Title is self-explanatory. Seventy-some-odd people ran for governor, about eight were actually qualified. When I say qualified, I don’t mean that they are a resident, meet age requirements etc. Here is what I mean.
- Ability to raise significant money or self-fund. It takes 40-50 million to run for governor in this state, that’s just to be viable. If you can’t raise that, why would you run? It’s pointless and maybe it’s just to feed your ego.
- Have an actual platform. Sorry but lower taxes and less spending is not a platform, those are just basic talking points that have been around forever. Show me actual ideas.
- Drop the niche ideas no one cares about. A candidate I assisted years ago was all-in on a part-time legislature. That idea, while novel, appeals to CRA and central committee types only. The number of people who do not care about or understand what that means is quite a large swath of the electorate.
- Know the issues of the seat you are running for. Another candidate I helped spoke about how the school district was loaded with debt and we’re doing “another” school bond. The first door we knocked on, a retired administrator said the debt is very manageable, and we have not done a school bond before. Yikes! Credibility shot just like that.
- You could be serving as a vote siphon. Think of it this way, perhaps you are taking votes away from a more viable candidate. Look no further than the Michigan Senate primary this past week. An Isreal hating whacko came in first, look him up. He is a nut. The more sensible candidate lost by around 14,000 votes, less than 1%. A sensible third candidate who dropped out too late got around 65,000 votes. Figure most of those go to the sensible second place finisher and viola, the viable candidate moves on.
Bottom line: run for an office you think you can win. As mentioned earlier, a gubernatorial campaign will cost you 40-50 million dollars; that may be on the lower end. Senate? Ditto. Congress; probably 4-5 million depending on where you run. Assembly or State Senate; about a couple million, likely. Hard to get your message out when you have no money. A race like city council, school board, or water board may be more your speed. Start at a lower race, you may even get lucky and face no opponent. Heck water board you could win just by knocking on doors in your neighborhood.
Running for governor and congratulating yourself for getting .01% of the vote is just juvenile. Congratulations, you are the tallest midget, and your actions could have caused trouble. What if Steve Hilton missed the run off by 5,000 votes? Crazier things have happened. Saying you exceeded expectations is laughable in its own right. If your expectation was to get more than a statistical 0% of the vote what a sad, pathetic life you have.