Story / Rationale / Values / Issues / Opponentyour story
What defines you?
Do you have a family? Are you married?
How will this campaign affect their lives?
What is your most influential life experience?
How did it affect you?
What are your accomplishments?
Have you...
Built a business? Balanced a budget? Taught in a classroom?
What motivated you to run for political office?
What role should government play in our lives?
rationale
Summarize yourself in under 30 seconds
What motivated you to run for elected office?
Voters won’t care about you until you care about them.
If elected, how will you benefit the lives of others?
What will you do once elected?
Have you considered HOW running for office will impact you?
If elected, how will holding political office impact your life?
values
What are the standards by which you make decisions?
What are your..
Core Convictions?
Principles?
Passions?
Expressing Values
Pictures taken in a soup kitchen says “I care about poor people”
Pictures taken with your spouse and children say, “I care about family.”
Pictures of you reading books with children says, “I care about public education.”
Pictures with veterans or fallen service member’s families can define an entire campaign for some voters.
An image does not represent an actual expression of values.
However using images strategically can convey those values effectively to potential voters.
If you fail to communicate your values it leaves a void in the minds of voters.
This gives your opponent an opportunity to paint you as out of touch
issues
Issues DO Matter
Since it is your campaign and your strategy, you decide what you talk about.
Voters want to know..
- “Would you vote the way I would?”
- “Would you make the same policy decisions I would?”
What issues are important to you? Voters expect a candidate to provide a clear vision of the future.
The 1. Candidate Information - issues you discuss and the positions you take make a clear statement about the ‣ that are important to you.
What are your positions on these issues?
Foreign Policy
When should we engage in military intervention?
When shouldn’t we?
What size should we maintain our military at?
How should we provide for our veterans?
How do we deal with authoritarian regimes?
How & when should we intervene in international civil unrest?
Economic Issues
What are your budget priorities?
How will they be funded?
Will you cut spending to increase the budget elsewhere?
What entitlements will you seek to reform/expand/cut? How?
How will you create jobs in your district?
How will you approach the tax code?
What about...
Immigration?
Social Issues?
Environmental Regulations?
Climate Change?
Budget? Spending? Deficit?
Public Education? Charter Schools? Higher Education?
Abortion? Choice?
LGBTQ+? Trans rights?
your opponent
Know everything that your opponent is saying and doing.
What makes you better than your opponent?
What info about your opponent will make it easy to vote for you?
Oppo Research is an acceptable way to differentiate from your opponent.
Where have they lived?
Where have they worked?
Have you double checked their biography?
Are they being forthcoming in it?