How to Get Elected

A friend of mine was asking how Senator Patty Murray got elected.  His opinion was that she was not educated, which is incorrect.  In fact she has a BA from Washington State.  From reading her Wikipedia article which can be reached from the link above, I came up with a few ideas.

1.Start small.  Patty Murray started her political career as a lobbyist for education and the environment.  She then moved on to run for the Shoreline School District board of directors.

2.Find a carreer that gets you in contact with a sizable number of people.  As my friend was aware, She taught preschool for a period of time.  She also taught a parenting class at a Shoreline Community College.  This likely put her into contact with many people.  Particularly those who were likely to vote in elections for the Shoreline School District.  In fact it would be hard to come up with a population that would be more interested in this race than people who would take the course.

3.Pick your races well.  Patty Murray ran for the U.S. Senate after Brock Adams political career was ended by scandal.  In this race she was not running against any opponent.  Running a race in which you are likely to lose is dangerous to a political career as it is likely to result in you earning a reputation as a loser.  It is also the case that voters will want to believe that the political decisions that they made in the past were sound.  This will make voters who have rejected you in the past continue to do so in the future.

4.Run under the correct political party.  By correct what I mean here is correct for the purpose of getting yourself elected.  If a majority of the voters are Democrats, you will want to run as a Democrat.  Similarly if a majority are Republicans, you will want to run under that party.  If you are a Republican or a Democrat, you should find a place to run that is consistent with your political preference.  Note that Senator Patty Murray ran as a Democrat for a seat that was previously held by a Democrat.

5.Have popular views that are consistent with your stated political preference.  If your political views are unpopular, then you are unlikely to be elected.  I suspect that you might get somewhere by commenting on politics, but you are unlikely to be elected.  Trying to change things too much in this way is likely to backfire, earning you a reputation as a loser, and perhaps even worse associating your ideas with electoral defeat.  Some departure to either the left or the right will be acceptable, provided that it is in the direction of your stated political preference.

6.Women have an advantage in politics.  I don't know how you can apply this.  Having a sex change operation is politically risky to say the least.  I suspect that few people consider having this kind of operation for political reasons.  However, if you are trying to change the world through politics you might keep this in mind.  Many people are thrown off by the fact that a majority of the people in political office are men.  This is so because a majority of the people running for office are men.  However, in our society if you are a woman, then you have a natural advantage in politics.  This is because you will stand out more in any race.  People will want to vote for you because it will say something about them, namely that they believe that women are capable of serving in politics.

The particular route that Patty Murray chose was one that is more open to women.  Very few men are pre-school teachers.  Also I suspect that women have some sort of advantage in teaching courses on parenting.  Men who hold political office are more likely to have a background in law.  Large numbers of voters might be less likely to understand the choice of such a career as a preschool teacher on the part of a man.