Editorial

Atten­tion all cam­paign­ing candidates!

Once upon a time there was a reporter that would find out who all the can­di­dates were from the Craw­ford County Board of Elec­tions and call each one up for an inter­view. Alas, we are no longer staffed enough to do this.

But, you can still get the word out in our newspaper.

First, send your infor­ma­tion to us with a photo so peo­ple rec­og­nize you and we can get it in — ONE TIME. If you want it in fast, copy and paste all the text into the body of your email and attach the photo as a jpeg.

Sec­ond, you can also write a let­ter to the edi­tor intro­duc­ing your­self to the com­mu­nity and tell them why they should vote for you. We would also love it if you bought an ad.

Third, get all your fam­ily and friends to write let­ters to the editor.

The best cam­paign­ing I have seen takes an invest­ment of time. Can­di­dates need to go to where the peo­ple are. Go to restau­rants, gas sta­tions, carry-outs, bars, the­aters, auto repair shops, gro­cery stores, dry clean­ers, laun­dro­mats and thrift stores. Meet peo­ple. Hand them a paper with infor­ma­tion about you and smile. The only thing that’s going to cost you is time, a lit­tle ink on paper and a few miles on your car. But it will be worth it. Peo­ple don’t vote for yard signs. They vote for peo­ple they know.

When my local town­ship was elect­ing town­ship trustees I voted for the one that took the time to drive up my 660-foot gravel dri­ve­way, knock on my door, intro­duce him­self and shake my hand. He won the election.

Lastly, go to pub­lic meet­ings and intro­duce your­self. I can’t guar­an­tee that all news­pa­pers will do what I do, but when a can­di­date shows up at a pub­lic meet­ing that I’m cov­er­ing and signs that slip of paper request­ing talk time, I include it in my story. Even if the other news­pa­per doesn’t include it in their story, you have met a bunch of peo­ple that you will ulti­mately be work­ing with.

NOTE: You have until March 1 to send in your opinions.

Posted by Rachel Mendell on Feb 27 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.