to run campaigns, especially looking forward to have my questions answered as we progress in the course.