By Menachem Wecker
Politicians offered veterans a wide range of advice on getting elected to public office at the two-day campaigning boot camp hosted at GW Feb. 11 and 12.
While Beau Biden, son of the vice president and Delaware attorney general, said lawn signs were not the path to getting elected, Sen. Mike Enzi, B.B.A. ’66 (R-Wyo.), cited signs (and ice cream socials) as effective campaign strategies.
“Please never use the phrase ‘People are encouraging me to run’ like you are George Washington or something,” Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) told the audience. But Mr. Enzi said at least once that he ran for office because family, friends and colleagues told him to.
Mr. Enzi also advised the 50 aspiring public servants in the room to work their way up from local to national politics, while Mr. Rooney encouraged the audience to apply “where you feel more comfortable.”
But the speakers at the training session, which is the third to be organized by Veterans Campaign, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization housed in GW’s Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service, agreed on a few things.
Candidates who are veterans should not campaign solely or primarily on their military service, the speakers said. “If you run just on your military service, I think you are missing out on part of the character you possess,” said Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), the most senior enlisted soldier serving in Congress. “You don’t want to become a one-trick pony.”
Mr. Rooney, who is a former U.S. Army judge advocate general and West Point instructor, said pictures of him in uniform might appear three-clicks deep on his website, but only for historical purposes. Though he drew upon his military experience in his campaign, he did not let it define him. “I called everybody ‘sir’ or ‘madam,’” he said. “I conducted myself like I was in the military.”
Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.), who is not a veteran but said many of her relatives served in the military, said passion is both the most important campaign strategy and the most important thing to look for in staff and volunteers.
“You can’t pay people to do what loyal supporters do for you,” she said.
Mr. Biden told the audience he wanted to briefly address two points. “We need you to continue to serve,” he said, “and only do that if there’s an issue that you think is worth losing an election over.”
Though a successful lawyer and state attorney general, Mr. Biden said he is most proud of his service as a judge advocate general in the Delaware Army National Guard and as an Iraq War veteran. “That means you’ve already done the thing you will be most proud of in your life,” he told the audience members who had served in the military.
Mr. Enzi, a veteran who served in the Wyoming Air National Guard and chairman of the Senate Air Force Caucus, said it is “incredibly important” to support nonpartisan forums, like the boot camp, that encourage veterans to run for office.
But campaigns are not easy, he cautioned. “You will get the best background check you’ve ever had,” he said. “Politics is a full contact sport.”
When he came to GW as a student, Mr. Enzi was interested in joining the Foreign Service and majored in accounting, he said. Though he loved the access to the museums and libraries in the District, he itched to return to Wyoming and to work in the shoe business he’d left to come to school.
Mr. Enzi said he still has a copy of the six-page letter he wrote to GW turning down a scholarship for graduate school he had received, which required a commitment to working in politics for two years following graduation, because “I’d never be in government.”
When he discussed campaign strategies, Mr. Enzi got specific. When hosting an ice cream social, he said, make it 5 or 5:30 p.m. If it’s too late, people go home and eat dinner and watch television, and they won’t want to come back out.
When visiting a home for senior citizens, show up at 11:30 a.m. and leave at noon, Mr. Enzi said, because the residents will start congregating for lunch at 11:30, but by the time the food is served, they won’t appreciate politics getting in the way of their lunch.
He also recommended asking volunteers to donate $5 and residents in conspicuous places to post lawn signs, because people who have signs in their yards and donate money will vote for you, he said.
When his children told him they were tired of picking up discarded brochures at his rallies, Mr. Enzi asked them what they recommended. They suggested printing short messages on Laffy Taffies, which worked well until Mr. Enzi was campaigning for a Senate seat. Then he needed to upgrade to bubble gum, his children told him. “Bazooka gum for a strong national defense,” they told him.
Not only is it important to listen to young people’s suggestions, according to Mr. Enzi, but it is also important to speak to them.
“If you can direct what you say to a fourth-grade level, even senators will understand,” he said.