Product Details
The Campaign Manager: Running and Winning Local Elections (Third Edition)

The Campaign Manager: Running and Winning Local Elections (Third Edition)
By Catherine Shaw

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Product Description

The Campaign Manager is a clear and concise, must-have handbook that is based on the author's three terms as mayor of Ashland, Oregon, and her numerous successes in managing campaigns. Supportive of both candidates and issues, this handbook gives political novices and veterans alike a comprehensive and detailed plan for organizing, funding, and publicizing local political campaigns. Finding the right message and targeting the right voters with it are clearly explained by means of specific examples, anecdotes, and illustrations. Included is in-depth information on assembling campaign teams, precinct analysis, canvassing, and dealing with the media. The Campaign Manager is an encouraging, lucid presentation of how to win elections at the local level.

Thoroughly revised and updated, this new edition now covers campaign technology methods in every chapter, and includes expanded material on direct mail, effective yet inexpensive television spots, and how to get the most reach for your campaign dollar. Also included are updates on working vote-by-mail elections for better results, organizing your database for campaign workers and donors, and fighting negative campaigns.


Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #271469 in Books
  • Published on: 2004-05-11
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 416 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review
"I can't imagine anyone heading into the campaign trenches without a copy of The Campaign Manager!" -- Daniel M. Shea, Director, Center for Political Participation at Allegheny College

"Quite simply the best organizational tool for anyone seeking political office or working on an issue-based campaign." -- Mara Liasson, National Political Correspondent, NPR

Review

“The fourth edition of The Campaign Manager still has the useful designs and tools you’ll use every day and enough conceptual guidelines and background to help you invent your own systems when something unpredictable happens. But the elaboration of author Cathy Shaw’s methods for Precinct Analysis, new to this edition, are the crown jewel. Her rigorous model will help you or your staff deliver more actionable and sophisticated planning than most of the hundred-million dollar Presidential campaigns of the last three decades . . . and for a lot less money. No matter how new you are to the game, Shaw will make you smarter. And no matter how experienced you are at it, there are original insights and tools that will build up your effectiveness.” —Jeff Angus, Management consultant and author of Management by Baseball; former Washington state elections committee chair for the Citizens Party

Praise for Previous Editions

“Practical, witty, and fact-packed, this is the Bible of campaign management.”
—Les AuCoin, Former nine-term U.S. Congressman, Oregon

“This is an important book for anyone interested in modern campaign management. Candidates, party activists, seasoned professionals, and budding consultants will all find wisdom in Shaw’s pages. In fact, I can’t imagine anyone heading into the campaign trenches without a copy of The Campaign Manager!”
—Daniel M. Shea, Director, Center for Political Participation at Allegheny College

“Based on twenty years of experience, Shaw’s Campaign Manager is quite simply the best organizational tool for anyone seeking political office or working on an issue-based campaign.”
—Mara Liasson, National Political Correspondent, NPR

“Catherine M. Shaw’s The Campaign Manager is a comprehensive guide to all aspects of modern campaigns, from strategy to understanding voter contact techniques, to fundraising, paid and earned media, to get-out-the-vote-drives, and other important topics. It gives easy-to-follow practical advice for candidates and campaigners from someone who has held office and who has run many successful elections and issue campaigns. It outlines what is needed to win elections at the local, state and national level.” —James A. Thurber, Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University

“This is arguably the most comprehensive, insightful, and useful compendium of local campaign wisdom ever assembled.” —Phil Keisling, former Oregon Secretary of State

About the Author
Catherine Shaw served twelve years (three terms) as Mayor of Ashland, Oregon, and is currently the Chief of Staff for Oregon State Representative Dr. Alan Bates. She has nearly two decades of campaign management experience, and has taught campaign courses at Yale, the University of California, and Southern Oregon University.


Customer Reviews

More appropriate for first-time candidates and novices4
I bought this book hoping to get some ideas and insights on grassroots organizing, but I was dismayed to find that the book is much more elementary than I anticipated. It seems like a good resource for someone running for school board or a small town's council. However, if you're looking for pointers on running/managing a campaign, you may be better served by another book, perhaps Daniel Shea's "Campaign Craft." The book also fails to address the increasingly important technological aspect of modern campaigning, recommending that you keep track of your supporters via index cards. While reliable, this method is not exactly on the cutting edge of the campaign industry.

Catherine Shaw's Campaign Manger: A Blueprint for Success5
I recently finished working on a local State Senate race where we used Shaw's book as a manual for each course of action in our campaign. I was very impressed with the book's clear direction and insightful reasoning. We won our race because each step we took made sense and Shaw's book influenced our decision making process in every way. I highly recommend that anyone who thinks about running or participating in a local election reads and uses Shaw's book. We would not have been so successful without it.

Valuable Advice5
Catherine Shaw is a professional. She knows how to organize to win an election. Her book is an exhaustive but clear compendium of political organizing at the grassroots level. You will find everything you need to know about phone banks, direct mail, voter registration lists, letters-to-the editor--how each works, how effective each is, and how to trade off if you can't do it all.

The campaign I helped run and used her book in was a $5.96 million bond measure to restore and expand our historic Carnegie library. In Oregon all money measures must turn out 50% of the registered voters. Within that 50% in order to win, you must have a majority of the votes. Not an easy task.

Our campaign not only turned out well over 50% but won by more than 2:1. It couldn't have happened without that book. It's the next best thing to having Catherine Shaw at your elbow.