Editorial: Serious Candidates Must Pass the Politics1 Test

Dear Candidate Demanding to Be Taken Seriously,

You’re a ‘Regular Joe’ running for public office and you demand to be heard!  You keep emailing me announcements that you’ve appointed a new webmaster for your campaign.  And you’re angry you weren’t included in a debate or a poll. 

But I’ve never actually heard of you before.  Or if I have, I don’t really know that much about you.

Do you want to know what I do?  I’ll let you in on a secret.

If you’re running for a statewide or Federal office of some sort, I will visit Politics1.com to see who exactly I’m dealing with.

For those handful of folks who aren’t familiar, Politics1 was launched by founder Ron Gunzburger in 1997 as “a non-partisan public service to promote fully informed decision-making by the American electorate. One of the pioneering political blog and news sites, Politics1 has drawn a sizable and devoted audience of political professionals, journalists, educators, and activists.”

They maintain 50 statewide pages with descriptions of candidates and links to their current websites, plus links to state and local media.  It’s not 100% accurate, because it’s maintained by hand.  But they generally do a really good job.

The site will give me a link to your campaign website, and a several word description of who you are.  It will say things like “Lakeview City Councilman, Farmer and Army Veteran” or “Former Governor, Former Congressman, Telecommunications Executive” — you get the idea.

In more than 90% of Congressional races, I can predict who will win entirely based on the Politics1 descriptions.  That’s because most Congressional seats aren’t really that competitive, so you’ll see an incumbent Republican, who is also the former President of the State Senate.  And his challenger is a Democrat who is a generic “businessman” or “former County Commissioner” and then a minor party candidate — perhaps a Green or Libertarian who is an “activist” or “IT professional” or something along those lines.

It’s not 100% reliable, but most of the time you can tell who is and isn’t serious just by scanning Politics1’s statewide pages.

When I visit the page for Michigan, for example, all three of the top Libertarian candidates are “something, something and frequent candidate” — that’s a red flag.  That means they run for things all the time and are never elected to anything. 

The term “frequent” or “perennial” candidate is basically a gigantic sign that says “THIS GUY DOES THIS ALL THE TIME, HE WON’T WIN!”

The Politics1 method works great for narrowing down contested primaries with multiple candidates in them, too.

For example, the Minnesota Independence Party has five pairs of candidates running for Governor and Lt. Governor.  Can you tell me which ones are most likley to be serious candidates based entirely on their Politics1 descriptions?

Rob Hahn (IP) – Newspaper Publisher, Ex-Radio Show Producer & Novelist
& Thomas Harens (IP) – Ex-State Rep. & Frequent Candidate

Tom Horner (IP) – Public Relations Executive & Ex-Congressional Aide
& Jim Mulder (IP) – Association of Minnesota Counties Executive Director & Ex-State Legislative Aide

Phil Ratte (IP) – Retired Mechanical Engineer & Frequent Candidate
& Gayle-Lynn LeMaster (IP)

John Uldrich (IP) – Business Consultant, College Professor & USMC Veteran
& Stephen Williams (IP) – Farmer & ’06/’08 US Sen. Candidate

Rahn Workcuff (IP) – Disabled USAF Veteran & Frequent Candidate
& Mark Workcuff (IP)

Ok, there’s a big first clue.  Three of them have websites linked and the other two don’t.  The two who don’t have websites listed also have the title “frequent candidate” added to their descriptions.  I will bet money that neither of those will be the nominee.

So we’re down to the three with websites.  Based on the descriptions, I’d say Horner and Hahn sound like the most serious of the three.  Harden’s running mate being a former State Representative gives that ticket a big boost in my superficial examination, but there’s that “frequent candidate” label again.

On the other hand, Horner is a PR Executive and former Congressional Aide… and his running mate is the Executive Director of the state’s Association of Counties.  Sounds solid.

Uldrich sounds sort of generic – a “business consultant” and professor.  Could be a successful professional or just a bored adjunct professor at a community college.  But he was in the Marines, and you definitely have to respect that service.

So I go ahead and visit the websites.  Hahn’s is awful and it’s not even clear if he’s running in the Independence primary or as an independent.  But his site is awful.

Uldrich’s site also stinks – though not as badly.  It includes WAY too much text and his resume of accomplishments is longer than George Washington’s… but it’s mostly minor stuff.  He’s documented everything that’s ever happened in his life.  Weird.

And then there’s Horner’s site.  It looks far more professional than the others.  It includes stories that show he’s polling well (18%) against the Republican and Democrat, and it also mentions the Independence Party convention endorsed him. 

Clearly Horner will be the party’s nominee — barring anything weird (like South Carolina) in the upcoming primary. 

In races with a few candidates, you can’t pick winners based entirely on the descriptions.  But you can narrow it down and then the websites will usually do the rest of the work for you.

So now you know.  And I’m positive that I’m not the only media-type person who does a quick Politics1 check every time they see a new candidate’s name pop up on the radar.

The bottom-line lesson of it all, though, is that if you want to be taken seriously you need to have some resume items that support and bolster the arguement for your election.

Seems like common sense, but it’s surprising how often candidates fail to realize that.