Nuts & Bolts—Inside a Democratic campaign: Investing in women and Black power in a campaign – By Christopher Reeves (Daily Kos) / February 6, 2022
Welcome back to the weekly Nuts & Bolts Guide to small campaigns. This week, I want us to step back and look at some small and not-so-small campaigns and think about them as businesses. After we take that step back, we need to take a serious look at how campaigns can empower women, Black, Hispanic, AAPI, and other BIPOC workers, or how they can fail to do so by providing minorities only the opportunities that would be rejected by almost any white male hired into the post.
In other words: Do campaigns and some donors overvalue white men in campaign leadership roles? Do we second-guess the process when campaign leaders are not white men? Well, it isn’t just the NFL that can run into trouble for stereotyping leadership. Campaigns are made up of an organizational pyramid, and when we second-guess the authority of the pyramid, or when white men get upset about not having a say over it, we have to sit down and think about what control of a campaign means.
When your campaign is larger
It often will break down into several key areas. Your staff meetings among main staff will often be attended by a campaign manager, field director, finance director, communications director, outside consultant (for some), and you may receive reports from others. Most other workers within your campaign fall underneath one of these directors. Your campaign manager directs the group in general; your field director can handle the volunteers and paid canvassers underneath them. You can continue to reduce size based on your campaign and the race. In campaigns for a race large enough to require these positions—generally speaking, U.S. Congress, a mid- to major city mayor, large county- or region-wide positions or offices like mayor or state school board—the candidates have to put a lot of trust into their staff.
