Managing a campaign, especially a large one, is a tremendous amount of work.  Each day is 12-18 hour days, 7 days a week.  The days can be grueling, but also extremely rewarding.

It may seem like a contradiction, but managing the campaign is also a simple life.  There is no gray area.

• The goal is well defined – must win
• You know who the good guy is -your candidate
• The bad guy is obvious – the opponent
• The due date is set in stone, well, statute
• Organize the strategy and tactic, and work backwards from the due date
• Don’t overlook a thing

Exactly 20-years ago, I was very fortunate to be given the opportunity to manage Governor John Engler’s last campaign.   The fundamentals of elections are largely the same, but I’ll take a moment to highlight a couple differences.

First, the electorate wasn’t as polarized in 1998, but still partisan, as it should be.  However, because the Democratic primary voters chose Geoffrey Fieger as their candidate, I had numerous well-known Democrats who privately shared ideas and information with me to help the Governor’s re-election efforts. 

Second, the information/news cycle was very different then.  The ’98 race was before social media (yes, Virginia, we really did have email) so the instant, and often unverified, information cycle we see today wasn’t an issue campaigns had to worry about.

In addition to having a candidate with a great story to tell, we were fortunate to have a great campaign team.  Everyone threw their heart and soul into the effort (even with a high likelihood of success given our candidate), working those 12-18 hour days, 7 days every week.  After all, that’s how you ensure success – work harder than may be necessary. 

We had a high-caliber team, most of whom are still involved in government, public affairs, and politics today.  Michigan is better off because they stayed involved.

One last indication that times change.  It turns out, we had a bi-partisan spirit at campaign headquarters.  Once the November election was over, we all went out for a staff victory dinner.  It was there I asked, “anyone who voted for Fieger in the primary, raise your hand.” I won’t say whom, but a majority of the team raised their hand. While the polls leading up to the primary election showed Fieger would likely be the winner, we didn’t want to leave it in the hands of just the Democrats. 

We didn’t overlook a thing.

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