Vandenberg Political Strategies - An Answer to Greer's Question

A Response to Greer: Why Candidates should hire their own
Political Consultants?

I was advised that at the state rep level, especially for a first
campaign, that it is best to make use of all the community offered
campaign training and volunteer effort in order to keep costs down. I
was told that it's not advisable to hire a professional political consultant
until you are running a campaign that is expected to raise over $100K
at least and that is because of the size of district and community that
you are trying to cover. Is that good advice?-- Greer from MIT

Responded to by Alexi Vandenberg, Senior Political Strategist

I understand that many people give that advice; unfortunately rarely
do people realize how damaging to campaigns and candidates it
is. Often Interest groups (partisan or otherwise) offer training seminars
or campaign advice but as so many things offered freely there are
glaring faults. Advisers and consultants offered like this are often one
of two things; Professional operatives working pro-bono or local
activists, both have inherent problems. Since Pro-bono operatives are
the more rare and less problematic I will touch on them first.
Pro-bono Political Strategists like lawyers or business consultants
decide that they are going to help an interest group free of charge.

Vandenberg Political Strategies has done this in the past. The
problem is that often these groups will have paying clients that will be
occupying their time. This added to the drain of other candidates
and campaigns that are offered the same pro-bono deal, means
that relying on them is not a good idea. They ignoring you, not
because of maliciousness or incompetence; it's just that consultants
like anyone else must make a living. Furthermore, most of these
groups will use such pro-bono activities to let their junior-most
members gain experience. That could leave you without the
specialized knowledge of an experienced consultant when you need
it. Finally, Pro-bono Strategists are often brought in at the behest of a
high-level interest group, so often the pro-bono strategist is looking for
something from that group. This means that the pro-bono consultant
may not necessarily have your best interests at heart. Local Activists
are usually people that have been involved at the local level for
some time. Often they are Committee members or part of a major
interest group in the area. Local activists are great; in fact, I utilize
them to great effect in many campaigns. Local Activists know every
politically active person in the area; they know the feuds and the
relationships. Despite this, Local Activists should never be used in
place of a consultant.

First, most local activists are just that: local activists, if they have any
training, it is a daylong campaign seminar. Combined with years of
election volunteerism, this is enough to become valuable political
assets but it does not make them qualified to run a campaign. Their
ability in terms of basic campaign knowledge compared to that,
which is available to the average consultant, is woefully lacking.
Second, Local activists are usually volunteers for the party; this means
that they have jobs other than getting you elected. This can lead to
one of the most common fatal errors for a campaign: distracting
you, the candidate, from communicating your message to the
voters, because you are busy being part-time fund-raising chair or
event coordinator. Furthermore, since they are volunteers nothing is
going to stop them from going to the beach for the weekend when
serious street campaigning needs to be done. In addition, Activists
often have political ambitions themselves, which is never a good
thing since it could easily lead to a "if candidate Smith loses I could
always run next time!" mentality. Finally, Local Activists may know all
of the local feuds, but odds are that the Activist has several under his
belt as well. This could hurt, because of what I half-jokingly call the
Reciprocal Law of Local Politics which states that the smaller the
campaign the more bizarre or inane the reason that some will not
vote for you. In effect, you may lose votes from an entire ward
because Activist Becky chased some of the local kids from her yard
last year. Hired consultants are yours for the campaign, he and his
team are in effect your employees and the services that have been
agreed upon can be utilized at your convenience. In fact lending his
services out to candidates in lesser campaigns (of course with his
approval) is an excellent way to ensure loyalty and support in key
areas. Furthermore, a professional consultant can solve problems
before they start by just hiring them. First, it shows that you mean
business, that you are serious about winning and doing the job. It
shows serious commitment and makes other people thinking of
running against you in a primary think twice.

The other side will also take notice and perhaps that distraction will
provide an early mistake. In addition, they are by definition outsiders
in local elections, which mean that they are often coming in with a
fresh perspective of the local party and its machinations. Finally,
many will say don't use consultants because consultants are too
expensive, that they are only practical for campaigns at a certain
level. Actually that all depends, I do not recommend that you hire
the Terrance Group for a school board election, it would be like using
bazookas on bunnies; drastic overkill, but to say consultants are too
expensive for local elections in overstating the case. Like any robust
capitalist economy niche markets develop including in the world of
political consultation. Many groups have begun to develop political
consultation in local areas around the country as a means to
develop their craft.