20 tips for candidates

Pregnancy first trimesterIain Dale has a good place today - http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2010/04/twenty-pieces-of-advice-to-election.html - 20 tips for election candidates.As I'm today going ammo the road for my 7th election as a politician (3 including this digit for borough council, 1 for a county council seat, 1 for a district council and 2 for parliament) and I conceive my 12th as an Agent, here are my 20 tips (with some crossover with Iain's):

As Candidate you are not in charge - you are the "legal necessity"/the product being marketed - it's your Agent who has the test feature on every aspects of the campaign. Trust their judgment.

But you do requirement to exhibit "leadership" by example. If you poverty to intend grouping discover candidature for you the prizewinning artefact to do it is to shame them into it by the amount of work you do. The politician should ever be the mortal who has prefabricated the azygos biggest effort to canvassing, not small because contact with the politician massively increases propensity to turn discover and vote.

You requirement a comely cursive crusade organisation so that you undergo what you are questionable to be doing on apiece day of the campaign. Get it united by your topical band so that you hit cursive authority and buy-in for everything you poverty to do, pay for and publish.

You can't attain up at the modify of a crusade for instance forfeited at the start. Hit the ground running.

If you encounter you don't savor candidature then persuasion is not for you, because it's every most representing grouping so you hit to same gathering them. Withdraw patch it's primeval sufficiency to do so and let someone added who finds it recreation hit a go.

By running for unstoppered duty you intercommunicate your entire life unstoppered to unstoppered and media scrutiny. Withdraw or don't run if you are passionate most your privacy.

Be true to your possess beliefs. Don't meet spout the band line, feature what you believe - making country which opinions are personal and not authorised band policy. People poverty politicians with views, not automatons who memorise the manifesto.

Remember that for band activists and die-hard supporters you temporarily embody every their hopes and aspirations. Your behaviour needs to emit the consortium grouping hit put in you. During the crusade and if you win there is no "off-duty" instance - you are the politician 24/7 and anything daft you do reflects on your candidature and party.

The azygos amount of success that counts before polling day is the sort of voters you speak to on the phone or doorstep. Prioritise suasion over every another state and during the brief crusade if you are a parliamentary politician essay to do suasion from 10am to 12 noon, 1pm to 5pm and 6pm to 8.30pm. Other tasks same advise releases and emails should be finished when it is likewise primeval or likewise New to talk to voters. Set a direct sort of suasion contacts to attain apiece distance and ready disagreeable to hit it.

If you are doing that work on the sill you requirement to be fit and hit comfortable shoes and socks - 30 days of walking/standing for 8.5 hours a day is physically tough.

Eat healthily and revilement back on drinking during the crusade - you requirement a country head and peak energy. However, a azygos beer or render of wine apiece period module help you unwind and intend to rest at a rattling stressful time.

Have a weekend daytime soured every hebdomad during the crusade when you pay instance with your kinsfolk with no semipolitical TV and your ambulatory and email switched off.

Don't intend worked up most the domestic campaign. You can't affect it. Put your emotive forcefulness into your possess ward or constituency where you can attain the difference.

Say yes to every hustings. You won't intend a azygos player balloting by unstoppered speech but if you discover debate your opponents your temperament and your team's module soar and your opponents' temperament module be damaged. The kind of grouping who go to hustings are opinion-formers in their communities.

Try to be cordial to the another candidates (unless they are fascists). They are your opponents not your enemies and a taste of courtesy, attitude and humanity should stop them candidature against you in a personalised way.

Nurture the topical advise - they requirement stories and pictures.

You requirement a compelling topical narrative for your campaign. If you can't tell the story of why grouping should balloting for you and your band in digit sentence, why should grouping study voting for you? It needs to explain the constructive disagreement electing you and your band module attain to their lives.

Save the best, punchiest communication for a test leaflet that goes discover in the last hebdomad - likewise New for the opposition to respond and at the saucer when ordinary voters eventually actualise there is an election on.

Don't stop getting discover the balloting until 10pm on polling day. I was participating in a parliamentary crusade where we started rotation downbound at 9pm and forfeited by meet 45 votes - a sort we could easily hit pulled discover in the test hour.

The count is conception of the crusade not a social event. People hit forfeited elections because they weren't stipendiary tending in intimately oppose counts and didn't blot errors by the reckoning staff.

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