Run for Something: A Real-Talk Guide to Fixing the System Yourself - Softcover

Litman, Amanda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501180444 ISBN 13: 9781501180446

Publisher: Atria Books, 2017

Synopsis

The must-have guide for young progressives looking to run for local office, complete with contributions from elected officials and political operatives.

You’ve been depressed since the night of November 8, 2016. You wore black to work the next morning. You berated yourself for your complacency during the Obama years. You ranted on Twitter. You deleted Twitter. You sent emails to your friends saying, “How can we get more involved?” You listened to Pod Save America. You knit­ted a pussyhat. You showed up to the Women’s March on Washington. You protested Donald Trump’s executive orders. You called your congressman. You called other people’s congressmen. You set up monthly donations to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. You reactivated Twitter (begrudgingly).

Here’s what you do next: Run for something.

To be specific: Run for local office and become the change you want to see in the world. Forget about Con­gress. Forget about the Senate. Focus on the offices that get the real sh*t done: state legislatures, city councils, school boards, and mayors.

It doesn’t matter if you’re not a white man over sixty with an Ivy League law degree. (In fact, it’s better if you’re not!)

It doesn’t matter if you don’t understand the first thing about running for office, or never even imagined you would. That’s what this book is for.

Amanda Litman, experienced in hard-fought state and national election campaigns, is here to give you guid­ance as well as wisdom and insight from elected officials and political operatives she interviewed for this book.

There are half a million elected officials in the United States. Why can’t you be one of them?

About this title

From the Author

Amanda Litman is the co-founder and executive director of Run for Something, a PAC that helps recruit and support young, diverse progressives running for down-ballot office. Previously, she was the email director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, digital director for Charlie Crist's 2014 Florida gubernatorial campaign, deputy email director for Organizing for Action, and an email writer for Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. She graduated from Northwestern University in 2012 with a B.A. in American Studies. She lives in Brooklyn with her rescue dog, Sadie. For more information, visit RunForSomething.net and follow @AmandaLitman on Twitter.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is the first woman in US history to become the presidential nominee of a major political party. She served as the 67th Secretary of State—from January 21, 2009, until February 1, 2013—after nearly four decades in public service advocating on behalf of children and families as an attorney, First Lady, and Senator. She is a wife, mother, and grandmother.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Run for Something 1

WHY YOU HAVE TO RUN FOR OFFICE

No one asked Donald Trump to run for president.

(Putin might have asked Donald Trump to run for president.)

Why would they? He wasn’t qualified. He had a résumé most people would scoff at: he’d filed for bankruptcy many times over, had a record of making racist and sexist remarks, has been married three times, and had racked up an impressive number of sexual misconduct allegations. In short, his last few decades in the spotlight would have embarrassed even his own parents (as if Trump didn’t already have daddy issues).

He was literally a joke—the reality TV star was the butt of President Obama’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner speech in 2011. No one ever would have said to him: “Donald, it’s your time. Run for office! We need you.”

But he did. And then Trump won the election. (I’d say fair and square, but the Russians had something to do with it, so let’s leave it at he won the electoral college and move on.)

Donald Trump is president of the United States of America. (As of this writing, at least. Who knows what might happen?)

It’s likely that, just like Donald, you’re not going to be asked to run for office. No one is going to come up and tap you on the shoulder to tell you it’s your turn.

Until right now. I’m asking you to run for office.

You can’t wait for the cavalry to save the day. You can’t wait for someone else to have the courage. Every possible excuse you can come up with is bullshit. If Donald Trump can be our president, even if he’s an incompetent one, you can run for local office.
Let’s start with a big one: It’s okay if you don’t look or sound like a politician.

“When I was knocking on doors I heard whispers and grumblings about me being gay, and I would say, ‘Listen, I’m not scared or afraid of my past. Let me be very clear right off the bat: I’m proudly gay, I’m HIV-positive, I’m Puerto Rican, and I’m formerly homeless. This is who I am.’ I think these details actually add to the richness of your story and your life. A lot of people out here are struggling and are being marginalized. They want somebody who can relate to them—not somebody from a different stratosphere.”

—NELSON ROMAN, city councilor of Holyoke, MA, on owning his story

Think a little bit about what the expression “look like a politician” means—the image of “politician” probably (and unfortunately) draws to mind an old white dude.

In 2014, Pew Research Center surveyed the adult population and found that approximately 2 percent of Americans have ever run for federal, local, or state office. And according to Pew’s “Profile of the 2%,” people who seek office tend to be exactly what we picture: white, male, and well-educated.1

Because fewer women and fewer people of color run, the number of women and people of color in elected office often doesn’t statistically reflect the population served.

Let’s start with “WHITE”: According to that same Pew study, non-Hispanic whites make up 66 percent of the American adult population but 82 percent of the people who’ve sought elected office. Non-Hispanic blacks make up 12 percent of the population but only 5 percent of office-seekers. Fifteen percent of U.S. adults are Hispanic, but only 6 percent have run for office.

“MALE”: Women make up only a quarter of the people who’ve run for office and are overwhelmingly underrepresented at all levels of government. The City University of New York Institute for State and Local Governance put out a study in the fall of 2016 that breaks it down.2

19.4 percent of the U.S. Congress are women

24.6 percent of U.S. state legislators are women

33.6 percent of city councils in the top 100 U.S. cities are women

18.2 percent of elected mayors in the top 100 U.S. cities are women

19.3 percent of mayoral candidates in the top 100 U.S. cities are women

This isn’t our fault. Research shows women are less likely than men to be encouraged by parents, teachers, or party leaders to run—to put a number to it, men are 15 percent more likely to be recruited to run.3 When women run, we win at the same rates as men, but we’re not getting in the door in the first place. (I’ll get into who does this “recruiting” later, but if you’re impatient to find out, here’s a sneak preview: It’s often a bunch of men who work at a party committee, who ask their friends to run.)

Women are also less likely to run without being prodded. Countless academic studies show that we underestimate our abilities and assume we need to be even more qualified than men in order to run for office, or apply for that job, or raise our hand to speak. Sound familiar? Every time I read an article that highlights research like this, alarm bells of self-recognition go off in my head. Fuck you, patriarchy.

There are clear systemic problems holding women back: We’re often the heads of our households and/or primary caretakers of our kids or parents. We tend to have less disposable income. Still, we can’t let the bastards grind us down. The sad reality is that if women are going to be fairly represented in government, more of us will need to make the sacrifice, do the hard work, and run anyway.

Finally, “OLD:” More than 40 percent of adults who have *ever* run for office are sixty-five and older, directly impacting the makeup of our government. Only 5 percent of state legislators are under the age of thirty-five! Even though these legislating bodies are making decisions that affect the under-thirty-five demographic (i.e., me, and maybe you), we’re not usually part of the conversation.

That is not to say that old white men don’t have value: They do. But they can’t be the only ones in the room.

So, unfortunately, if you’re a young woman, a young person of color, or anything other than an old white dude, you might not have as many role models, mentors, or networks that make running for office easier.

And on top of that, yes, the bar is higher for you. Mediocre white men get a pass; you don’t. That just sucks. But the only way you fix it is by running, winning, and then changing the system to let more people like you in.

Don’t second-guess yourself. Put aside your imposter syndrome—even the most extraordinary people assume they’re not qualified.

For example: Oprah Winfrey gave an interview after the 2016 election in which she told Bloomberg’s David Rubenstein she had always assumed she wasn’t qualified to be president. Oprah, the queen and dragon slayer herself, believed she wasn’t qualified to serve in public office.

Whether or not I think Oprah is qualified to be president is beside the point—I don’t think she should be president.

I think YOU should be president. Or your friend, or your sister. You should think about it, at least. And to get there one day, you have to start small. Start local. Donald Trump is president; forget the rules. You can do anything.
It doesn’t matter if you live in a red state.

It is certainly going to be harder if you live in a place that voted for Trump by fifty points. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run. In fact, I think it’s even more important that you run.

The way we promote progressive values is through people like you arguing for our policies on a local level in an authentic way, rooted in your community.

Your campaign will galvanize other people like you in your area—if, hypothetically, Trump won your district with 75 percent of the vote, that still means 25 percent of voters are with you. And those 25 percent of voters will see someone like them stepping up to lead. They’ll flock to you like moths to a flame. It’s already happening: Just in the first six months of 2017, even in special election losses, Democrats have shifted the margins in our direction in four Republican districts that Trump won.

But don’t wait for a plan on how to talk to Trump voters to come down from some mythical unicorn of a leader. You understand better than anyone what “progressive” means in your home. You know what policies could appeal to even your most conservative neighbors, and you know how to connect them to your life. You’re the progressive ambassador to your community—even if you don’t get their votes, you’ll make sure they aren’t just hearing a singular viewpoint.

Winning isn’t the only thing that matters. Just by running, you’re holding your elected official accountable. And there’s a pretty good chance Democrats in your area haven’t had someone to vote for in a while. Go to page 27 for more on why running—win or lose—matters.
It doesn’t matter if you live in a blue state, either.

I talk to first-time candidates constantly. No one ever says to me: “I live in a competitive district where at any given point, either a Republican or a Democrat could win.” Whether you’d describe your community as red, blue, or something else entirely, remember: no one has it easy. Just jump in and compete.

No one ever says, “Adidas, you’re the only ones allowed to make shoes,” or “Gap, J.Crew makes the best jeans, you’re not allowed to make jeans anymore.” But in politics, limited competition is accepted because the “establishment” operates from a place of limited resources, scarcity of time, and hubris. Don't be afraid of a primary if you have something to say.

In this book, the “establishment,” or “party,” is defined as the network of organizations, including the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), the Democratic Governors Association (DGA), the state parties, and all affiliated groups. In the interest of full transparency, I have worked with these organizations in the past and likely will again throughout my career. I think they do a lot of things well! However, they are sometimes shortsighted and often burdened by so much institutional bullshit that Democrats’ victories are frequently in spite of their work and not because of it.

THE WAY CANDIDATE RECRUITMENT IS “TRADITIONALLY” DONE

Typically, the establishment will target an open race or a vulnerable Republican incumbent. Then the staff and elected officials in the area will search for someone they or their networks know in the district (or they’ll literally uproot someone, move them to the district, and get them on the ballot).

In the past, this has inherently limited the talent pool to a particular network, perpetuating a cycle of typically older white men and their staffs or friends running for office. It also limits the geographic reach of the party: If you’re a Democrat who wants to run in an otherwise safe district, you’re on your own.

The party chooses candidates who are seen as “viable,” meaning they can raise money. In politics, “money” is understood to be shorthand for electability and success. If you can inspire people to financially invest in your campaign, it’s assumed that you can inspire people to vote for you, too. Until people vote, money is the clearest measure of which candidate is able to get support in a meaningful way. This means the party tends to search for people with wealthy networks, since a candidate’s first round of fundraising prospects will come from his or her immediate circle.

This all assumes the party recruits for that office at all. The DCCC and DSCC are focused on federal races, and most state parties aren’t actively recruiting for races beyond state legislatures and perhaps mayoral races in bigger cities. No one is wholly responsible for finding the next generation of leaders to run for positions on city councils, county boards, school boards, and the like.

Recruited candidates (or party-approved candidates) get access to money, institutional knowledge, tools, coordination, and, arguably most important, the voter file.

The voter file is a list of registered voters that includes their name, address, history of voting behavior, and as much information as possible. It’s the Holy Bible of a campaign. Voter files (or subsets of them) make up the initial list of who candidates needs to talk to. They require a lot of money and time to keep up to date. Each time you change your address, the party needs to update your profile in the voter file. That requires tracking you down and getting the right info. A “clean and complete voter file” is every campaign manager’s dream. We’ll dig into how you get one on page 96.

The party staff believes they know who deserves that help, where they should focus their limited resources, and who should ultimately win.

That’s mostly bullshit. For one thing, the party’s track record is iffy at best (in no small part because there’s a lot that happens during an election that is entirely out of anyone’s control). For another, every cycle, the amount of money in politics goes up and up and up. Put aside for a moment judgment on whether that’s good or bad—it’s proof that the pool of resources available for political engagement is growing. But ultimately, it comes down to a simple belief: Institutions shouldn’t pick the winner of an election—voters should. When the party limits access to important resources that candidates need to be successful, either because they don’t want to “play in the primary” or have chosen to protect the incumbent at the expense of allowing a new voice to enter the race and have a chance to succeed, the party is discouraging people from showing up at all.

Ultimately, it is to the Democratic Party’s benefit to encourage primaries and foster competition. Our best leaders come from places where there are competitive primaries! Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris come from California, a state with rich Democratic leadership. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton came from New York, and President Barack Obama came from Chicago—both places that are flooded with Democrats. When Democratic candidates have to work harder, engage with voters, and articulate their positions, the party ultimately becomes stronger.

So if you want to run against a Democratic incumbent, take a look at who represents you and decide whether you can make a compelling and positive case for what you believe and why your leadership would matter. If you can, run.

Don’t let the first person in the race scare you out of it. It’s not “first to file” who wins. It’s whoever the voters like. And if you’re true to who you are, passionate about the problems you want to solve, and willing to put in the work, voters will like you.
You don’t have be that into Politics with a capital P.

In fact, it’s better that you’re not into “Politics.” Voters hate politicians. Voters like real people—people like you.

This is an important axiom to keep in mind: Before you run, when you run, and even if you win, you’re still a voter and a citizen first. Be the kind of politician you’d want to vote for.

Voters want someone who understands their problems and who has real, lived experience. Presidential candidates get briefed each day on the price of milk in whatever city they’re in because those small but meaningful details of life matter. So don’t wo...

Edition details

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1501180444
• ISBN 13: 9781501180446
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240