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Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

runforoffice.org

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Re: Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

#81

Post by namlem »

antisocial wrote: post #26
OliverJones wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. And, if you see a news report about somebody whose positions you like deciding to run ... send them a campaign contribution. Running for office is quite costly these days, and no-strings-attached contributions are really helpful. (Many contributions have strings attached. Yours doesn't have to.)

Why does it have to be expensive? This is the fundamental question we should be asking and should be trying to find solutions to.

It shouldn't be, but the only way to change that is through politics, which means working through the current system.

Re: Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

#82

Post by ryandrake »

tptacek wrote: post #30
OliverJones wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. And, if you see a news report about somebody whose positions you like deciding to run ... send them a campaign contribution. Running for office is quite costly these days, and no-strings-attached contributions are really helpful. (Many contributions have strings attached. Yours doesn't have to.)

Running for local office is not in fact all that expensive at all!

Running might not be expensive, but I bet winning is.

My wild-ass guess (not a political science major) is that voters can be bucketed into the following broad groups:

A: People who vote straight party-line, no matter what. A toad could be on the ticket and they'd vote for it.

B: People who vote for whatever name they most recognize.

C: People who actually study the candidate's positions and make a rational choice.

Generously let's say A=80%, B=17% and C=3% of voters.

Whether or not you get A's vote depends entirely on what letter is next to your name--you have no control. B's vote is expensive because you need to carpet the area with saturation advertising in order for them to remember you when they fill out the form. C is so small that it's probably not worthwhile to do the legwork. So you end up spending tons of money hoping that you can get B to tip the scale towards you. At least that's how it looks to me.

Re: Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

#83

Post by squozzer »

ryandrake wrote: post #82
tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running for local office is not in fact all that expensive at all!

Running might not be expensive, but I bet winning is. My wild-ass guess (not a political science major) is that voters can be bucketed into the following broad groups: A: People who vote straight party-line, no matter what. A toad could be on the ticket and they'd vote for it. B: People who vote for whatever name they most recognize. C: People who actually study the candidate's positions and make a rational choice. G…

The rule of thumb I was given was $1 per resident (not voter) for the office under consideration -- just to have a chance.

Re: Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

#84

Post by komali2 »

skolor wrote: post #67
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #24

This would be much more useful if they displayed some election statistics and information on incumbents and political parties. The stated purpose of the tool is: > Today, 40% of state legislature races go uncontested and the problem is worse at the local level. There is a crisis of leadership occurring in our democracy. We need more people to lead. We need more people to run for office. > Run for Office is a free ser…

This (local political action) is something I've found interesting for a while, but never enough to actually get involved. Seeing this made me look up some data for the area around me, since I was curious and the OP didn't have enough data for my area. Apparently the town council elections are coming up soon, with several slots available. If I'm reading through this data correctly, it would take about 2% of the town's…

And "becoming active" can be as simple as starting to call up local clubs, meetups, universities, whatever, and asking to speak about how you can help them in x or y if you're elected. It can be talking to your neighbors or getting in with local bars and bands (depending on the issues your position will preside over). The Los Altos city council had a seat that was won over and incumbent with a difference of like 7 votes last election, these local elections are very accessible.

Re: Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

#85

Post by tptacek »

ryandrake wrote: post #82
tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running for local office is not in fact all that expensive at all!

Running might not be expensive, but I bet winning is. My wild-ass guess (not a political science major) is that voters can be bucketed into the following broad groups: A: People who vote straight party-line, no matter what. A toad could be on the ticket and they'd vote for it. B: People who vote for whatever name they most recognize. C: People who actually study the candidate's positions and make a rational choice. G…

Running for statewide or federal office is extremely expensive. What I'm saying is, don't do that, at least for your first win. Instead, win a seat on your local library board or parks district.

Re: Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

#86

Post by rtkwe »

kibwen wrote: post #75
rtkwe wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's going to very much vary depending on the size of the jurisdiction of the office but for NC they only have state level positions which will all be full time. As far as I know anything above a very small town position will be full time.

> state level positions which will all be full time That depends on what we mean by "full-time". Here's a great wiki page regarding the amount of time each state legislature demands from members: https://ballotpedia.org/States_with_a_full-time_legislature From the stats there, there are 10 states where legislator is 80% of a full-time job (avg. salary: $68,599), 23 where it's 70% of a full-time job (avg. salary: $35,…

True but I think for the intent of the original question I think most of these offices are largely incompatible with a normal full time job. You'd likely need to be self employed or have an extremely flexible boss/employer because when you're working as a state representative or senator you won't be able to do you normal job.

Re: Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

#87

Post by tptacek »

scott_s wrote: post #50
antisocial wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a house representative, it is around 2M dollars every two years. That's 870M dollars of special interest money every two years and 7B dollars every four years. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/7-billion-spent-on-201...

Which is a problem. But I believe tptacek mean state, county town and city positions, and not necessarily in a legislative capacity.

Yes. I'm specifically suggesting not running for federal office, but instead running for local office and using that position --- which is gettable --- as a base for further influence. It's not my idea; it's something a friend of mine, who has done it, is pushing.

Re: Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

#88

Post by komali2 »

Bedon292 wrote: post #33
GeneralMayhem wrote: post #18

I know this might run somewhat counter to the point of the site, but I'd love more information about what the effective qualifications for filling the positions are. Obviously any moron can get elected, but that doesn't mean I'd feel particularly good about, for instance, running for SF Public Defender without being a lawyer, or city treasurer without any background or knowledge in finance.

I was actually thinking the same thing. Like it offered me the Attorney General position, but some quick googling shows me "...No person shall be eligible for election or appointment to the office of Attorney General unless he is a citizen of the United States, has attained the age of thirty years, and has the qualifications required for a judge of a court of record...". And I don't meet two out of three of those req…

At the very least the site should ask your age as well as your location. Otherwise, it'd show every US citizen as eligible to run for president, which obviously isn't true for anybody under, what, 35?

Re: Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

#89

Post by djrogers »

ryandrake wrote: post #82
tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running for local office is not in fact all that expensive at all!

Running might not be expensive, but I bet winning is. My wild-ass guess (not a political science major) is that voters can be bucketed into the following broad groups: A: People who vote straight party-line, no matter what. A toad could be on the ticket and they'd vote for it. B: People who vote for whatever name they most recognize. C: People who actually study the candidate's positions and make a rational choice. G…

> A: People who vote straight party-line, no matter what. A toad could be on the ticket and they'd vote for it.

Since the parents is discussing running for local office, I'm not sure why you think party comes in to play. Or perhaps this is a regional thing? In my city, party affiliations are not advertised/listed for positions such as city council, mayoral, parks board etc.

Re: Run for Office: Find all elected offices you are eligible to run for

#90

Post by bandrami »

davidw wrote: post #13

I applied as a candidate for the local planning commission because I think that restrictive zoning is driving some portion of inequality in this country, and also has a lot of problems in terms of long term financial stability (see: Strong Towns). I've never done anything like that before; we'll see how it goes.

^^ Seconding that people see Strong Towns.
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