Democratic Candidates: Obstacles

I covered previously the characteristics of a serious candidate. However, many well-qualified folks still do not run. There are many obstacles to running for office besides a deficit of necessary skills.

Money

Here, I am talking about a candidate’s personal finance, not campaign fundraising. Running for office is a personal financial commitment.

Most folks will have to upgrade their wardrobe, the dry-cleaning bills will go up, and you will use much gas going to and from events. You may have to pay to attend some events. If you have young children, your babysitter will be raking in the cash.

While some of these expenses might be reimbursed as legitimate campaign expenses, often they are covered directly by the candidate. And there is no getting away from the fact that running for office will impact your personal “fortune” to some degree.

And then there is the “Public Sector” pay once you are elected. In some cases, the elected position is truly part time and maintaining your “day job” is no problem. However, many of the full-time and “almost full-time” elected positions pay very poorly and often are not enough to pay the bills for your average person.

Especially in the Legislature, this has resulted in a very narrow class of citizens who can serve: The retired, the wealthy, and those with unusual job flexibility, such as lawyers, realtors, and business owners.

If a candidate can’t personally afford to run or to serve in office, it does not matter how qualified they are.

Time

To win a campaign takes an enormous investment of a candidate’s time. Calling donors and volunteers, attending events, researching issues, delivering the campaign message, and in a true grassroots campaign, massive amounts of direct voter contact.

You can get some help from volunteers and paid staff, but many tasks are best performed by the candidate and some can only be performed by the candidate. It is quite bit of strain to add an almost full-time campaign schedule on top of work and other responsibilities and commitments.

Family

If your close family, especially your spouse, does not support your run for office, hang it up! In a very real sense they are running too – they appear on your campaign material, they may attend events with you, and they may get involved in other ways. But no matter how active or inactive they are in your campaign, family support is critical and lack of it stops many otherwise great candidates.

Ability to Govern

Republican candidates, as part of a party with overall distain for any government, are usually unconcerned with how well they can govern once they win. Making government actually work for the people is not their priority. In fact, if they can destroy confidence in our government institutions with incompetence and even corruption, they have delivered on their promises of all government is bad government.

Democrats, on the other hand, must be able to govern well and effectively once in office. And this takes a different set of skills. Often, someone is the perfect candidates: able to raise money, deliver a great message, and win over voters, but is not able to perform the job. They may not be able to compromise and reach for the middle ground as a legislator, or may lack real leadership and decision skills as an elected leader.

Not everyone who can win can govern.

After having looked at what it takes to be a Democratic candidate and the obstacles to running for office, I hope it is clear why it is important to recruit hard for candidates at every level. We need to follow up the recruiting with a commitment to support our flag bearers as they run for office and as they govern once elected.