The Campaign Manager: Running and Winning Local Elections (Campaign Manager: Running & Winning Local Elections) [Paperback]

Catherine Shaw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 2009 | Series: Campaign Manager: Running & Winning Local Elections

Featuring invaluable insight from an expert author, The Campaign Manager offers the most comprehensive guide for organizing, funding, publicizing, and winning local political campaigns. Author Catherine Shaw draws on experience from her three terms as mayor of Ashland, Oregon, and dozens of campaigns to provide practical, proven advice, and her field-tested methods carry candidates through the entire process. The fourth edition offers expanded coverage of key concepts—including targeting voters, evaluating media effectiveness, setting fundraising budgets, using and developing Internet resources, and organizing get-out-the-vote efforts—and a new appendix with a step-by-step guide to precinct analysis. Other useful resources include the latest census data reflecting voting and voter shifts over the past six years; and current information on initiative, referendum, and recall requirements. Brimming with clear, concise wisdom, The Campaign Manager is the best way to kick-start a local campaign.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“With the experience of serving as a mayor and a chief of staff in the Oregon Legislature, Shaw … presents a solid, comprehensive approach to managing local campaign—from observing the “ten commandments of campaigning” to avoiding the “cardinal sins” of electioneering. Written in as easily comprehensive and systematic approach, Shaw’s book gives the reader the vital tools and components to not just strategize but also implement a modern local campaign.” –Choice

 

“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 University, the University of California, and Southern Oregon University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Westview Press; Fourth Edition edition (December 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813344514
• ISBN-13: 978-0813344515
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Government     > Civics

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More appropriate for first-time candidates and novices, February 17, 2002

By 

James Nail (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Campaign Manager : Running and Winning Local Elections (Paperback)

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.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Catherine Shaw's Campaign Manger: A Blueprint for Success, December 9, 2004

By 

K Charles Dodsonni "DC Born" (VA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Campaign Manager: Running and Winning Local Elections (Third Edition) (Paperback)

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.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Advice, April 10, 2000

By 

Barbara Ryberg (Ashland OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Campaign Manager : Running and Winning Local Elections (Paperback)

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.