Campaign Basics

As a campaign strategy firm specializing in political and advocacy advertising, it is challenging to keep strategy as a primary consideration in any campaign. Various concerns, such as creativity and budget, can distract and even overshadow the pursuit of long-term and short-term strategic goals. Campaign tactics should complement good strategy and not impede it. Having clearly defined strategic targets can make a big difference.

One of my favorite books is The Score Takes Care of Itself. If you have not read this book, give it a read; it’s a great resource on strategy an applicable to politics and organizing many ways. Whether you work for an advocacy organization, a political group, or a candidate campaign, you work on a team with many moving parts. It is impossible to manage all those parts alone. By defining clear goals with measurable outcomes, you can set the path for victory and measure all aspects of the campaign on whether they are on the right track to success.

David is a lawyer, writer, political activist, former elected official, and adjunct professor. He served as the Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party between 2015 and 2021. David was born and raised in Cincinnati and served on the Cincinnati City Council and Hamilton County Commission before being elected chair of the Ohio Democratic Party in 2014.

Campaign unionization, is it right for your campaign? It seem obvious that Democrats should be supportive of campaign unionization… right? Not necessarily.

No matter how many advocacy campaigns you have done, people will always have a ton of questions about advocacy metrics to judge how successfully those campaigns were run, and if they were effective.

This week's campaign strategist is Nancy Leeds. Nancy is a writer and Political Campaign Operative who recently earned her MPA in Social Policy and Management at Columbia University. Sometimes people hire her to work on their non-profits and campaigns. When that happens, these opinions are still hers and do not reflect those of her candidates.

Whether it is your first or last advocacy or political campaign, one thing never changes—numbers matter. Learn what campaign metrics you need to track.

Democratic direct mail targeting used to be seen as a mysterious realm where political consultants pulled voter targets out from behind a magic curtain. With the advent of modern voter file software by folks like Catalist, NGP VAN, Targetsmart, NationBuilder and L2, you can have direct access to the voter data and models you need to make targeting decisions for your campaign. But if this is the first time you are running a campaign or working with voter data, here are some tips for Democratic direct mail targeting, these tips will also be helpful in developing your field and phone program.