Perils of Running for Office. Why Do So Many Do It?
Have you ever considered running for political office?
An extraordinary number of Americans have. And do. In addition to the President and Congress, the latest count is nearly 18,000 statewide and legislative offices, 17,500+ mayors, and more than one hundred thousand local offices—city councils, school boards, utility districts, sheriffs…..
For most elective offices there are multiple candidates. That’s close to a million people regularly running for partisan and non-partisan public service positions.
Why?
The Demands of Running for Office
For many, particularly if you are a first-time candidate seeking a high profile office, here’s what you’re signing up for.
Time: Whatever else you’re doing, running for office is a huge time commitment. Jobs, family, leisure activities---they all take a hit. Elections occur on a specific future date. For those on the ballot, there’s no postponing campaigns for anything else, including sick days.
Money: The average serious congressional candidate will raise and spend $3 million. Even state legislative campaigns now have big budgets. Where will that money come from? Your bank account? If not, you’re spending a lot of time essentially begging others for money. Hate that? Get used to it.
Issues: You are likely running because you feel strongly about some issues. Do you know enough about them, and other issues your voters care about, to answer questions at public events? Or to debate them with opponents? No, you likely don’t. You need to do a lot of homework.
Skills and Support You Need When Running for Office
Public speaking: How much have you done in the past? Enough to make a strong positive impression? Nimble enough to respond effectively to hostile questions? Are you as good at it as your competition in joint appearances and debates?
Staff: You almost certainly will need a campaign team. Do you personally know enough about how to run campaigns to be a good judge of hires for campaign manager, press secretary, chief money raiser, volunteer coordinator, media producer….and more? If you are the candidate with a busy travel and speaking schedule, others will be delegated to do essential jobs. Many, like you, will be doing this for the first time, maybe as volunteers. They had better be good at those jobs. Trust in them is a huge factor. They probably hold your political fate in their hands.
Nimbleness: Campaigns are difficult and dynamic management exercises. Circumstances change constantly. News, opposition moves, budgeting dependent on contributions, polls. Do you have it in you to adapt quickly while keeping control of your own campaign plan?
The Personal Risks and Pressures of Running for Office
Personal Abuse: It may be mild or severe, but without doubt, your words will be distorted, your life record will be combed for flaws. DUI when you were a teen? Divorce? Few things are off limits these days when so many candidates consider those who once were opponents now are enemies. Will your background hold up? Can you personally endure this? Can your family? All of this takes place in a public forum, where everyone you know will see it.
Pressure: How are you at dealing with pressure? Maybe you come from business where you managed to increase sales and profit over a period of years. Well, an election is a one-day sale. Coming within a per cent of the top vote is a loss, not a learning experience for next week’s marketing plan. Realization that you win or lose on a day certain creates enormous pressure on you and everyone involved as the day of judgement nears.
If all this sounds like a brutal experience, it’s meant to be because that’s what so many elections have become: High spending, no holds-barred, life-changing experiences, not for the fainthearted.
And I haven’t even mentioned the addition the new arsenal of available technocentric campaign weapons like thousands of lists that can be packaged to deliver customized media to persuadable voters, or dark money sources where you don’t even know who is contributing to defeat you.
Why People Still Choose to Run for Office
So why do so many people sign up for this?
Some, of course, don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. But I’d venture that most are savvy enough to realize the risks and decide to run anyway.
Why?
Because 250 years ago a lot or workers and farmers fought and defeated the British Army, one of the most professional and best equipped military forces on earth at the time, to win the right of self-government. And, with victory, the new nation’s founding documents became an irrevocable contract that guarantees Americans the right to determine who will govern them. And how.
For 250 years, every time that contract has been tested, it’s survived. Every generation since has taken its rights and obligations seriously. Millions of Americans have fought and died to protect it.
In 2026, hundreds of thousands of Americans who run for office and the tens of millions who vote for them at every level of government still do.
Comments? Criticism? Contact Joe Rothstein at jrothstein@rothstein.net
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