Ed. Note: To view the official campaign website, click here.
It feels like it’s been forever since my last post, wherein I was a little depressed and discombobulated. Things move so fast, unexplainably fast, when you are running a campaign. When you are also the candidate, we’re talking speed of light. Here is a quick recap of events (dates approximate):
September 16: Zoom Meeting with County Party Chairs and Stakeholders
September 22: Registered EIN, Opened Campaign Bank Account
September 29: Filed Campaign Committee Organization Documents
October 17: Q & A with Surry County Democrats
October 24: Q & A with Wilkes County Democrats
November 21: Q & A with Yadkin County Democrats
You may be thinking, well that doesn’t sound like much. But the in between stuff is a beast: create and post to campaign Facebook account, create and post to campaign Twitter account, procure domain name, build and update campaign website, create Act Blue fundraising account, required campaign finance training, create state voter database account, create mass email account, design and order printed campaign bios, yard signs, stickers, and cards. Call, email, and meet with every single person you have ever met in your life.
Upcoming events:
December 2: Speech at Wilkes County Democrats Century Club Banquet
December 2: Q & A with Alexander County Democrats
December 4: Filing Day
That is pretty much Phase One of a campaign. Or at least this campaign. I have been referring to it as the infrastructure phase. Someone else referred to it as campaign practice, which is also a pretty fair assessment.
So, let’s talk about the original goals I set for Phase One:
Goal One: Set up all infrastructure tools
Result: Met
Goal Two: Attend the Democratic Party meetings of all four counties in the district before filing day
Result: This was tough because several meet at the same time on the same day, but as of this Saturday, it will be Met
Goal Three: Raise between $3,000-$5,000
Result: As of this writing, the campaign has raised just shy of $2,300 from 28 donors across 15 states
For a guy who also works a pretty demanding full-time job and a sporadic part-time job consulting, I’d say this is pretty damn good. I’m garnering some bipartisan support, which is crucial in a gerrymandered district.
I don’t want to go patting myself on the back too much though because I have a real test at this Century Club banquet. The state party chair will be the keynote speaker. Local media will be there to cover the event. It is pretty much the Phase One Capstone Project.
So now to Phase Two. The good news is I can stretch my legs a little in Phase Two, which will run pretty much from January 2nd through Labor Day. Eight months. Eight months that will feel like two weeks. Here are some of my plans for Phase Two:
Launch New Fundraising Campaign - I’ll need to raise an additional $5,000-$8,000 at a bare minimum in Phase Two to have any viable shot.
Community Outreach - I will be meeting with schools, school boards, small businesses, manufacturing plants, doing press, heath care professionals, chambers of commerce, county commissioner meetings, city council meetings, and all county party meetings
Digital Integration - Now that I have all of the various infrastructure pieces, I will need to put them all together. I’m not quite sure what that looks like that just yet, but I have a general idea in place.
GOTV Groundwork - I plan to start my phone bank project on January 2nd. 3,000 calls in 300 Days. I will pledge to personally call 3,000 registered voters between January 2 and Election Day. With the phone bank system I have access to, with enough volunteers I can probably triple that number.
Ad Campaign Development - I have some good ad ideas in the hopper. In the development stage we will figure out the best media outlets to launch them from. You Tube page for sure. Print ads. Mailers. Digital/online ads. We will probably do some soft-launches during Phase Two, but the current plan is to start blanketing the district from Labor Day to Election Day.
And that’s where I’m at as Phase One comes to a close. I hope you’re enjoying these updates. I’ll try to throw in some non-campaign stuff here and there as well. I’m definitely going to MerleFest and hope to do an interview with Adeem the Artist. On December 28 I’ll be in Asheville for the Corey Ryan Forrester show and will probably write about that.
I’m wondering if I should do a campaign podcast. Like a whole podcast just about the campaign, and I could have people on like other local candidates, political analysts, people I know. If that’s something you would be interested in listening to let me know.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. Much love to you all.