I can’t speak specifically about American politics, but I work for the equivalent of the democrats in the European Parliament and participate actively in municipal politics, which probably carries some resemblance.
The biggest barrier you have to overcome is getting your political party to agree you would be the best person to represent them in office. Join the political party you feel most closely aligned with and start showing up for its local events. You’ll be surprised at the influence you can have on local politics just by showing up.
Your most difficult task is to convince your fellow party members to put their trust and weight behind you. Why should I support you? I need to instinctively feel that you’ll represent my interests and keep me safe, before I’m spending a minute volunteering for your campaign.
If you can do this, you’ll be able to figure out the rest as you go along.
I personally do understand how political careers work in Berlin where I’m living, but I don’t think you can easily transfer that to the US.
In a political system where the local political party controls the list of candidates, it’s indeed central to interact with the local party.
In the US you frequently have situations where there are primaries that determine the candidates of a given party which produces different incentives. That dramatically reduces the political power of the actual political parties.
One example is that it was advantageous for Obama to end Dean’s 50 state strategy that provided local funding all over the US because Obama didn’t have direct control over the party. Obama campaign created their own campaign structures independent from the democratic party that could then be used more directly to mobilize for the interests of the Obama administration.
The running in-line with a political party is a great point for anyone in America. The successes of third-party candidates are rare enough, that the rational first step to take is probably always joining one of the two parties.
Most Americans who would consider running for office are already a member of a political party. Unlike in many (most? all?) other countries, where joining a political party is a separate act of engagement and commitment to the party, in the US it is a standard part of voter registration. Depending on the state, it may or may not determine which primary elections one is eligible to vote in, but I believe it always at least determines which primaries one is eligible to run in (i.e., a candidate in the Republican primary must be a registered Republican). However, registering, or indeed winning, as a primary candidate does not require the support or even permission of the party apparatus at large, and after the primary, the party is likely to support the winning candidate regardless of prior engagement with the party. Donald Trump is a high-profile recent example.
However, in my most recent US state of residence (Oklahoma), most local politics are technically non-partisan; the party affiliation of candidates for positions like city council and mayor are not listed on the ballot, and the party apparatus is not involved. Most of the candidates, like other politically engaged Americans, are in fact registered as members of one party or another, and it’s not hard to figure out which one since voter registrations are public information, but they may not have any deeper connection to their parties, are not funded by them, and are not in any real sense representing them. Consequently, I would say that forming deeper ties to the party is not necessarily an important step at that level of politics (source: I have two friends who are city councilors for different Oklahoma cities in the 100k-500k population range.) I’m not sure to what extent this generalizes to other jurisdictions.
I would say that the most important thing in running for office is forming connections: to potential voters, volunteers, donors, endorsements, etc. Engagement with the party apparatus is one way to get those connections, but far from the only way. Unfortunately, my experience in my friends’ campaigns is too peripheral to be able to answer the more specific questions.
I can’t speak specifically about American politics, but I work for the equivalent of the democrats in the European Parliament and participate actively in municipal politics, which probably carries some resemblance.
The biggest barrier you have to overcome is getting your political party to agree you would be the best person to represent them in office. Join the political party you feel most closely aligned with and start showing up for its local events. You’ll be surprised at the influence you can have on local politics just by showing up.
Your most difficult task is to convince your fellow party members to put their trust and weight behind you. Why should I support you? I need to instinctively feel that you’ll represent my interests and keep me safe, before I’m spending a minute volunteering for your campaign.
If you can do this, you’ll be able to figure out the rest as you go along.
I personally do understand how political careers work in Berlin where I’m living, but I don’t think you can easily transfer that to the US.
In a political system where the local political party controls the list of candidates, it’s indeed central to interact with the local party.
In the US you frequently have situations where there are primaries that determine the candidates of a given party which produces different incentives. That dramatically reduces the political power of the actual political parties.
One example is that it was advantageous for Obama to end Dean’s 50 state strategy that provided local funding all over the US because Obama didn’t have direct control over the party. Obama campaign created their own campaign structures independent from the democratic party that could then be used more directly to mobilize for the interests of the Obama administration.
Hey, thanks for the insight.
The running in-line with a political party is a great point for anyone in America. The successes of third-party candidates are rare enough, that the rational first step to take is probably always joining one of the two parties.
Most Americans who would consider running for office are already a member of a political party. Unlike in many (most? all?) other countries, where joining a political party is a separate act of engagement and commitment to the party, in the US it is a standard part of voter registration. Depending on the state, it may or may not determine which primary elections one is eligible to vote in, but I believe it always at least determines which primaries one is eligible to run in (i.e., a candidate in the Republican primary must be a registered Republican). However, registering, or indeed winning, as a primary candidate does not require the support or even permission of the party apparatus at large, and after the primary, the party is likely to support the winning candidate regardless of prior engagement with the party. Donald Trump is a high-profile recent example.
However, in my most recent US state of residence (Oklahoma), most local politics are technically non-partisan; the party affiliation of candidates for positions like city council and mayor are not listed on the ballot, and the party apparatus is not involved. Most of the candidates, like other politically engaged Americans, are in fact registered as members of one party or another, and it’s not hard to figure out which one since voter registrations are public information, but they may not have any deeper connection to their parties, are not funded by them, and are not in any real sense representing them. Consequently, I would say that forming deeper ties to the party is not necessarily an important step at that level of politics (source: I have two friends who are city councilors for different Oklahoma cities in the 100k-500k population range.) I’m not sure to what extent this generalizes to other jurisdictions.
I would say that the most important thing in running for office is forming connections: to potential voters, volunteers, donors, endorsements, etc. Engagement with the party apparatus is one way to get those connections, but far from the only way. Unfortunately, my experience in my friends’ campaigns is too peripheral to be able to answer the more specific questions.