6th Edition
The Campaign Manager Running and Winning Local Elections
Everything you need to know about Vote by Mail!
Successful campaign manager and three-term mayor of Ashland, Oregon, Catherine Shaw presents the must-have handbook for navigating local campaigns. This clear and concise handbook gives political novices and veterans alike a detailed, soup-to-nuts plan for organizing, funding, publicizing, and winning local political campaigns. Finding the right message and targeting the right voters are clearly explained through specific examples, anecdotes, and illustrations. Shaw also provides in-depth information on assembling campaign teams and volunteers, canvassing, how to conduct a precinct analysis, and how to campaign on a shoestring budget. The Campaign Manager is an encouraging, lucid presentation of how to win elections at the local level.The sixth edition has been fully revised to include new and expanded coverage of contemporary campaign management-from digital ads and new social media tools to data-driven voter targeting tactics and vote by mail strategies.
Preface
How to Use This Handbook
The Ten Commandments of Campaigning
The Cardinal Sins of Campaigning
1. Precinct Analysis: The Sinners, the Saints and the Savables
2. The Campaign Team and Volunteer Organization
3. The Campaign Brochure
4. Digital and Social Media
5. Fundraising
6. Lawn Signs
7. Targeting Voters
8. Media
9. The Candidate
10. The Issue-Based Campaign
11. Getting Out the Vote (GOTV)
12. The Campaign Plan
13. After the Ball
Afterword
Notes
Appendix A: Conducting a Precinct Analysis
Appendix B: Campaigning on a Shoestring
Biography
Catherine Shaw served twelve years (three terms) as mayor of Ashland, Oregon, and four years as a member chief of staff in the Oregon legislature. She has over two decades of campaign management experience, and has taught campaign courses at Yale, the University of California, and Southern Oregon University.
Anyone running for a local elected office will find this title a valuable resource for organizing and running a campaign.
Library Journal
Local office is where most candidates launch their careers, and The Campaign Manager is one of the books they should read before jumping in.
Campaigns and Elections, "Ten campaign books everyone should read"
I can't imagine anyone heading into the campaign trenches without a copy of The Campaign Manager!
Daniel M. Shea, Colby College
A comprehensive guide to all aspects of modern campaigns, from strategy to understanding voter contact techniques, to fundraising, paid and earned media, to get-out-the-vote-drives.
James A. Thurber, American University
Practical, witty, and fact-packed. This is the bible of campaign management.
Les Aucoin, Former US Congressman from Oregon
Arguably the most comprehensive, insightful, and useful compendium of local campaign wisdom ever assembled.
Phil Keisling, Former Oregon Secretary of State
Thinking of running for local office? Stop, and buy this book. It will tell you how to win, or at least what you must do if you want to win. Just as important, it will tell you when you are wise not to run.
Mark Carl Rom, Georgetown University
Shaw presents an excellent how-to guide for the prospective campaigner. From strategic orientation to voter targeting to media, Shaw provides a step-by-step process to getting a campaign off the ground.
Chapman Rackaway, University of West Georgia
Shaw's book should be read by all persons interested in entering elective office at the local level. It is also an excellent supplementary text for a course on American political campaigns. One of its major strengths is the focus on local political campaigns, which are often overlooked when presidential and statewide elections are held. It is the definitive guide to campaigning at the local level.
Raymond Scheele, Ball State University
Quite simply the best organizational tool for anyone seeking political office or working on an issue-based campaign.
Mara Liasson, NPR
