advice for my speech this evening?

[cos]

My friend Jesse Gordon is running for Cambridge City Council. His announcement party is this evening and I'm one of the speakers - I have five minutes, right after Jesse. I'm going to talk about how campaigns work, and how volunteering fits in. My theory is that a lot of people who support candidates would volunteer more, if they understood what a campaign does and how what they do fits in. I think a lot of people who do volunteer for a campaign and spend a day or two canvassing, come away feeling like they haven't done a lot of good, and are less motivated to return.

So, help me out. I basically know how campaigns work. I volunteered a bunch of times for campaigns before I understood, so I remember some of the things I didn't know. And I've talked to people about it. But I'm sure there are things I'm missing.

What do you find mysterious about campaigns, particularly smaller ones for local/state office?

Have you ever volunteered for a campaign, even for one day? What value did you think you were giving? What did you know about, and what did you wonder about, how your work fit in?

(Oh, hey, if you know anyone who lives around here, send them the link, and if you're here, come!)

Comments

[agnosticoracle.livejournal.com]

A couple of negative experiences from the couple campaigns I've volunteered for:

1. Often find myself calling people who have been called before, often only hours before. Very demoralizing to listen to angry folks tell you to leave them alone.

2. Even during a full day of canvasing I often feel I've reached at most one or two people. Given victory margins are usually in the 100s or 1000s this has left me wondering if I was wasting my time.

It would be very useful to get an idea how the repeated phone calls and long days canvasing actually help.

[cos]

Yup! I'll definitely talk about that.
You coming?