Campaign 2007, my new job, managing a campaign in Hoboken NJ

[FogerRox]

These are my new bosses:



Left to right, Tricia Snyder, Rose Markle, Carrie Gilliard & Bill Tobias.

This is the Kids First ticket running for school board in Hoboken NJ. The current Democratic machine in Hoboken is quite broken. Hoboken spends 52 million annually or $25,000 per student, but yet averages an SAT of the mid 800's. Hoboken has a budget that should buy a world class education, but doesn't. THe Kids First Team wants to fix that.

Last year Hoboken elected Kids First candidate Theresa Minutillo to the School board. this year Theresa leads the team to the April 17th elections, the goal is to have a majority of 5 seats on the 9 seat School Board.

This is the best place to be, in the trenches fixing whats broken. I was recruited for the Kerry/Edwards campaign & spent the month of October in Florida. After coming back to NJ, I decided Campaigns should be my next career. I thought I would give it ten years. 2 years in- I am managing my first campaign. In NJ we have State Assembly and State Senate elections in Nov. I hope for busy year.

Our website:

http://kidsfirst2007.org/

[Wilms]

1. Nice going, Foger.

I know, I know. You just posted this minutes ago and here I am.

It's weirding me out, too!

[FogerRox]

4. ARRrrrrr, effin Wilms, :-)

You must spend hours at latest, just clicking refresh........

[Wilms]

12. LOL!

I was just "marking" out of ER and saw your name when it brought me to Latest!

It's like that! :rofl:

[rocktivity]

2. Congrats--and keep us posted!

:applause:
rocknation

[FogerRox]

5. Thanks rocknation.... you know what they say...

All politics is local. It doesn't get too much more local than school board.

[EFerrari]

3. You go, Foger!

K&R

[FogerRox]

7. sfexpat2000, thanks man.

Is Wilms a stalker?

[EFerrari]

8. We should be so lucky.

:)

Break a lip.

[NanceGreggs]

6. Mazel tov, FogerRox!!!

:applause: :applause: :applause:

Way to go! :patriot:

[FogerRox]

9. Thanks Nance....

[Ellipsis]

10. Well.... they are fortunate to have you.

:patriot:

"This is the best place to be, in the trenches fixing whats broken".

In the last decade conservatives in my neck of the woods were quite proactive and organized in running for local boards.


K&R

[madfloridian]

11. Good for you and recommended.

Get those NY DFAers on board to help you.

Good luck.

[livvy]

13. Woot! Woot! Excellent!

I know you will do a fantastic job. The Kids First team have made a choice they won't regret.

Go, Roger!

[FogerRox]

15. Well, I have my work cut out for me. running against Incumbants

in a Heavy "pay to play" environment.

[femmedem]

14. Congratulations! Best of luck on this campaign and with your new career.

I was campaign manager for municipal Green candidates. I loved it.

One thing we did to gain legitimacy for third party candidates was to ask, as we went door-to-door, if we could use supporters' names in an endorsement ad. The weekend before the election, we were able to take out a half page ad filled with people who were voting Green.

Once we had spoken to enough voters to know which demographics were supporting us, we sent out targeted letters. Older Republicans were supporting us (!), so we had a senior citizen/former Republican city councilor write up a suppporting letter, which we mailed to every Republican regular voter over the age of 55. A former Democratic maverick mayor also supported us, and we sent out letters from him to middle-aged Unaffiliateds and Dems.

We raised $1400 dollars in a yard sale. And we mailed out thank you letters to everyone who donated anything. Later we heard that the thank you's really solidified votes. People were reassured that Greens were nice people who were attentive to details.

Overall we raised about $10,000, mainly through phone calls directly from the candidates. At the beginning of the campaign season, I asked each candidate to give me a list of 20 people they would personally call. Then we set up deadlines for them to make the calls.

And we arranged sit downs with local columnists to publicize our issues, which translated into columns about us in our local papers.

We pushed people to write LTTE's. When people were uneasy about their writing skills, I sat down with them and edited their letters before submission.

I hope some of this is useful, and I hope you don't mind my mentioning some of what we did right. It sounds as if you've got more experience already than I did at the time.

[FogerRox]

18. Have you attended Wellstone training or DFA training ?

Camp wellstone is a 3 day training, very good.

[femmedem]

23. I haven't. But I'll look into it.

Thanks.

Maybe you can keep us posted on how things are going? If you have time, I hope you can keep a DU journal about campaign management. It could be really helpful to those of us at all involved in local politics.

"If you have time." Heh heh heh. You're not going to have any time. :)

[Melissa G]

16. Way to go, Foger! School boards are where the religious right first infiltrated

so it is good to be putting motivated Dems in their places. Good on you for helping get it done!

May you have tremendous success! :yourock: :kick:

[FogerRox]

17. Thanx M-

[Capn Sunshine]

19. Hey, that doesn't leave us much time

The CA primary is only 11months away......
good on you Roger, see you in the usual places with the usual suspects.

[bleever]

20. Best of luck!

Go get 'em, Roger!

[Bill Bored]

21. Victory is assured with Foger ROCKING this campaign!

:yourock:

[Kurovski]

22. Congrats Sergeant Rox!!

:bounce: :toast: :party: :bounce:

[Ninja Jordan]

24. good luck