6 ms·

How to run for Florida Office

203 points by SSilver2k2 10y ago

pavel_lishin 10y ago
What's a Hob Nob?
- mynameisvlad 10y ago
  From Google: mix socially, especially with those of higher social status. synonyms: associate, mix, fraternize, socialize, keep company, spend time, go around, mingle, consort, network, rub shoulders, rub elbows;
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago
    Shea capitalized the term every time he used it on the blog, and specifically mentioned tables and events. It made it sound like there's a specific event or organization beyond the generic term.
    - Sebguer 10y ago
      It looks like it's the name for a kind of straw polling / political event. Googling it shows a bunch of events in FL, I live here and have never heard of it, but seems to be used throughout the state.
- chrisseaton 10y ago
  A type of biscuit, as far as I know.
wcummings 10y ago
What was your platform?
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  http://www.sheasilverman.com/platform.php http://www.sheasilverman.com/platform.php
  - mi100hael 10y ago
    Ugh, PHP is a terrible platform :P
    - SSilver2k2 10y ago
      I chuckled :)
romellogoodman 10y ago
Do you think you'll run again?
- module0000 10y ago
  And if so, what(if any) changes would you make? Do you have any ideas after the defeat that you think would have turned the tide?
- SSilver2k2 10y ago
  I don't know. During the campaign I found out my wife is pregnant (with our first :D ). That's such a life changing event, I have no idea what I will do in two years time.
jahabrewer 10y ago
I noticed that there doesn't seem to be a Republican candidate in the race. Not to degrade the author's efforts, but I wonder how much of the vote for the author was due to their being the only non-Democratic candidate. Edit: I only mention this because "get 31% of the vote" is part of the headline. Part of it may be running in a race unopposed by the other major party. Edit 2: My mistake, the percentage was part of the thread's original title, not the author's chosen title.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  What sort of obligations would be incurred by running as a Republican? (Assuming the party would back him.)
  - akiselev 10y ago
    There are so many states each with their own unique political cultures it's very decentralized and "the party" isn't a unified entity as much as it is a group of people forced together by the historical accident of the two party system (just look at how many competing factions and ideologies there are like the tea party, evangelicals, libertarians, neocons, etc.). It's loose hierarchy that is largely held together by networks of donors and their relationships within communities. Nothing really stops you from running as a "Republican" or "Democrat" without support from party leadership except at the federal and state level because local election laws don't generally have the two party system baked into them. Assuming the local/regional party machine backs him and provides campaign funds, he'll likely be required to at least call some major donors soliciting support for other campaigns that the relevant leadership is interested in or for the party organization itself. Congressmen at the state and federal level spend an absurd amount of time doing these calls on behalf of their own and others' campaigns because those elections are expensive to fight but at the local level, the elections are far cheaper and the allegiances to parties are looser. He would have to cater to his supporters in order to get their support for the next election but he wouldn't be obligated to do anything.
    - pavel_lishin 10y ago
mikestew 10y ago
I ran for office (Redmond, WA City Council) and got 39% of the vote, and I didn't do nearly as much (press releases and the like) as the author did. I showed up for the "voter's forums" and the like, and the newspaper endorsement interviews. I spent money on yard signs, and spent many an evening putting them out. And I went door-to-door, using voter data to better target the doors upon which I knocked. I do wonder how much you get for just having your name on the ballot. Here's what I told my wife during the campaign: "meh, I'm only running so that my opponent doesn't run unopposed. But if I weren't running against him, I'd vote for him." IOW, my opponent was a decent guy who held office for mostly the right reasons. And I still got 39%. Anyone can run for office, fill out the form, pay the fee. How much you want to do after that is up to you. But if you don't have a track record (volunteer for the Parks board, head up the local trail improvement group, etc.), you won't get an endorsement. No one in the local political "machine" knows you. So go buy some signs, put on your walking shoes, and start knocking on doors. Have a few platform items that you think are important, and stick to those without getting distracted by things like "are you an R or a D?" for a non-partisan office. Ask questions of those you meet. What do they think is important? Do you think it's important enough to have a response? Mainly, have fun. If you don't like meeting new people (which I don't), aren't able to think on your feet (I am), politics might not be for you. But despite my aversion to people, I found it fascinating and kind of fun, interspersed with large periods of boredom.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  > I do wonder how much you get for just having your name on the ballot. Easy way to test this is to have another friend run for the same office, and do zero campaigning. Well, "easy"; at the very least, you'd know which paperwork to fill out given that you're doing it as well.
  - lazyant 10y ago
    You would have to run candidates with different names, in this case we have a Jewish name (author) running against a somewhat Hispanic name, I imagine some percentage of people would vote just on perception of ethnicity.
civilian 10y ago
I know that 31% is not insignificant but... it's not great either. If this was an incumbent, then there's probably a fair number of people who would've voted for _whoever_ the opposition candidate was. I do like the idea of always running opposition candidates though, to force the other person to raise & spend campaign funds.
- withdavidli 10y ago
  >I do like the idea of always running opposition candidates though, to force the other person to raise & spend campaign funds. Needing to raise campaign funds is a big issue. Some congressman feel that it's almost a full time job calling donors. I rather not have that scenario and have them actually reading and considering legislation.
  - civilian 10y ago
    Soooooo to give you an argument ad absurdum, wouldn't it be ideal to have a monarchy/dictatorship so that our leaders can spend time thinking about legislation rather than those pesky elections? Another alternative would be longer terms. Like 10-year, 20-year, or life-long terms? I'm trying to think of an honest solution to the problem you've raised and I haven't found one that seems better. Maybe donors should be more humble, and be okay with an aid-to-the-legislator calling them for money?
    - clock_tower 10y ago
      If they were consistently responsible and accountable, a monarchy or even a dictatorship would be a better option. Campaigning is overhead loss; it's not desirable in itself, but is done because the obvious alternatives for maintaining accountability are significantly worse. A high emphasis on fundraising is risky: a candidate who wins on donor money is going to be beholden to those donors (or won't get the money next election). I think there's a non-partisan case in favor of the state funding political campaigns, and limiting how much money goes into them.
      - 10y ago
exhilaration 10y ago
I ran for board of education and it was an amazing experience. I went door to door in my small town, talked to hundreds of people, showed up at every town event wearing my blazer and nametag with "candidate for board of education". No BOE candidate before me had spent money on lawn signs - but they had to after me. I gave speeches, raised money, bought voter lists from the county and loaded them into our Oracle database at work (into my own DEV schema, of course, this was before I had cheap MySQL hosting) to identify the folks most likely to support me, used Google Maps and other mapping tools to map them out for personal visits. And then I lost, and it was crushing. On election night when I stood in the election office and heard the precinct numbers come in one by one, I realized I'd never failed at anything significant before. But I'd do it all again - I will once my kids are older - it was one of the best experiences of my life.
- L_Rahman 10y ago
  Why do you think you lost?
  - exhilaration 10y ago
    When you're running on your own against incumbents who've been in office for years (decades sometimes) you've really gotta work hard and build up the kind of contact data the big campaigns have easy access too. For example, I had trouble asking for people's phone numbers so I could call them (or robocall them) on election day - that was my own weakness, I bet someone with more sales skills could have done a better job there but I'm just an engineer. I had no e-mail addresses either. I should have also visited the retirement homes in town, I only went door to door. The churches never returned my calls but I did try to visit them. Lots of factors - I'm sure my South Asian name also lost me some votes but hey, I bet I can get past that next time.
- SSilver2k2 10y ago
  Thank you for running.
  - chrisseaton 10y ago
wdr1 10y ago
> I lost, but I got 31% of the vote and I only spent $3000. My opponent got 69% of the vote and spent $100,000. I could be wrong, but I highly suspect that the curve connecting those two points isn't linear, and going from 30->40% is a lot harder than going from 10->30%.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
brianbreslin 10y ago
I've been thinking about running for office in the next few years. To be honest though I want to understand more about the roles available and where I would benefit the community the most.
philipashlock 10y ago
For those interested in running for office in your area, https://www.runforoffice.org https://www.runforoffice.org is a great resource to find open positions and get you started. I'm not affiliated with them, just think they're a great cause.
throwaway4891a 10y ago
BTW: the guy whom challenged Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the Democratic primary (23rd congressional district) (unsuccessfully, 13%) https://timcanova.com/ https://timcanova.com/ https://ballotpedia.org/Florida%27s_23rd_Congressional_District_election,_2016 https://ballotpedia.org/Florida%27s_23rd_Congressional_Distr...

203 points by SSilver2k2 10y ago

pavel_lishin 10y ago

What's a Hob Nob?

mynameisvlad 10y ago
From Google: mix socially, especially with those of higher social status. synonyms: associate, mix, fraternize, socialize, keep company, spend time, go around, mingle, consort, network, rub shoulders, rub elbows;
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  Shea capitalized the term every time he used it on the blog, and specifically mentioned tables and events. It made it sound like there's a specific event or organization beyond the generic term.
  - Sebguer 10y ago
    It looks like it's the name for a kind of straw polling / political event. Googling it shows a bunch of events in FL, I live here and have never heard of it, but seems to be used throughout the state.
chrisseaton 10y ago
A type of biscuit, as far as I know.

wcummings 10y ago

What was your platform?

pavel_lishin 10y ago
http://www.sheasilverman.com/platform.php http://www.sheasilverman.com/platform.php
- mi100hael 10y ago
  Ugh, PHP is a terrible platform :P
  - SSilver2k2 10y ago
    I chuckled :)

romellogoodman 10y ago

Do you think you'll run again?

module0000 10y ago
And if so, what(if any) changes would you make? Do you have any ideas after the defeat that you think would have turned the tide?
SSilver2k2 10y ago
I don't know. During the campaign I found out my wife is pregnant (with our first :D ). That's such a life changing event, I have no idea what I will do in two years time.

jahabrewer 10y ago

I noticed that there doesn't seem to be a Republican candidate in the race. Not to degrade the author's efforts, but I wonder how much of the vote for the author was due to their being the only non-Democratic candidate. Edit: I only mention this because "get 31% of the vote" is part of the headline. Part of it may be running in a race unopposed by the other major party. Edit 2: My mistake, the percentage was part of the thread's original title, not the author's chosen title.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
What sort of obligations would be incurred by running as a Republican? (Assuming the party would back him.)
- akiselev 10y ago
  There are so many states each with their own unique political cultures it's very decentralized and "the party" isn't a unified entity as much as it is a group of people forced together by the historical accident of the two party system (just look at how many competing factions and ideologies there are like the tea party, evangelicals, libertarians, neocons, etc.). It's loose hierarchy that is largely held together by networks of donors and their relationships within communities. Nothing really stops you from running as a "Republican" or "Democrat" without support from party leadership except at the federal and state level because local election laws don't generally have the two party system baked into them. Assuming the local/regional party machine backs him and provides campaign funds, he'll likely be required to at least call some major donors soliciting support for other campaigns that the relevant leadership is interested in or for the party organization itself. Congressmen at the state and federal level spend an absurd amount of time doing these calls on behalf of their own and others' campaigns because those elections are expensive to fight but at the local level, the elections are far cheaper and the allegiances to parties are looser. He would have to cater to his supporters in order to get their support for the next election but he wouldn't be obligated to do anything.
  - pavel_lishin 10y ago

mikestew 10y ago

I ran for office (Redmond, WA City Council) and got 39% of the vote, and I didn't do nearly as much (press releases and the like) as the author did. I showed up for the "voter's forums" and the like, and the newspaper endorsement interviews. I spent money on yard signs, and spent many an evening putting them out. And I went door-to-door, using voter data to better target the doors upon which I knocked. I do wonder how much you get for just having your name on the ballot. Here's what I told my wife during the campaign: "meh, I'm only running so that my opponent doesn't run unopposed. But if I weren't running against him, I'd vote for him." IOW, my opponent was a decent guy who held office for mostly the right reasons. And I still got 39%. Anyone can run for office, fill out the form, pay the fee. How much you want to do after that is up to you. But if you don't have a track record (volunteer for the Parks board, head up the local trail improvement group, etc.), you won't get an endorsement. No one in the local political "machine" knows you. So go buy some signs, put on your walking shoes, and start knocking on doors. Have a few platform items that you think are important, and stick to those without getting distracted by things like "are you an R or a D?" for a non-partisan office. Ask questions of those you meet. What do they think is important? Do you think it's important enough to have a response? Mainly, have fun. If you don't like meeting new people (which I don't), aren't able to think on your feet (I am), politics might not be for you. But despite my aversion to people, I found it fascinating and kind of fun, interspersed with large periods of boredom.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
> I do wonder how much you get for just having your name on the ballot. Easy way to test this is to have another friend run for the same office, and do zero campaigning. Well, "easy"; at the very least, you'd know which paperwork to fill out given that you're doing it as well.
- lazyant 10y ago
  You would have to run candidates with different names, in this case we have a Jewish name (author) running against a somewhat Hispanic name, I imagine some percentage of people would vote just on perception of ethnicity.

civilian 10y ago

I know that 31% is not insignificant but... it's not great either. If this was an incumbent, then there's probably a fair number of people who would've voted for _whoever_ the opposition candidate was. I do like the idea of always running opposition candidates though, to force the other person to raise & spend campaign funds.

withdavidli 10y ago
>I do like the idea of always running opposition candidates though, to force the other person to raise & spend campaign funds. Needing to raise campaign funds is a big issue. Some congressman feel that it's almost a full time job calling donors. I rather not have that scenario and have them actually reading and considering legislation.
- civilian 10y ago
  Soooooo to give you an argument ad absurdum, wouldn't it be ideal to have a monarchy/dictatorship so that our leaders can spend time thinking about legislation rather than those pesky elections? Another alternative would be longer terms. Like 10-year, 20-year, or life-long terms? I'm trying to think of an honest solution to the problem you've raised and I haven't found one that seems better. Maybe donors should be more humble, and be okay with an aid-to-the-legislator calling them for money?
  - clock_tower 10y ago
    If they were consistently responsible and accountable, a monarchy or even a dictatorship would be a better option. Campaigning is overhead loss; it's not desirable in itself, but is done because the obvious alternatives for maintaining accountability are significantly worse. A high emphasis on fundraising is risky: a candidate who wins on donor money is going to be beholden to those donors (or won't get the money next election). I think there's a non-partisan case in favor of the state funding political campaigns, and limiting how much money goes into them.
    - 10y ago

exhilaration 10y ago

I ran for board of education and it was an amazing experience. I went door to door in my small town, talked to hundreds of people, showed up at every town event wearing my blazer and nametag with "candidate for board of education". No BOE candidate before me had spent money on lawn signs - but they had to after me. I gave speeches, raised money, bought voter lists from the county and loaded them into our Oracle database at work (into my own DEV schema, of course, this was before I had cheap MySQL hosting) to identify the folks most likely to support me, used Google Maps and other mapping tools to map them out for personal visits. And then I lost, and it was crushing. On election night when I stood in the election office and heard the precinct numbers come in one by one, I realized I'd never failed at anything significant before. But I'd do it all again - I will once my kids are older - it was one of the best experiences of my life.

L_Rahman 10y ago
Why do you think you lost?
- exhilaration 10y ago
  When you're running on your own against incumbents who've been in office for years (decades sometimes) you've really gotta work hard and build up the kind of contact data the big campaigns have easy access too. For example, I had trouble asking for people's phone numbers so I could call them (or robocall them) on election day - that was my own weakness, I bet someone with more sales skills could have done a better job there but I'm just an engineer. I had no e-mail addresses either. I should have also visited the retirement homes in town, I only went door to door. The churches never returned my calls but I did try to visit them. Lots of factors - I'm sure my South Asian name also lost me some votes but hey, I bet I can get past that next time.
SSilver2k2 10y ago
Thank you for running.
- chrisseaton 10y ago

wdr1 10y ago

> I lost, but I got 31% of the vote and I only spent $3000. My opponent got 69% of the vote and spent $100,000. I could be wrong, but I highly suspect that the curve connecting those two points isn't linear, and going from 30->40% is a lot harder than going from 10->30%.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

brianbreslin 10y ago

I've been thinking about running for office in the next few years. To be honest though I want to understand more about the roles available and where I would benefit the community the most.

philipashlock 10y ago

For those interested in running for office in your area, https://www.runforoffice.org https://www.runforoffice.org is a great resource to find open positions and get you started. I'm not affiliated with them, just think they're a great cause.

throwaway4891a 10y ago

BTW: the guy whom challenged Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the Democratic primary (23rd congressional district) (unsuccessfully, 13%) https://timcanova.com/ https://timcanova.com/ https://ballotpedia.org/Florida%27s_23rd_Congressional_District_election,_2016 https://ballotpedia.org/Florida%27s_23rd_Congressional_Distr...