campaign strategies

What do Randy Bryce, Amy McGrath, MJ Hegar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez all have in common? Well, if you hit the links, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. None of those are expensive 30 second TV spots. No one ever heard of any of the candidates before those videos launched them onto the public consciousness.

Above is a first rate long-form video done this week by Brave New Films on J.D. Scholten, the former baseball player-- and progressive Democrat-- running against Iowa bigot and neo-fascist Steve King. It's unlikely the ad will ever be seen on television, although it's very likely it will be seen by lots of IA-04 voters. The video and shorter excerpts from it show start appearing on social media very soon. Does that count? Oh, I think so.A campaign manager contacted me about an ad recently.

Andrew picked Chris King as his running mateEric starts with the commonly held mainstream perception that Gillum's gubernatorial primary campaign was headed straight towards failure when... out of the blue-- he won.

Eric's an old pal and I can't think of anyone better equipped top give advice on direct mail strategy. That's what he does for a living and I know almost nothing about it since I through it away along with stuff from the local grocery stores and the biweekly credit card offers from Chase.

There are very few campaign e-mails with opening, even if it's from one of your favorite candidates. The candidates don't write them and the campaign e-mail-writing industry is the most hackish piece of the political business. The e-mails can ruin the image of even the most authentic candidates.

Read any of that stuff about how most Democratic candidates don't want the Clintons campaigning for them?

-by Andy Millard"Call time." The very words extract cold beads of sweat from the forehead of many a self-respecting candidate. Yet unless you can self-fund or draw upon a financial sugar daddy, candidate call time will be a major part of your campaign.

-by Andy MillardYour campaign needs a CRM. This is not negotiable. If you don’t have one already, you’re behind the competition. Make your best selection and get started now.“CRM” stands for customer relationship management.

-by Tom SullivanOff-year mobilization is tough anytime. But while Democrats here in North Carolina still have a statewide registration edge, unaffiliated voter registration is spiking. Getting voters to turn out will be especially challenging in 2018 because there will be no national or statewide races in North Carolina. Neither U.S. Senate seat is on the ballot in 2018.

So many candidates told me that they found Andy Millard's advice to candidates column useful in July that I figured I'd share his latest as well. July was very general. This one is very specific-- the use of green screens in video-making.The video above gives you seven tips for using the green screen technique effectively. Andy shared 4 more below: