Signboard rental
Newspaper display advertising
Professional distribution of literature
Publicity person's salary
Office girl's salary
Lunch money and gasoline or carfare money for volunteers
Radio spot plugs
Candidate's extrapolitical expenses
Manager's extrapolitical expenses Some of the expenses in the second list can be avoided by astute management, not by eliminating the type of campaigning indicated, but by getting what is needed free. An able, professional publicity person on at least a part-time basis is a sine qua non; if a volunteer supporter in this professional category cannot be found then one must be hired. If a volunteer typist, completely reliable and reasonably efficient, cannot be found, then she must be hired - but a volunteer is better.
The other conditional expenses depend on local conditions. Form the habit of being extremely tight-fisted about expenses in both lists of categories, necessary and conditional.
There are many other types of political expenditure; you are sure to have many well-meaning advisers who will assure you from experience that this or that must be done, which does not fall under one of the above headings. I believe that you will find in every case that the recommendation comes from experience with some other type of campaigning than the volunteer, Grass-Roots Campaign. Thereon? other types of campaigning - I have expended more than thirty thousand dollars (not my own money!) on a single campaign issue in less than thirty days-but no type of campaigning is as effective as the type here described and this type is almost without expense. The expenses
are all incidental to the campaigning and are not property
This is literally a case of "The Best Things in Life Are Free." It is easy to run a campaign with lots of money, but an expensive campaign can always be beaten by a properly organized campaign which can barely pay for printing and postage.
In addition to a headquarters or intelligence center of some sort both the candidate and the manager need some sort of hideaway-two hideaways if the manager and candidate are of different sexes, to keep tongues from wagging. A spare room in the home of a friend is ideal, particularly if it is served by a phone through which messages can be left without waking the person who is resting. There will come times when an afternoon nap, or at least complete freedom from pressure, is necessary to preserve your balance, your judgment, or even your sanity.
A remote back room in the building which houses the office will do. Don't try to use your own home for this.
Precinct Organization-Training and Management: We assumed that the precinct organization had been built up through earlier club organization; that includes the assumption for a congressional campaign that the volunteer field organization is too numerous to be managed directly by the manager. Ten is about the highest number which can be managed directly; you want and need a hundred. Therefore you will have area managers.
Talent is where you find it. The neat divisions you draw up on a precinct map can never be realized in practice for you will never have enough competent leaders to whom you can delegate authority. Many of your area leaders will be no more than messenger boys between you and the precinct worker.
To make your contact with the precinct worker as direct as possible hold weekly get-togethers with all the organizations at a fixed time and a centrally located place. Serve coffee and doughnuts. See to it that the candidate has this as an all-evening "must" date; your purpose is not only to instruct and inform your workers - and to gain information from them - but to renew their enthusiasm by direct social contact with the man they are backing. Make it as informal as possible - no lined up chairs, no standing to speak-a family party.
Another fixed weekly date which can precede or follow this one, or be held on another night, is the meeting of the working committee, for strategy, tactics, and business. It is a must for you, but not necessarily for the candidate.
The volunteer precinct workers are by far the most valuable asset of your campaign and the one most difficult to get and keep. They are not merely the rosters of your clubs nor are they a list of people who have pledged themselves to "work one precinct." No such wooden approach creates a precinct organization.
You will have winnowed out, from hundreds of political contacts made during two to four years of apprenticeship, a list of people who will back their convictions by work rather than by talk alone. Each time you find one you will treasure him (or her) and train him and encourage him, with loving care.
Don't expect to find the majority of them after you decide to manage a campaign. Some candidates and some managers seem to think that precinct workers grow on trees! If you have not already built up a following of people who believe in you, look to you for political leadership, and will work, then you are not yet ready to tackle anything as difficult as the management of a congressional-sized campaign. You are still in the junior-officer stage of your political career.
Even if you never have the time or the circumstances which will permit you to undertake the management of a major campaign this chapter is still for you. The principles discussed apply to the minor leader in a campaign quite as much as to the manager, and, as a minor leader, you can help to keep the manager on the right track by your counsel. In so doing you can be the factor which turns defeat into victory, as many a manager is energetic and intelligent but inexperienced.
The volunteer precinct organization is never as perfect -on paper-as the paid organization of a political machine. But you can reasonably hope to have one good enough to swing an election.
"The moral is to the physical in war as three is to one." - Napoleon.
Napoleon was a piker. The principal advantage of the volunteer over the paid machine professional is his sincere enthusiasm. In politics the ratio expressed by Napoleon is nearer ten to one. The volunteer is campaigning twenty-four hours a day, not by intent, but because he can't help it. It gets in his blood. He is the guerilla warrior of politics, acting on his own initiative, harrying and demoralizing a force much larger, and arousing a despairing citizenry to new hope. Like the guerilla, he fights with the materials at hand and improvises what he lacks.
It is your object to inspire and direct this enthusiasm.
Leadership is not an esoteric matter. You don't need the whoop-t'do "enthusiasm" of a night dub master-of-ceremonies, a revivalist, or a radio announcer. You need two qualities only, sincerity and a willingness to work. The rest you will learn, in a fashion suited to your temperament. (A sort of leadership by default can come to those who lack sincerity but are energetic, since a group will accept any leadership in preference to none.)
As a leader of political volunteers there is just one paramount rule to keep in mind: Men do not live by bread along.
The personal pat on the back, the public praise for work well done, a button to wear on the lapel, the testimonial dinner, the letter of thanks, the election night party, a personal word with the candidate - these things are worth much more than cash or patronage. Unless he is actually starving, a man-any man and all men - is motivated primarily by "face," by intangibles of some sort which have to do with behaving in that fashion which he feels does credit to his own conception of what he is, or what he would like to be.
You may not like the term "face" - if so, don't use it - but I think you will find that all human motivation other than the simplest animal aspects of belly hunger, sexual rut, and physical fear can be found in a need for intangibles which will satisfy the individual's ideal conception of himself- and even hunger, rut, and fear are feeble in comparison, else soldiers would not fight, rape would be as common as shaking hands, and dinner guests would fall on their food and rend it. Even the dollar is pursued more usually for this higher reason than for the simple reason of filling the belly - to do one's duty to the wife and kids, to provide for the education of children, to live in a finer house, or simply to feel successful because one's labors command a high price. These goals are all intangibles, no matter how concrete is the symbol for the goal.