I’m writing this while looking out the window of our campaign office here in downtown Raleigh. My view is a continual reminder of the task at hand, a proverbial “eye on the prize” vantage of the end goal of all our labors over the last seven years.
Last month, I resigned as Chief of Staff for Lt. Governor Dan Forest, to assume the campaign manager’s role for our run for the Governor’s Mansion in 2020.
I ran our re-elect for Lt. Governor in 2016, and our first run for the job back in 2012. The 2012 race was by far the most rewarding race in my political career. To say we won against all odds would be an understatement. At some point, I will write more about that race and the amazing journey it was for me, my family and our political team, but for now, I mention it as a contextual starting point for what has now become our formal quest for the office of Governor.
I had run eight Congressional races prior to running a statewide campaign and though good preparation for a statewide race in the general sense, the reality is, there is no preparation for a statewide race but the race itself. North Carolina is a big state and you only really realize that when you have to travel it day-in-and-day-out.
The geography, ideologies, culture, priorities and attitudes change as you move around the state- county to county. In the political “party” realm, the clicks, animosities, factions and divides, not apparent on the surface of race, become real as you start assembling your team of volunteers and supporters around the state.
It takes about six months of travel around the state and two or three visits to each county, before a campaign starts to truly learn the lay of the land and the politics of each county. It is a minefield that takes patience to navigate, thick skin to tolerate and continual commitment to the goal at hand to make it all worth it.
In our first race for LG, we traveled over 300,000 miles and went to all 100 counties multiple times. With that much travel, the state actually shrinks – it becomes more manageable in the campaign realm as your coalition starts to be built out and the foreign becomes personal, as more and more people connect you to regions you previously knew little about.
As we begin the run for Governor, in many ways, we are going back to 2012. We are not the incumbent Governor, we are the challenger. We know the state and we know a great many people, but the more people you know you realize how many more you don’t. Every day is a challenge. Every day an adventure.
I’ve never kept a journal. But as I get older (I’m 49) and as my children (3) get older, I realize that I have a cool job and one that many people know very little about. I don’t expect many people will read this blog and honestly, I’m not concerned with that. This journal is not really for them, it is for my kids. The bulk of my career in politics began before they were born and only now, my oldest (14) is starting to ask questions that shows he wants to know more about what his father does for a living.
I’m writing this journal so that years from now, when my children are adults, they can look back and read about the amazing journey their dad was on and maybe, just maybe, they will think it is cool.
At any rate, this is my story, from my perspective. This blog will not be policy based, or a political expository of my beliefs, trying to convince you of the virtue of my political positions. I am actually not that partisan of a person.
I am a campaign manager. In the grand scheme of things, there aren’t that many of us out here. I find myself in the most unique of professions, if, in fact you consider a job that can end at any election as a “profession”. The Lord has allowed me to win all the races I have been involved in, though I have never once prayed for victory. My prayer before and during each election is the same… that the Lord would bring to me the people and resources I don’t even know that I will need and to give me the wisdom to know what to do with them.
That prayer has sustained me through 12 races spanning 26 years.
What I will attempt to capture, through the written word, pictures and videos are the sights, and sounds, images and future memories of a campaign from the perspective of the campaign manager. I am more interested in sharing the human side of a campaign – what I call the “art” of the campaign.
I am a Republican, and a Conservative to boot, but as a practitioner of the art of campaigning, I can respect a well run campaign or a well placed news story or a well given speech even from the most partisan of candidates from the left side of the political spectrum. As a campaign manager, I respect other campaign managers. I think it’s an unwritten code among those of us who are very publicly judged as a success or failure on Election Day. Put it this way, when you run a campaign, you are really starting a company. You start with nothing and you are given four years to take that company public. In the case of running for Governor, we are tasked with building a $30 million business, staffing it, branding it and selling it to the general public. There is a competitor brand competing for the same market share we seek. We will spend the better part of two years building this company and the better part of the last two years liquidating it – spending down the money we raised in the most massive of marketing campaigns to launch our product on Election Day. Win, lose or draw, the day after that Election Day, the company is no more. No other business in America is run that way. That’s why it is so unique. That’s why I love it so much.
In contrast to the unwritten respect campaign managers feel for other campaign managers, this blog will provide my written respect for the profession itself, the passions that drives it, the fear of failure that fuels it, the dreams that inspire it and the people and places that encompass it – the rituals, the pageantry, the hustle, the mistakes and successes all boiled down into a few words written in real time during the midst of the biggest race of my life.
This is my story… let’s see where it goes.