
How to run for Florida Office - SSilver2k2
http://blog.sheasilverman.com/2016/11/how-to-run-for-florida-office/
======
exhilaration
I ran for board of education and it was an amazing experience. I went door to
door in my small town, talked to hundreds of people, showed up at every town
event wearing my blazer and nametag with "candidate for board of education".
No BOE candidate before me had spent money on lawn signs - but they had to
after me. I gave speeches, raised money, bought voter lists from the county
and loaded them into our Oracle database at work (into my own DEV schema, of
course, this was before I had cheap MySQL hosting) to identify the folks most
likely to support me, used Google Maps and other mapping tools to map them out
for personal visits.

And then I lost, and it was crushing. On election night when I stood in the
election office and heard the precinct numbers come in one by one, I realized
I'd never failed at anything significant before. But I'd do it all again - I
will once my kids are older - it was one of the best experiences of my life.

~~~
lazyant
> bought voter lists ... to identify the folks most likely to support me

what info is on those lists that you can use to identify supporters?

~~~
exhilaration
Three things, their voting record, their party registration, and any
demographic information you can figure out.

The voter lists I've seen in NJ and PA tell you what elections voters have
voted in, so you can eliminate registered voters that don't bother to vote.
Additionally, in NJ, the school board elections were on a different date (in
the spring) than the general election, so you could really target the 3-4% of
voters who actually bothered to vote for school board.

Party registration is provided and be helpful if you want to position yourself
as the democrat or republican, even if the race is technically nonpartisan.

If you want to target particular ethnic groups (latino, south asian, korean,
chinese) you can do searches for common first or last names. Grouping by
address can help you figure if there's a family living here - you also get
date of birth - and maybe they've got a kid that just graduated from high
school and might be more interested in a particular school issue. Some basic
SQL skills can go a long way here.

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mikestew
I ran for office (Redmond, WA City Council) and got 39% of the vote, and I
didn't do nearly as much (press releases and the like) as the author did. I
showed up for the "voter's forums" and the like, and the newspaper endorsement
interviews. I spent money on yard signs, and spent many an evening putting
them out. And I went door-to-door, using voter data to better target the doors
upon which I knocked.

I do wonder how much you get for just having your name on the ballot. Here's
what I told my wife during the campaign: "meh, I'm only running so that my
opponent doesn't run unopposed. But if I weren't running against him, _I 'd_
vote for him." IOW, my opponent was a decent guy who held office for mostly
the right reasons. And I still got 39%.

Anyone can run for office, fill out the form, pay the fee. How much you want
to do after that is up to you. But if you don't have a track record (volunteer
for the Parks board, head up the local trail improvement group, etc.), you
won't get an endorsement. No one in the local political "machine" knows you.
So go buy some signs, put on your walking shoes, and start knocking on doors.
Have a few platform items that you think are important, and stick to those
without getting distracted by things like "are you an R or a D?" for a non-
partisan office. Ask questions of those you meet. What do they think is
important? Do _you_ think it's important enough to have a response?

Mainly, have fun. If you don't like meeting new people (which I don't), aren't
able to think on your feet (I am), politics might not be for you. But despite
my aversion to people, I found it fascinating and kind of fun, interspersed
with large periods of boredom.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _I do wonder how much you get for just having your name on the ballot._

Easy way to test this is to have another friend run for the same office, and
do zero campaigning.

Well, "easy"; at the very least, you'd know which paperwork to fill out given
that you're doing it as well.

~~~
lazyant
You would have to run candidates with different names, in this case we have a
Jewish name (author) running against a somewhat Hispanic name, I imagine some
percentage of people would vote just on perception of ethnicity.

~~~
pavel_lishin
That's definitely true; maybe if you know there's an anglo-sounding unopposed
candidate and you have an anglo name, you can probably find an anglo friend to
run alongside you.

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jahabrewer
I noticed that there doesn't seem to be a Republican candidate in the race.
Not to degrade the author's efforts, but I wonder how much of the vote for the
author was due to their being the only non-Democratic candidate.

Edit: I only mention this because "get 31% of the vote" is part of the
headline. Part of it may be running in a race unopposed by the other major
party.

Edit 2: My mistake, the percentage was part of the thread's original title,
not the author's chosen title.

~~~
Shivetya
if counties in Florida are like certain Northern states there are agreements
in place between the two parties to run or not run in some districts. Granted
in some there is no point to run but then that is an area where its allowed to
give the other guy face time.

Watching my cousin go over the ins and outs of moving from city to county was
more than enlightening for me, as in frustrating and aggravating. For the most
part who gets the seat is all about connections or worse, to get someone out
of the way to a place many will think them harmless. There is also "owed a
seat" mentality.

tl;dr two party politics has got to go. the level of manipulation at the local
level is shocking and more widespread than many understand. there are break
out candidates but even some of them are engineered

~~~
paulddraper
In my experience, Florida is pretty evenly divided.

Sure, there's the rural Republican areas, the urban Democratic areas,
conservative retired communities, and the liberal immigrant neighborhoods, but
I still doubt there's much of what you describe.

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civilian
I know that 31% is not insignificant but... it's not great either. If this was
an incumbent, then there's probably a fair number of people who would've voted
for _whoever_ the opposition candidate was.

I do like the idea of always running opposition candidates though, to force
the other person to raise & spend campaign funds.

~~~
mikestew
_I know that 31% is not insignificant but... it 's not great either. If this
was an incumbent, then there's probably a fair number of people who would've
voted for _whoever_ the opposition candidate was._

See my other comment somewhere in this thread: IMO, the author got their arse
kicked. I received 39%, didn't do nearly as much as the author, and I consider
that a pretty solid defeat (but conveniently just shy of what I consider an
arse kicking <g>). Somewhere there must be a study with hard numbers, but I
figure X% just because I wasn't the other guy, Y% from voters who just
randomly chose because they didn't really pay attention to the race, and 0.Z%
from those that just screwed up the ballot. Leaving me with, I dunno, 20-25%
who actually thought I was the better choice based on what they knew of me and
the conversations we had. That's not a very good number. :-)

Not to take away from the main point, though. You want to run for office? You
think you can do a better job? Then go do it. The barriers can be quite low
for local offices, a bit higher for state offices. You'll get your arse kicked
the first time around most likely. That's called "experience" and if you truly
want to hold office, you'll be worlds ahead for next time. Most importantly,
the vote is not a mandate on you as a person. I was soundly defeated, and
that's fine: the people have spoken, and they said "come back in a few years
when your better at this". Or they said, "the incumbent is doing a fine job,
we see no reason to take a chance on someone new." But I never took it to be,
"we just don't like you personally, mikestew."

~~~
civilian
One way to find the "X% you get for being the other candidate" is to look at
the Florida State Rep results:
[http://enight.elections.myflorida.com/Offices/StateRepresent...](http://enight.elections.myflorida.com/Offices/StateRepresentative/)

In two-candidate races without write-ins, the minimum that any candidate got
was 18.22%, and from scanning the numbers it feels like the median is in
mid-30%s.

//edit also if someone at a PAC is reading, what they should really do is an
analysis comparing campaign funding vs. votes received. Find the candidates
that are making the most impact with the least amount of money. The candidates
you agree with are the people who need support next election, and the
candidates you disagree with are the dark horses you need to watch out for.

------
wdr1
> I lost, but I got 31% of the vote and I only spent $3000. My opponent got
> 69% of the vote and spent $100,000.

I could be wrong, but I highly suspect that the curve connecting those two
points isn't linear, and going from 30->40% is a lot harder than going from
10->30%.

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throwaway4891a
BTW: the guy whom challenged Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the Democratic
primary (23rd _congressional_ district) (unsuccessfully, 13%)

[https://timcanova.com/](https://timcanova.com/)

[https://ballotpedia.org/Florida%27s_23rd_Congressional_Distr...](https://ballotpedia.org/Florida%27s_23rd_Congressional_District_election,_2016)

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philipashlock
For those interested in running for office in your area,
[https://www.runforoffice.org](https://www.runforoffice.org) is a great
resource to find open positions and get you started. I'm not affiliated with
them, just think they're a great cause.

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pavel_lishin
What's a Hob Nob?

~~~
mynameisvlad
From Google:

    
    
        mix socially, especially with those of higher social status.
    
        synonyms: associate, mix, fraternize, socialize, keep company, spend time, go around, mingle, consort, network, rub shoulders, rub elbows;

~~~
pavel_lishin
Shea capitalized the term every time he used it on the blog, and specifically
mentioned tables and events. It made it sound like there's a specific event or
organization beyond the generic term.

~~~
Sebguer
It looks like it's the name for a kind of straw polling / political event.
Googling it shows a bunch of events in FL, I live here and have never heard of
it, but seems to be used throughout the state.

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brianbreslin
I've been thinking about running for office in the next few years. To be
honest though I want to understand more about the roles available and where I
would benefit the community the most.

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romellogoodman
Do you think you'll run again?

~~~
SSilver2k2
I don't know. During the campaign I found out my wife is pregnant (with our
first :D ). That's such a life changing event, I have no idea what I will do
in two years time.

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wcummings
What was your platform?

~~~
pavel_lishin
[http://www.sheasilverman.com/platform.php](http://www.sheasilverman.com/platform.php)

~~~
mi100hael
Ugh, PHP is a terrible platform

:P

~~~
SSilver2k2
I chuckled :)

