Monday, May 31, 2010

My Political Resume, Reshma 2010, And September 14

The United States Congress approves federal fu...Image via Wikipedia
Happy Memorial Day Weekend. Summer officially begins. I don't know about you but I like it warm better than I like it cold.

I am not exactly taking my time to decide if I want to go work full time for Reshma 2010 or not. Right now I don't have the option: Immigration Status. But my work papers should arrive soon.

I moved to the city summer of 2005 to launch my company but got sucked into working for Nepal's democracy and social justice movements full time for the better part of two years. That was a lot of eating into savings. Throwing a dictator off is way more challenging than winning a Congressional race in the US. In a democracy movement, people die, for one.

All I know is I am on the cusp of deciding to do it. I don't need much convincing. This is a historic race: the first Indian American woman ever to run for Congress. The campaign is not in top shape, and I have the option to try and make a difference. The machine is behind the opponent. That makes it even more fun.

Tomorrow I am planning on dropping by the campaign offices: 833 Broadway. I was there for the first time for the tech panel discussion event with Al Wenger and others. I have not been back since. I have stuck to the canvassing.

What Are You Doing Monday? Come Meet Al Wenger (technbiz.blogspot.com)

I think Reshma 2010 will be a great thing for me to do for three and a half months. I have toyed with a few different options. I could just keep being a dedicated volunteer. I could go do it for a month. But doing it to September 14 makes a lot of sense.

I have an impressive political resume.

Both sides of my family were political. I was born in India, grew up in Nepal. My grandfather was headman of the village for 15 years. He was sitting down for dinner and a group of men from the neighboring village came over, barged in, lifted him up, and the celebrations began. A committee of sorts had decided on his name. He was completely unawares. I was there. My father ran for parliament later. He lost. My mother's cousin was Education Minister for Bihar, the second most populous state in India with as many people as there are in France, for much of the 1990s. Laloo Yadav was Chief Minister. More recently Laloo was India's Railway Minister. The CEO of General Electric called him the best Railway Minister in the world. I am half Bihari.

I was House Captain in Class 5 and Class 10, and in Class 12 the school authorities had to offer me the office of School Captain against their desires for being the obvious candidate. All that was at the top school in Kathmandu.

After high school I was Vice General Secretary to a political party in Nepal that had two MPs. A central committee member of that party from that time is currently a cabinet minister in Nepal.

At college in Kentucky I ran for Freshman Class President and everyone else got more votes than me. Five months later I got myself elected student body president. Everybody who had ever been somebody in the SGA had run. I won by three votes.

I was a Deaniac in 2004 in Indiana. And I was one of Obama's earliest people in NYC.
I was the only Nepali in America to have worked full time for the democracy movement in Nepal a few years back. (The First Major Revolution Of The 21st Century Happened In Nepal)
I think I would want the title of Director. There is the candidate. And she sits atop the campaign organization structure. Then there is the Campaign Manager and the Director. The Campaign Manager is the formal head of the organization, makes sure the trains are running on time. The Director works in partnership with the Campaign Manager but keeps an amorphous role so as to be able to do some out of the box thinking. The Field Director reports to the Campaign Manager but also directly to the candidate. All the Field Organizers report to the Field Director. But since we are talking about 20 people or less, everyone is talking to everybody.

I think I want Campaign Manager pay and status, but I want to work in perfect sync with the existing organization. I would want to conduct a brutal analysis of the campaign from November to today, which I am going to call phase one. From now to September 14 is phase two.

This can be done, victory is possible. That is why I am interested in putting my time into this. But there has to be a scientific approach. Numbers have to be faced. Where do we stand in the polls today? We don't stand well.  Our candidate lacks name recognition compared to the incumbent. But that can change rapidly. We want as many debates as possible, starting as early as possible. The debates will be the turning point.

But we also have to do the JFK thing. He first ran for the House, and later for the Senate. And his number one strategy would be to seek speaking assignments every possible place. He would start out by cracking a joke, often a joke he had cracked somewhere else, and then he would dive into his speech, and next. We have to take our candidate to every possible political and community event in town. Make sure she has at least two staffers with her. Megan would be a great person to accompany her. We have to seek speaking assignments. No organization is too small. No topic too esoteric.

One third of the district is South Asian. But we don't have any South Asian staffer working the field. I guess someone like me gets to dive into that.

I really need to spend a few days at the office before I start laying it all out. I have a feeling some of the stuff I want to get done is already being worked upon. But then I also want to make the best of the fact that I will be new and fresh. I will be able to offer perspectives that someone who has been on the staff for months might not be able to. You get used to seeing things a certain way.

We have to track some numbers. How much money have we raised? How much do we continue to raise? How much has been spent? How much do we have in the bank? Have we paced the spending well? What will be the big ticket items down the line? Where do we stand in the polls? How many community newspapers have written about us? How many community leaders have we contacted? How many interns do we have? How many volunteers do we have? I was at John Liu's primary victory party. It felt to me like 30 young people in their early 20s delivered the city to him. If we could have 15 razzmatazz staffers, 20 psyched interns, and 30 volunteers out of the ordinary, we could do it. We have to put the volunteers on the pedestal. We need to throw a party. How about a barbecue in some park?

My Talk With Kevin Lawler Of Reshma 2010

We have to have superior debate preparation. The debates are the political equivalent of boxing championship fights. Everything we do till then will culminate in how we do during the debates. They will be crucial. What can the candidate do to maximize her chances? What are the pre-debate things to do? What are the post-debate things to do?

I think I am going to get a monthly metro card, and a Metro PCS unlimited talk, text and web phone. I want to reach out to the volunteer base in a big way, I want to reach out to community newspapers and leaders.

And I am psyched about creating the rudiments of a 2016 platform for Reshma. We have to stand by all Obama stands for. Because that is what Maloney is going to do. She is not going to offer anything new except the promise that she will vote for everything Obama wants her to vote for. Well, that much we can do too.

We are lucky to have a policy wonk candidate. That will make the task of debate preparation so much easier.

This can be done. This race can be won.

Me @ BBC

There is something we could learn from Paul English, the Kayak.com guy. His focus on customer service is out of the box and legendary. His team replies to all emails from customers. And they have a big, red phone in the office. They pick it up when it rings.

Paul English Writes Back
Kayak, Paul English, Africa, Free Wireless Internet

Maybe we should make it mandatory for all staffers and all interns. You must call up voters for at least one hour each day. And identify the top 30 volunteers, and get the campaign manager to call them up once a week. Identify the top 10 volunteers and get the candidate to call them up once a week. Identify all the community newspapers in the district. And get the candidate to visit their offices, as many as possible. I'd happily visit all of them as Director to get them to do at least one story on us. Every such story is free advertising. Do the cost benefit analysis. We come out on top.

There has got to be a way to find out about all the community events in the district. Some staffer has to show up to all of them. Maybe me. I would be okay with that. We need to have an enthusiastic volunteer in every block in the district, someone willing to throw a house party, knock on 10 doors.

The idea is to get 30,000 votes to win. We want to have called all those 30,000 people before election day.

I am getting sucked into this thing like I got sucked into the Nepal democracy movement a few years back.
  • A 2016 Platform (the best ideas will not come from the two policy staffers, or even the candidate, or me, or any staffer; there are policy wonks at NYU and Columbia, and Harvard and Yale we have to reach out to, think tanks; we have to build a matrix of a network of academics) 
  • Top notch, razzmatazz debate performances (We need to start having mock debates every week. I think Megan should stand in as Maloney.) 
  • An amazing grassroots matrix of supporters. 
  • Community media. 
  • Subway stops: work them like crazy. (Maybe we should make it mandatory for all staffers and all interns; you must work one subway stop for one hour during rush hour every week; pair up with someone, go do it) 
We intend to hit the national headlines come September 14.
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