dget, Finance Plan, and Timeline (Trost and Grossmann, 20)
The strategic plan must first determine what kind of contest the political campaign is going to be: is the campaign going to be about change or about maintaining the status quo? At their very core, campaigns are about two (or more) different candidates offering their different conceptions of what the future should be. Incumbents often argue that voters should allow them to finish what they started. Challengers often argue that a new direction is needed, advancing different approaches to solving the problems facing the community. In the end, the campaign will center around the candidates vision of the community. It is important to know what exactly that vision is from the outset (Trost and Grossmann, 20).
It is also important to know what the electoral context of the race is. Are their other elections being held at the same time? Voter turnout is often higher during presidential elections than during off-year elections. This has serious implications for campaign strategy, because it directly affects the number of votes a candidate must turn out. The degree of partisanship in the electoral community is important. Is the candidate completely tied to his or her party? Or, is the candidate nonpartisan and thus able to make alliances and accrue endorsements from both sides? These are important questions that must be asked and answered (Trost and Grossmann, 21).
The campaign manager must also be sensitive to the general electoral climate. Sometimes, local contests can be directly affected by the prevailing sentiment of the electorate. This is relatively rare, but it does happen and campaign managers must be aware of the prevailing political winds. In 1994, disaffection with the Clinton Whitehouse led to a stunning victory at the polls for Republican candidates at all levels of government (Trost and Grossmann, 21).
Campaign managers must understand th...