By Carl Silverberg

I’ll be the first to admit it. When you elect Members of Congress, Senate and Presidents of countries you start to believe your own hype. A couple of months ago there was an opening on the City Council where I live and I figured, how hard could this be so I put my name in as a candidate for the appointment.

Up until now, I’ve always been the one developing the strategy, managing a campaign or raising the money. I found out that life as a candidate is a lot different.

The first thing that happens is you lose that objectivity and detachment so vital to any political campaign. About a week after I decided to get in the race, my son-in-law asked me the question that I’ve probably asked well over 100 candidates in my career; why do you want to run for office? About 30 minutes later my oldest daughter, a PR consultant, came in the room and told me that her husband said we needed to talk.

I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve asked that question, gotten the answer and then said to someone, “no, that’s what people like me tell people like you what you are supposed to say. I want you to tell me the truth. Why do you really want to run for office?” Yet, when I had the opportunity, after almost 27 years in politics, I came up with the same standard answers.

I had my campaign plan for November all worked out. Reach out to all my friends; ask them to send out emails about my running. Get in touch with people I knew who were part of different social groups, religious groups, people who were in book clubs, people who were in the PTA, etc. They would each be my point person to that voting bloc.

Then I would figure out who voted in two of the last three elections, target the ones who were Democrats with one piece of literature when I knocked on doors and target the ones who were independents with a different piece when I knocked on their doors. I was even going to persuade one of my friends who does data mining to use this as a test case and see if data mining could be effective in a local political campaign. If so, before I even walked up to someone’s door I would know if they were an environmentalist, an arts patron, what charities they contributed to and even what kind of restaurants they liked. Armed with that kind of information, it’s a lot easier to generate a conversation and persuade someone to vote for you; a lot easier than a simple, “I want to make this a better community” pitch. And I absorbed myself into the policy debates on Mercer Island as well as figuring out which opinion leaders I would want to have supporting me.

I prepared for my meetings with each Councilmember with the same zeal that I used to prepare so many other candidates. All that background information; what to say, how to frame it, what they cared about, what their profession was, where they grew up and went to college, right down to knowing how many children they had. I had everything down to a science including what issues I would push and which issues I would use against my opponent in November.

And as the public interview sessions came up, I prepped for 20 questions that I figured were reasonable, knowing that at best I’d be asked 6 or 7 and only one was likely to be a surprise. My presentation came off very smoothly as I didn’t use any notes because I already had the answers prepared. I got a lot of kudos for my performance. Then a funny thing happened. The City Council appointed someone else. After going through all that work, they thought that someone else was more qualified.

That’s when I realized how my clients felt when they lost their first race. And as I began to finalize my campaign plan for November, I realized that maybe I didn’t really want to run for office. Being an elected official was a great idea.

Spending the next nine months attending at least two or three meetings a week, going to events wherever I could find them, reaching out to all those voting blocs, visiting the nursing homes each month, entering all the names into a database, developing the weekly social media activities and knocking on doors every Saturday and Sunday from May through October just didn’t seem as appealing as it once did. Because when you consult with or manage a campaign, you’re not the one who is constantly in front of people asking for their support. You’re selling the product; you’re not the actual product.

When you’re a candidate, everyone you meet and everyone you talk with and everyone you see is a potential vote. When you manage a campaign, it’s your job to put the candidate in touch with all those people. They have to listen to all those people, you don’t.

In the end, I learned what I already knew but didn’t truly process. That elected officials really have two completely separate set of job skills. One job description is that of a political candidate. The other job description is that of a policy initiator. If you’re only good at one, you don’t stay in office very long. I have a much deeper appreciation now for my clients and a much deeper understanding for just how difficult it is to be a candidate.

When a friend of mine asked me why I wasn’t running in November I answered, “If I have to spend 15 minutes listening to every single person I meet over the next nine months they’ll be delivering a barrel of Xanax to my house.”

Reach Mr. Silverberg at carl@silverbergassociates.net.