[Guide] Establishing a Platform

If the process of campaigning for Congress is difficult, then the task of actually being a good Congressperson is nearly impossible. The key to being "good at what you do" has a lot of steps, but the first step is maintaining consistency to your platform; something even most people in Washington haven't mastered yet.

Why does establishing a platform need its own guide? I already know what I believe in enough to stay consistent!

You might know what you believe in, but staying consistent is harder than you imagine. Your platform may be that you're going to come down hard on social security recipients, but when confronted by her, how are you going to tell 80-year-old Mrs. Sullivan the truth about your policy while winning her vote? Being able to stay "win Mrs. Sullivan over" with a policy that she hates is one reason to write your platform down, but there are two more reasons that you should write your talking points out.

• If you are running as an independent, you will be able to explicitly distinguish yourself from either or both of your main opponents.

• If you have volunteers circulating petitions or brochures for you, they need a reference sheet to handle any questions about your platform that they don't already have memorized.

The easiest way to start thinking about why and how to develop your platform is to complete this worksheet. You will need two copies printed out. (editable .indd file here; required indesign)

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Instructions for using the platform worksheet:

1.) Take the first copy of the worksheet, and, without studying its contents too carefully, fill in every blank box with your opinions. Once you start writing an answer, you are not allowed to stop writing to think. This is to simulate what would happen if you were asked these questions out of the blue by a constituent or reporter.

2.) Check, (a) was every box complete? (b) was every position unique from your opponents? (c) were there any phrases that could be taken out of context if played on the news? (d) was every response witty and articulate? (e) did you pause at any time in the process of writing an answer. If you answered "no" to anything in a-d, you are not yet ready begin petitioning for the ballot. If you answered "yes" to e, you need to further establish your platform.

3.) Taking your time and doing research on the internet, carefully fill out the the worksheet a second time. Make it a special point to make your answers (a) witty and (b) understandable and cogent to someone who believes in the exact opposite policy.

4.) This is the second-most important step in the whole guide, and is a further explanation for what I mean by "give answers that are understandable and cogent to someone who believes the opposite." This technique is called "damage control," and the goal is to keep someone interested in you even if you don't hold the right opinion on the issue that matters most to them. Choosing the right language is usually called doublespeak by constituents, and it sucks to use it, but the truth is: there will be people who agree with you on 99% of your points, but will give their vote to someone else if you don't phrase your opinion on that 1% issue absolutely perfectly. The most prominent example of damage control is almost every Democrat's answer to abortion: "I would not get one myself, but I would not take away someone's right to do so." You hear this so much from Democrats because abortion is the "1% issue" for many, many people who call themselves Republicans. As much zeal as you have, you may have to phrase your talking points so that your answer is appealing to both sides.

5.) Memorize everything you have written on the second worksheet, and use what you have written down to talk to constituents successfully. If you need any advice or feedback on your talking points, please post them here or elsewhere in the subreddit and I and the others will be honest, constructive, and friendly.

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This is the easiest way that I can think of to establish a reliable platform. Consistency is your number one priority, followed by applying appropriate damage control. Accomplish both of these steps by writing a good platform in black and white and committing all of your talking points to memory.

Of course, there are other steps that you should already be following if you are planning to run for office:

1.) Reading/watching/listening to local, national, and world news daily, and forming opinions on those events. You may want to add these to the "other" section of the worksheet.

2.) Gaining familiarity with pending legislation by reading the actual bills. They are all available online.

3.) Reading wikipedia on existing legislation on state and Federal levels to hear arguments for and against them, as well as the effects. Here are a few good places to start: 1, 2

If you haven't already been doing these above steps, you should start immediately, as they are not only important for your campaign, but failure to do them would make you a fairly lazy leader of our country.

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As always, any comments or suggestions that you have will be added to the guide. Also, this and all other guides will be available with better formatting and more readability on http://run.forcongress.net in January.