Running to Lose in City Politics
What does it take to run a credible campaign for elected office?
The answer lies mostly in infrastructure. Start with a strong base of loyal volunteers to do the grunt work. Envelopes have to be stuffed, address labels and stamps affixed. Phone calls have to be made, often including the dreaded cold calls to likely voters. Neighborhoods have to be walked, doors have to be knocked, literature has to be dropped. Yard sign locations must be found, yard signs distributed and put up.
It’s all grueling, thankless work, but essential to campaign visibility, and thus to campaign viability. Making contacts with voters is hard work, and the candidate can’t do it alone.
Having a great volunteer base is meaningless unless those volunteers have envelopes to stuff, stamps to affix, literature to drop, signs to place, an office to work in. All of the above cost money. Which means after volunteers, the next prerequisite to a credible campaign is a base of donors. A good citywide campaign in Toledo costs tens of thousands of dollars. A mayoral or countywide campaign runs into six figures.
Again, the candidate can’t pay this alone. Funds must be raised from those with means who believe in the candidate’s campaign. This requires more than simply asking friends and family for donations. It takes meeting with potential donors and making a sales pitch. It also means relentless phone calls and follow ups.
In addition, a good campaign requires the candidate to show certain personal traits. The ethic to work hard on continuous development of infrastructure. The discipline to stay on task and on message, even when the pressure is the greatest. The poise to deliver the campaign message, but also the candidate’s personal story, at candidate forums and at doorsteps across neighborhood after neighborhood.
Winning and losing
In order to win, it takes being better at all these things than your opponent. It’s why political parties matter. A good party already has an active volunteer and donor base, and provides training for candidates in personal traits. The candidate must still make the inroads necessary to make the base and infrastructure their own, but the foundation is already laid.
Winning also requires that little extra. Personal charisma to win votes face-to-face. A strong, inspiring, memorable name and personal story. The support of prominent, influential citizens and institutions.
What does it take to lose? Getting enough signatures on a candidate’s petition to get on the ballot. Then building nothing, instead sitting back and watching the votes flow elsewhere.
Losing is also sometimes inevitable. Incumbent Lindsay Webb is a powerful force in Toledo’s District 5. Likewise Tom Waniewski in District Six, Peter Ujvagi in District Three. And Bernie Quilter, Wade Kapszukiewicz, and Phil Copeland at the county level, to name a few. Running against them would seem futile. In short, you would lose.
End game
But it can also be strategic to lose. Webb and Waniewski are subject to Toledo’s term limits, Ujvagi, Quilter and Copeland to Mother Nature’s. Wade has aspirations to be Toledo’s mayor.
It would make sense to run against them in order to build the infrastructure needed to win later, develop the discipline and name recognition required to win, and wait.
It would make sense. Run to lose, with an eye on winning later. So why doesn’t anyone do it?
Members of City Council could run for a county office without risking their own seats. Non-electeds could use a race against a term-limited incumbent to build their future campaigns. Yet Webb was challenged by a septuagenarian facing his own natural term limits, Waniewski was unopposed. Wade is currently unopposed.
Where are the Sandy Spangs to run for a countywide office, the Sam Meldens to challenge for District Five? Running to lose, with an eye on winning later? Where is the strategic planning?
Nowhere. Nursing their own personal ambition without seeing the larger picture. For example, Spang wants to be mayor, not county recorder. So its all trees, no forest.
Can you name who’s running against Quilter this year? Hint. Read the title.
Bernie has no fear.
