Friday – 4 weeks before Election Day. Mood: Dazed and confused, tired but determined
7am: Woke with a horrible sensation in my gut that I had forgotten to do something. This is happening way too often now.
7.30am: At the laptop in pyjamas, armed with max strength coffee. Writing Focus articles. Spent 3 hours on the doorstep yesterday, so have catching up to do. Whole Focus needs to be rewritten by the end of today. Big story broke in the press. Changing lead story to reflect residents’ anger on the issue.
8.45am: Finally able to remove self from pyjamas and shower. Focus done and sent to core campaign team. Printing canvass cards for today but printer in adolescent mood and has run out of ink. Frantic phone call to colleague for assistance. Candidate whining a bit. Tolerance levels running low due to sheer volume of things to remember and do.
9.30am: Canvass cards printed? Check. Clipboards and pens? Check. Candidate badge. Check. The last clean shirt in the house? Check. Time to hit the doorstep. Except car won’t start. Lack of petrol does that. Candidate fail of epic proportions. Forgetting to cook food? Fine. I can have pizza. Forgetting to put petrol in car? Not so good. Ward has 7,000 people. Stare forlornly at car then trudge to petrol station to get fuel.
Whilst out, report random food waste collection to council. Tweet what I have seen from my campaign twitter account.
10am: Finally ready to hit the doorstep. Not raining today. Makes a pleasant change from the winter months. No more pneumonia (thanks to last action day and dogged refusal to cancel it). Spend four happy hours on the doorstep talking to residents and collecting casework. One resident tells me “you look normal, not in a suit. You get my vote.” I canvass in jeans and t-shirt. Casual, and just me. Nice to have it recognised. Have nice collection of tree roots, vandalism, potholes and broken traffic bollards to report and deal with. Heading home for rest and food.
2:30pm: Food consumed. Bacon sandwich and a Wispa. Time to deal with casework and more Focus amends.
3.30pm: Constituency website broken. Can’t publish. Grumble massively. Sat forlornly staring at to do list.
6pm: Email from colleague. Opponent doesn’t like tweet about council waste. Has emailed to half the council and anyone else who will listen. Start having thoughts about people needing thicker skins and go and get coffee before replying to colleague. Opponent also doesn’t like my blog. Says mycouncillor blog is misrepresentative as I am not a councillor. Has reported to head of legal services at council. Mutter something about Tory divine right to rule at computer screen. Opponent obviously hasn’t read ALDC page properly. #ToryFail
7.30pm: core campaign meeting. Lots of heated debate about literature and candidates getting stuff done. Tired and zoning out of conversation half the time. Need to be asleep.
11.00pm: Finally home. Coffee and toast in bed. Dog hates me. Hardly seen me all day and is sulking in his basket. Regular sighs heard coming from his direction. Feel broken.
12.00am: Final thought of the day. Can’t believe I have come this far. Never thought I would run for anything other than a bus. People on doorstep have been lovely. Colleagues helpful. Dog sullen. Would I do it again? Don’t know. Ask me on May 6th. Things might change depending on result. Have I enjoyed it so far? Massively. Do I want to win? Yes I do! Do I think I can win? Yes! How will I feel if I do win? Even more terrified than I am now.
Am I thinking about winning? No. I’m thinking about working. Where we work we win.
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7 Comments
You sound a lot better organised than when I was a first-time candidate in 2007.
However some advice from a fourth-time candidate:-
a) pick a good agent who’ll stop you burning yourself out before May 5th.
For example, my agent proofread the Focus, printed 10,000 and did the folding (without the folding machine)! She then went and delivered 5000 of the Focuses. A great agent (preferably someone who’s been through it all before eg retired councillor etc) can be a massive boon.
Look through Huddle for examples of cut-and-paste stories (although strictly speaking an election Focus needs to concentrate on purely local issues).
b) lay off the coffee, stress is bad enough without disrupting your sleep patterns. In fact I advise any candidate to take the whole of the election period in holiday leave if they are working (for the sake of their sanity!)
c) Use a twitter account for blog posts/links. Bear in mind your opponent and voters are reading it too.
d) As to 6pm, ignore email from colleague re Tory opponent. In fact during an election campaign have all incoming email and phone calls routed through your agent.
e) use your door to door canvassing data in EARS to run the Richmond Formula. This should give you an idea of:-
how you’re doing with the postal voters
how you’re doing in each polling district
who is in 3rd place (hopefully not you) to target with things like. The Tories can’t win here. A vote for the Conservatives (who came 3rd last time with 11%) will just lead to Labour winning here.
your general aim is to increase your votes and decrease the votes of the frontrunner
f) issue press releases for each item in your Focus. Also twitter about them and blog about them. Use the same text for all 4 if you’re lazy!
g) be thankful you have a “core campaign team”. Many first time candidates are expected to act as their own agent and help Lib Dem teams win in four other places at the same time!
h) prioritise casework. If 5 or 6 people on the doorstep raise the same issue, deal with it first and use the same letter to write to all of them.
i) remember all politics is local…. only thing you probably left out is rosette and Lib Dem logo on delivery bag.
P.S. Have fun and enjoy yourself, but stick to the plan. Bear in mind the other candidates will do their best to wind you up/discourage you; it’s all part of election tactics to try to elicit a reaction. Schedule some days during the election period for R&R and don’t neglect the family!
Thank you very much for your blog – and thank you John Brace for your excellent comments. I’m a first time candidate too, and it’s exciting and terrifying. I must start following your Spiderplant Land blog.
Great post
Great article Lisa,
Useful points from John Brace but don’t know what planet he is on suggesting candidates take leave for the election period. That would be so lovely! As a councillor and past candidate on many ocassions I have always taken some time off but the whole period? Sounds a bit unrealistic.
I’ve not worn a badge or rosette to canvass since 1994. I certainly don’t own a bag with the party logo on it.
These ate non-essential items.
@Ann-Marie.
I have tried it both ways as candidate working and not working. When I was a first-time candidate in 2007 I did working and being a candidate at the same time (as well as helping about three other councillors to win). This meant I came 4th (out of 5) with 9% of the vote.
If memory serves correctly employers do have a legal obligation to be flexible regarding elected councillors, however I don’t think there’s one regarding candidates.
Being self-employed I just tie up any loose ends and take paid leave for a few weeks. I do the same for the federal conferences and make up the time over Christmas and Easter (when there’s more demand in the sector I work anyway). Thankfully regional conferences are always at the weekend.
That doesn’t mean I don’t keep up with any volunteering commitments outside of the party, but working full-time, plus being a candidate, plus voluntary work would not be good.
When your opponent/s are full-time candidates, any candidate who’s working part-time (or full-time) is at a disadvantage unless you have a large enough campaign team to make up the difference (or say an agent who’s retired). Even so, campaigns need to be flexible and good communication between candidate and agent can suffer if somebody is working a 70 hour+ week (or even just 30).
@Nich Starling
Badge is just my conference ID and lanyard.
Bag was given out free at conference.
A rosette is not a necessity, but the above (bag and badge) get the public talking about our party as you are seen when out walking. Word of mouth does help the party.
It depends how much of a uphill struggle your election is. If the Lib Dem candidate got 70% of the vote last time then yes, having a rosette isn’t going to make much of a difference! Where I’m standing as a candidate has a lot of sheltered accomodation. Often people there won’t open the door to you when canvassing unless you show some ID. It also shows you are genuine and not trying to con your way inside.
If the ward you’re in is all just leafy suburbs, it’s not as important.