Politics is as old as humankind and is not limited to democratic or governmental institutions. Some examples of campaign are: the effort to execute or banish Socrates from Athens in the 5th century BCE, the uprising of petty nobility against John of England in the 13th century, or the 2005 push to remove Michael Eisner from the helm of The Walt Disney Company. Any campaign is made up of three elements. The modern mnemonic is message, money, and machine. The message is a concise statement saying why voters should pick a campaign. Simple examples might include: "John Doe is a business man, not a campaign. His background in finance means he can bring fiscal discipline to state government." "As our society faces a rapid upswing in violent crime and an ever worsening education system, we need campaign leaders who will keep our streets safe and restore accountability to our schools. John Doe is that leader." "Over the past four years, John Doe has missed over fifty City Council meetings. How can you lead if you don't show up? Jane Doe won't turn a blind eye to the campaign." The message is one of the most important aspects of any campaign. The habit of modern Western media outlets (especially radio and television) of taking short excerpts from speeches has resulted in the creation of the term "soundbite". In a modern campaign, the message must be carefully crafted before it is spread. Major campaign will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on opinion polls and focus groups in order to figure out what message is needed to reach a majority campaign on Election Day. Campaign Fundraising techniques include having the campaign call or meet with large donors, sending direct mail pleas to small donors, and courting interest groups who could end up spending millions on the campaign if it is significant to their interests. Finally, 'machine' represents human campaign, the foot soldiers loyal to the cause, the true believers who will carry the run by campaign activists. Successful campaign usually require a campaign manager and some staff members who make strategic and tactical decisions while volunteers and interns canvass door-to-door and make phone calls. Large modern campaign use all three of the above components to create a successful strategy for election victory. A campaign team (which may be as small as one inspired individual, or a heavily-resourced group of professionals) must consider how to communicate the message of the campaign, recruit volunteers, and raise money. Campaign advertising draws on techniques from commercial advertising and propaganda. The avenues available to campaign when distributing their messages is limited by the law, available resources, and the imagination of the campaign participants. These avenues include: These methods are often combined into a formal strategy known as the campaign plan. The plan takes account of a campaign goal, message, target audience, and resources in order to lay out a blueprint for election victory. The campaign will typically seek to identify supporters at the same time as getting its message across. These identified supporters are then sent additional information requesting their active support. They are asked to "join" the campaign by donating money, doing volunteer work, writing letters to the media, voting in a particular way, and generally assisting the cause. Ongoing campaign can become entrenched as institutions, charities, or political parties. Conversely, existing organizations may use campaign to remain active, or to advance interests. Compared with the relatively short campaign of other democracies such as the United Kingdom, major campaign in the United States can be marathons. Campaign start anywhere from several months to several years before election day. The first part of any campaign for a candidate is deciding to run. Prospective candidates will often speak with family, friends, professional associates, elected officials, community leaders, and the leaders of campaign parties before deciding to run. Candidates are often recruited by campaign parties and interest groups interested in electing like-minded politicians. During this period, people considering running for office will consider their ability to put together the money, organization, and public image needed to get elected. Many campaign for major office do not progress past this point as people often do not feel confident in their ability to win. Once a person decides to campaign, they will make a public announcement. This announcement could consist of anything from a simple press release to concerned campaign outlets to a major media event followed by a speaking tour. It is often well-known to many people that a campaign will run prior to an announcement being made. Campaign will often be announced and then only officially "kicked off" months after active campaigning has begun. Being coy about whether a campaign is planned is often a deliberate strategy by a prospective campaign, either to "test the waters" or to keep the media's attention. One of the most important aspects of the major American campaign is the ability to raise large sums of money, especially early on in the race. Campaign insiders and donors often judge Campaign based on their ability to raise money. Not raising enough money early on can lead to problems later as donors are not willing to give funds to candidates they perceive to be losing, a perception based on their poor fundraising performance. Also during this period, campaign travel around the area they are running in and meet with voters; speaking to them in large crowds, small groups, or even one-on-one. This allows voters to get a better picture of who a campaign is than that which they read about in the paper or see on television. Campaign sometimes launch expensive media campaign during this time to introduce the candidate to voters, although most wait until closer to election day. Campaign often dispatch volunteers into local communities to meet with voters and persuade people to support the campaign. The volunteers are also responsible for identifying supporters, recruiting them as volunteers or registering them to vote if they are not already registered. The identification of supporters will be useful later as campaign remind voters to cast their votes. Late in the campaign, campaign will launch expensive television, radio, and direct mail campaign aimed at persuading voters to support the campaign. Campaign will also intensify their grassroots campaign, coordinating their volunteers in a full court effort to win votes. Campaign Consultants Campaign in the United States are not merely a civic ritual and occasion for campaign debate, but a multi-billion dollar industry, dominated by professional campaign consultants using sophisticated campaign management tools, to an extent far greater than elsewhere in the world. Though the quadrennial presidential election attracts the most attention, the United States has a huge number of campaign offices and there is wide variation between different states, counties, and municipalities on which campaign are elected and under what procedures. Moreover, unlike democratic campaign in much of the rest of the world, the US has relatively weak parties. While parties play a significant role in fundraising and occasionally in drafting people to run, campaign are ultimately controlled by the individual campaign themselves. Campaign have existed as long as there have been informed citizens to campaign amongst. Often mass campaign are started by the less privileged or anti-establishment viewpoints (as against more powerful interests whose first resort is lobbying). The phenomenon of campaign are tightly tied to special interest groups and campaign parties. The first 'modern' campaign is thought to be William Gladstone's Midlothian campaign in the 1880s, although there may be earlier recognisably modern examples from the 19th century.
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