RUNNING FOR A STATE OFFICE
By
Matthew Bolte
KY Phi Beta Lambda Vice-President
Spring, 2003
1. Preparing to Run for Office
First things first, the decision to run for a state office is not an easy task. As any past
officer will tell you, it is a life-changing experience. As an officer your time devoted to
school, family, and friends will be affected. You will have less time to spend with all
these people, and you will be adding more stress in your life by challenging yourself to
do more in less time than you ever have before.
However, the benefits of holding a state office can more than make up for these
seemingly negative aspects. If you carry out your duties well enough, you will earn the
respect of all your fellow members in PBL. The ability to add such a leadership position
to your resume will benefit you for the rest of your life. Finally, the new friends you will
make as a state officer can be mutually beneficial to you for some time after, and you will
have some great fun doing it. So let’s get going!
Here are some helpful hints for anyone wanting to run:
- Ask for advice from those who love to give it. This includes current state officers,
your local chapter advisor, and the state advisor and executive secretary. Get
started asking questions early!
- Decide which position you want to run for. Perform a self-analysis to determine
which qualities you possess that would make you a great candidate for a certain
position. The listing of officer duties on the KY PBL website is a great reference
point.
- DO NOT ANNOUNCE TO THE WORLD THAT YOU ARE RUNNING!!! Not
only is this bad for your reputation should you lose, but it is against the bylaws of
the Kentucky PBL handbook. For more information about when to announce
your campaign, refer to this handbook.
2. Choosing a Campaign Manager
This is a step that most people who run for office do not give as much attention to
as they should. This is perhaps the most critical part of any campaign, and for just cause.
When you give your campaign speech, the first person the members will see is your
campaign manager, so you have to be sure that you give a good impression. Otherwise,
the members will be thinking about all the mistakes your campaign manager made during
his or her speech while you are talking.
Helpful hints for choosing a campaign manager:
- Choose someone that is respected, and can carry his or herself well. Perception is
everything when running for an elected office, and if either you or your campaign
manager give a bad impression at any time, it will leave a bad impression with the
members that will haunt you for the rest of the year.
- Public speaking is key. Your campaign manager should be someone who is as
personable as possible, and preferably outgoing and willing to meet new people.
- Professionalism is key. You and your campaign manager must keep in mind that
everything you do will be watched and critiqued by your fellow PBL members.
3. Practicing your Campaign Speech
This is perhaps the major challenge for any hopeful state officer, that of giving a
speech in front of the whole state and fielding questions from them later. As the saying
goes, practice makes perfect, so PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!!!! You can
have the greatest speech written, but if you can’t communicate it well enough, the
meaning will be lost upon the members.
Helpful hints for practicing your speech:
- Practice wherever you are comfortable at, whether it be your apartment, dorm
room, whatever the case may be. You must first be comfortable with your speech
before you can present it to a large delegation.
- Make sure you practice with your campaign manager. Listen to each other’s
speech and provide constructive criticism for each other. Remember, your
campaign manager is doing this as a favor to YOU, so be honest but kind.
- If you have access to a video camera, tape yourself giving your speech. This will
let you hear yourself as you would appear to the delegation, but more importantly
it will show you what you are doing as far as posture, stature, and physical
movements.
- Due to campaign rules and regulations, you cannot allow other PBL members,
besides your campaign manager, to see or critique your speech or any campaign
materials. If you feel you need more advice, you can always present in front of
family members in your home.
Walking the Walk/Talking the Talk
As with any campaign, you must always present yourself in a manner that is
befitting a state officer, even if not yet elected. How you handle and present yourself
before the election, regardless of whether you are elected or not, can make or break your
campaign.
Helpful hints for walking the talk:
- Always keep smiling. If you ever act like something is very bothersome, or even
someone, that will immediately send a red flag to members that this state officer
is not willing to listen to their concerns.
- Be sociable. It is your job to meet new people and let them get to know you.
Always be willing to talk and even more willing to listen to problems.
- Keep in mind that the objectives you set in your campaign are yours, and that you
must back them up. The delegates will especially be asking you questions
throughout the conference, and this means that you must have answers for all their
questions.
- Most importantly, you must be able to back up your goals with solid evidence and
at least a preliminary action plan of how you intend to accomplish each one.
Members will know you did not prepare enough for your campaign if you answer
any question with, “I don’t know.”
Follow Through
Whenever making promises, always make sure that you follow through with what
you say you are going to do. If, throughout the conference, you make promises about
anything, members will always remember what you say, even if you don’t. And if you
don’t, you can be sure they will remind YOU.
Helpful hints for following through:
- If you are the type of person that always wants to please everyone, BEWARE!!
The promises you make with members will always be remembered, so don’t make
promises that you don’t know if you can keep.
- Sometimes it is helpful to have a small diary/notebook with names of people you
meet. This will be immensely helpful when promoting your campaign, because if
you call a person by name, it creates a sense of personal trust with that member.
- Don’t forget your promises. Just because you remember it at conference, you
owe it to yourself and the rest of the members in KY PBL to follow through with
what you said you were going to do.
These helpful hints for “Running for a State Office” are just that, helpful hints.
They are by no means a definitive action plan for your campaign, and should not be used
as such. Just as each officer and campaign manager is different, don’t let what has been
done in the past influence how you think something should be done. If you think that
something should be done differently, that’s just fine. As long as you follow the
guidelines published in the KY Phi Beta Lambda handbook for running for a state office,
you will do just fine.
And finally......
Good Luck!!