The dream to serve my fellow Oklahomans was an inherited
trait. I have always dreamed of having the ability to empower those around me.
Now, to set the record straight it doesn't take being an elected official to
empower those but being an elected official has the privilege of having more
open ears of both citizens and the business community. This decision is a big
commitment and starts with exploratory research to see if this is a possibility
after working with those in politics.
I recently attended the Blue U training presented by the
Oklahoma Democratic Party to learn more about how to research voters and how to
raise funds in Oklahoma City. The training session was from 9-3 pm at OklahomaCity Community College in OKC, OK. The event was packed full of potential
democratic candidates with different stories to tell about what led them to
this event. The training session had lots of great information on how to
analyze the voters in a potential district for Oklahoma or federal congress.
This tool was a lot like the market research tools that I have used throughout
the last two years of college and within my multiple marketing positions. This
tool will be of the essence when figuring out if a potential district is
winnable or not. This will also help in mapping out areas for volunteers to
knock on doors via a Google Maps integration.
Besides the database tools there was a great session taught
by a young professional who is just now entering the campaign management field
as he discussed how to calculate how many votes one needs to win a district.
This also spanned discussing how to calculate the number of votes that you can
count on based on past elections and how many votes on top of those committed
votes will you need to reach 50% plus 1 vote. As he vividly explained, you only
need 50% of that district’s votes plus 1 vote to win that district. This
individual also was able to calculate how many doors and phones needed to be
knocked or rang to get to the “win number” or the number of votes it will take
to get to 50% plus 1 vote in that district.
After this youthful and confident individual was done with
their thorough presentation it was now time for the Oklahoma Democratic Party’sexecutive chair’s time to discuss how to fund-raise. All hopes and dreams for a
potential candidate can be crushed or brought to fruition based on the success
of the candidate’s fundraising campaign. This southern heritage individual had
many years of experience of campaign management for all types of campaigns and
you could tell that this individual loved what they did by their level of
intensity when discussing the content. This executive chair taught the class,
who is made up of individuals seeking office from throughout the panhandle
state, about the four different type of potential donors, the ways to reach
these individuals, and how to position your messaging to these individuals. I
thought to myself, messaging is one of the biggest parts of marketing and
branding companies so I thought it would be a breeze to get through this session,
I was wrong. This arrogance ended up getting me chosen as the volunteer for the
session’s simulated phone call with a potential donor. The executive chair took
the time at the beginning of his presentation to have everyone in the room to
introduce their selves. Therefore everyone in the room now knew that I was born
and raised in Washington County, received my undergraduate degree in RogersCounty, and have spent numerous hours recently in Nowata County training theirbusinesses on how to build a strategic marketing plan that leverages onlineassets. Now, back to the exercise, I was to talk with a potential donor for my
campaign in Washington County that was a former fellow church member that I
knew during my childhood, relational donor. The whole class watched me as I and
the actor playing my former fellow church member faced different sides of the
room like we were on an old dating show. Now that the mood is set correctly,
now you can imagine the sweat dripping from my forehead and my heart beating
faster, I began the phone call. I closed my eyes took a deep breath and just
imagined I was talking to a swing voter from Washington County that I knew
since I was a young kid. Confidence now was setting in and now I let the phone
call play out. Whew, success and approval from others in the room.
Besides the great invaluable information that was learned at
this training session I also had the great opportunity to meet with Tom Guild
who is a democrat who is seeking US Congress for district 5 in the state of
Oklahoma in 2014. Go to find out after we got the pleasantries out of the way
Tom was a Sooner High School graduate, former Bartlesville High School that was
located on the east side of town during the town’s history of having two
smaller high schools before consolidating to one big high school in 1982, and
Tom sung me the Sooner High School fight song, what a sight. Not only did I
learn a ton of information and got the opportunity to plant a seed in some of
the party’s constituents that I am dedicated to representing my fellow
Oklahomans but I was able to make contact with Tom Guild, a fellow Bartian,
that I plan on helping through my marketing background to help Tom get to his
win number in district 5 for US Congress. This future work that I will commit
to Tom’s campaign will provide dividends for the entire democratic campaign as
the party looks to turn the state of Oklahoma purple (Split the house and
senate between republicans and democrats).
As always I know this venture is down the line for me as I
look to conquer law school beginning in August but learning as much as I can
before that day comes and networking is essential for being relevant. Till that
day comes I will continue to try to be a pioneer and show my sisters and fellow
lower middle class constituents that anything is possible with hard work and
strategic planning. Long live democracy and long live the great state of
Oklahoma.
Sincerely,
Anthony William Tucker (AWT)
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