Do I have the energy, desire, and motivation to do the hard work it takes to win?

Can you work as hard as Andre?

Part 5 of – Should I Run For Office? A Ten Point Check List To Help You Decide.

Campaigns require hard work. As I said in my last post, your life will be consumed by the campaign.  So the question is – do you have the energy, desire, and motivation to do the hard work it takes to win?

If you’re lazy, don’t run for office. Seriously. Just stay home, sit on the couch, and save yourself some grief.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson over the years – I would rather have the hardest working candidate in the race than the one with unlimited resources.  Money has a ceiling.  There is a point where the return on an investment levels off, especially in a local or state legislative campaign.  That ceiling is high, but it does exist.

That fact doesn’t hold true for hard work. You can’t knock on too many doors. You can’t personally call too many voters.  You can’t spend too much time with voters.  It’s just not possible unless your district holds 25 voters.

If you spend close to what your opponents spend, but you significantly outwork your opponent, you will most likely win.  Here in South Carolina, everyone knows about Lt. Governor Andre Bauer. Even if he doesn’t work that hard (which he does by the way) he does a fantastic job making perception become reality. His signs used to read “South Carolina’s Hardest Working Legislator.” Everyone has seen the image of Andre holding signs on top of highway overpasses. No one will ever forget the image of Andre propped up with crutches, waving at cars on the side of the road after his plane crash. Remember the time Andre walked from downtown Columbia to Lexington to file for re-election? Even when Andre got in trouble for driving over 100 miles-an-hour, he blamed it on trying to work too hard.  Can you believe that?

Andre gets it. Voters like the guy who works his butt off and they hate the guy who benefits from laziness. Hard work is the American Dream. Voters work hard to provide for their families, pay taxes, and enjoy life. Hard work connects the candidate to the voter in more ways than the obvious personal voter contact. It connects them through shared values.

Let me give you two examples from current campaigns I’ve run. The hardest working State House candidate I’ve ever worked with is South Carolina State Representative Keith Kelly.  Keith was running in a high profile State House race in 2006 against two other gentlemen during the Republican primary.  All three candidates spent about the same amount of money, but Keith knocked on every single Republican door in the district, some twice. The guy was a machine. He was everywhere, all the time.  His hard work paid off and Keith captured 51% of the vote. He won the primary outright in a three-way primary with no run-off.

The hardest working State Senate candidate I’ve ever worked with is SC State Senator Shane Massey.  Shane decided to run for the State Senate in 2007 when Democratic Senator Tommy Moore vacated his seat to become a DC lobbyist.  Shane had little money, but he had heart, great ideas, and the desire to shake up the status quo system in Columbia. Shane got outspent significantly in the primary, runoff, and general elections, but he worked around the clock. He knocked on over 10,000 doors during the election and called thousands of voters.  In the end Shane blew away his opposition in the primary and won the general election by a close 138 votes, becoming the first Republican to ever hold the Senate seat. 138 votes!  That close election just goes to prove that every door knocked on and every voter called matters.

If you don’t have the Andre Bauer, Keith Kelly, and Shane Massey drive, you shouldn’t run for office. But if you do, you can win.

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• An Urgent Message from the SC Senate Republican Caucus
• Shane Massey…Proving That Character Still Matters
• How To Become A Political Operative
• How to Become a Petition Candidate
• Do I Have Time To Campaign?

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