Campaign Culture

Making the case for professionalizing our profession

Working on a campaign can be a life-changing experience, especially for a young person, new to the professional world. Like any industry, it comes with some good, some bad, and some ugly. Amidst the #MeToo movement, we’ve seen some pretty egregious examples of the ugly. And every election cycle, there are at least a few stories that also highlight the good.

Some stories romanticize and glorify the 18-hour work-days, summer-camp atmosphere, and the passion (often young) people bring to the cause for which they are working. Some stories highlight the negative consequences of the same formula. But I imagine if you have an honest conversation with most people who have worked on campaigns, they’ll tell you there’s truth to all of it. As I’ve read stories on some of the more negative aspects of campaign culture in recent months and weeks, I’ve been thinking…For decades, we’ve either tacitly or explicitly accepted that — on campaigns — one should just accept the negative aspects of the culture, because the spoils of victory are great and it’s those spoils and those spoils alone that matter.

I believe we can and must do better for the next generation of campaign staffers.

Campaign staffers (especially young ones, new to the field) are trained to deal with an inordinate amount of stress and responsibility. We’re taught that our normal is different than most peoples’ normal. That weakness is going home before 9 pm and no one has time to get sick, go to the doctor, or see their family. Our campaign colleagues become our family and at some point, we come to accept our familial dysfunction. We are motivated by the bonds we make and the causes we are fighting for. And just when we think we can’t possibly do it all again, we sign up for another campaign. The “bug” is real and the addiction is powerful.

For me, I worked 5 consecutive election cycles before taking a break to work in the private sector. It wasn’t until I got out of politics that I realized, “It doesn’t have to be this way!” I took advantage of shorter work hours and professional development opportunities to get trained in management and leadership. When I eventually came back to politics, I found myself apologizing to people I had worked with in the past. I acknowledged that I had been a jerk and assured them that age, experience, and hindsight made me a better person.

Not everyone in leadership on campaigns is a horrible boss. But I believe our industry does an especially good job of creating a culture where bad behavior is not only tolerated, but inadvertently encouraged.

Part of the problem, as I see it:

We hire young, ambitious talent; expect them to do anything and live anywhere (including homes with several of their co-workers). We create a pressure-cooker environment, where every action is tied to tremendous consequence (losing). And we tell them to kick-ass and — most importantly — win. We do all this while paying them next to nothing and providing them with almost no-training. In the instances where training is provided, we focus on managing processes or learning specific skills — not managing people or organizations.

We foster an elite, small-club (semi)professional atmosphere where who you know is definitely more valuable than what you know and we weed out socio-economic (and by extension racial/cultural/geographic diversity) by forcing staffers to accept the inevitability of months of post-campaign unemployment between campaigns. We then wonder why there is a lack of diversity at the top ranks of our political institutions.

Meanwhile, during campaign season (right now), we tear our hair out because there isn’t enough (skilled) talent to support our candidates.

So, here’s an idea. I’m not suggesting it’s a panacea, but I think it could be a start.

Why don’t we start treating campaign work like what it is — A REAL profession? A profession that you can spend decades in and eventually retire from. Why don’t we get together and create long-term, sustainable infrastructure to support:

• Off-season/year-round training programs — build the bench during “funemployment” time. Train new staff and cross-train more senior staff. We have critical skills shortages, including in fundraising, digital, data and research. Imagine if we taught every entry-level canvasser from 2018 on one of those skills in December and January following the election?
• Year-round organizing opportunities — There are enough issues to organize around that the post-campaign unemployment is simply unnecessary. There is no shortage of work to be done, we just need to plan for it and educate donors that investing in training for the long-term is key to victories for years to come.
• REAL and continued for professional development support and training — not just to learn campaign skills, but to learn how to be a professional in this world and work with/manage human beings and operate within organizations.
• Replicable/scalable resources for campaign managers, so they can recognize, report, and eliminate bad-behavior on their campaigns- including inappropriate, abusive, or discriminatory behavior.
• Resources for candidates to make sure they know that the buck stops with them and that they should not tolerate inappropriate, abusive or discriminatory behavior on their campaigns.

I’m currently working with a small group of people to help re-ignite campaign staff training programs, which have largely gone away in Democratic politics. We are in early stages, but if you’re interested in helping out in any way, please sign up for more information, here and we will get in touch.