I've signed on with the Libertarian Leadership School as an assistant instructor for Campaign Management 101. My first thought, when Steve Gordon approached me about doing so, was that this was scary -- I've only got a couple of local election wins under my belt, and they're coming to me to help show people the ropes?
Then I started re-reading one of the course's supplementary texts -- Joe Trippi's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised -- and I noticed something: Trippi worked presidential campaigns for Ted Kennedy in 1980, Walter Mondale in 1984, Gary Hart and Dick Gephardt in 1988, Douglas Wilder in 1992 and Howard Dean in 2004. What do these guys have in common? None of them became president. Only one received his party's nomination for the presidency. Does that mean that Trippi isn't good? Au contraire! Trippi started off by working a winning local race. He's since worked successful campaigns at other levels ... and he gave Dean the best shot at the nomination it was possible for an "insurgent" candidate to get.
So, I'm not as scared as I was. I don't have to be Karl Rove to be involved, and the fact that I've had any success at all stands me out from most LP campaign operatives. I'm not even alone as a "dual allegiance" type -- the LLS has gone outside the LP and recruited real experts from other parties to teach other courses. Cool. So far, LLS strikes me as more evidence that the LP is getting serious about winning elections.
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Speaking of elections, one thing to consider for candidates and campaign staff: It doesn't matter which issues you or your candidate think are important. The issues that matter are the issues the voters think are important.
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Anyone else having trouble with Technorati? They say it's been 15 days since Kn@ppster updated (read: pinged them). I've done numerous manual pings during that time. I opened a support ticket circa 10 days ago, but haven't had a response. I'm assuming their indexing engine is burping on something in my template, but I haven't figured out what yet.
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