Elections Transcend Lobbying

Build teams NOW; Change your world, tomorrow.

I have been a lobbyist for many decades. As a lobbyist for the right to life issue, and advocate for the medically vulnerable, it is very common to experience opposition. Expect it.

After years of working in public policy one thing is clear: who you elect determines the policies you get. It really is that simple.

Getting elected to public office and becoming a decision maker is a very difficult task. One must be willing to risk their reputation and sometimes their own money, as well as the money of others to secure that position. You need to put it all on the line. As America’s Founders stated in the Declaration of Independence, they needed to ‘pledge our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

Therefore, any successful election, whether local School Board; City Council; County Supervisor, state legislative or statewide office; Congress, or even the Presidency, requires sacrifice and a team who will sacrifice with you. Candidates need all the help they can get. Elections are won not simply by the candidate but by a whole team involved and committed to their success.

That’s what happens in elections. That’s how civics works.

With rare exception participants in the political process have very clear ideas about why they’re involved. These team members who have put the candidate in place will logically have an inordinate influence and access to that candidate’s ear.

Years ago, I met my then State Assemblyman, Dan Hauser. I introduced myself when I went to his office in the State Capitol. As his constituent, he was glad to see me. I told him the town I was from. We both were from California’s long North Coast; me from the more populous Sonoma County, he from the more distant Humboldt County. But as a constituent he was very pleased to talk with me and wanted to know what was on my mind.

He was a nice guy, affable. After a brief discussion of my policy concerns, he did me a favor. He spelled out political reality. “Let me do you a favor,” he said. “I am on the board of Planned Parenthood for Humboldt County.” He smiled. He looked me in the eye kindly. He was instructing me in how politics really works.

“Lobbying” is always prefaced by elections. Elections matter.

The Supreme Court recently brought that home on the abortion debate. The Dobbs decision clearly states that the laws regarding abortion are to be determined, “by the people themselves, through their elected representatives.”

Get it?

You own the process.

All elected office holders got there because there is a team with whom they are involved. You may or may not know the team. But that team is responsible for them holding office. That team literally put them in office. That is civics. That is politics. That is life.

Whatever policy positions you care about, you should know there are people on the other side of that position. And no matter how much you ‘lobby’, how eloquent or friendly or relational or personally valid your concerns, (good lobbying skills, all) if the people on the candidates own ‘team’ have conflicting concerns, their arguments will always be ‘superior’ to yours. They will have his or her ear. They put him or her there.

You need to put your friends there.

Elections transcend lobbying.