Advice to Libertarians who wish to run for City Council:

You may or may not follow my path.  It’s a change of life and a lot of work.

Find a leadership area in your community that’s of interest to you.  Seek a volunteer or appointed position in a community organization such as PTA, charity, local committee, city board or commission.  Attend City Council and commission meetings regularly.  Know the agenda topics. Write and speak to the City Council. Write letters to the editor.  Establish name recognition.

After you have a community resume and some name recognition, start a city council campaign 6-12 months before the election.  Know approximately how many votes it takes to be elected and focus on getting those votes.  Votes are all that matter.

Form an organizing committee.  Recruit campaign committee members to coordinate volunteers, manage a bank account, file state forms, and prepare your printed material (brochure/door hanger, signs, newspaper ads, campaign mailer).  You the candidate must do fund raising (about $15,000 for my successful re-election campaign for the Nov 2012 election).  You also must develop your campaign priorities and platform to reach voters, answer questionnaires, attend press interviews, attend candidate forums and walk precincts to meet voters.

Those are the essentials.  As an elected official you do not need to preach everything that is contained in the Libertarian Party Platform. There are enough bad policies and squandered taxpayer dollars to reasonably argue against.   You must have complete command of the facts involving a wide range of Council agenda topics and just use common sense in policy making.

They had expected to be flush with cash pumped in by the online fundraising machine that helped Obama shatter fundraising records in 2008.

They had expected Mitt Romney to emerge from the Republican primaries irreparably damaged — defined in the minds of voters as an out-of-touch “vulture capitalist” who couldn’t relate to average voters.

Instead the Obama campaign was nearly broke, and most voters still hadn’t made up their mind just who Mitt Romney was.

Rather than wait, Obama and adviser David Axelrod went all in, gambling the campaign’s money on an early onslaught of attack ads that caught the Romney campaign by surprise.

Romney failed to react, eventually costing him the election as he was unable to shake the caricature the Obama campaign had painted of him.

You should do the same.

Don’t hesitate to attack your opponent.

In fact, relish it.

Voters may say they hate “negative advertising” but consultants keep doing it for one reason — it works.

And if your opponent has voted to raise taxes, explode spending, waste public funds, engage in unethical official behavior or other things that disqualify him in your mind, voters have a right it know that.

The earlier you bring it up, the better your odds will be of knocking him back on his heels.

That’s not to say you should call your opponent names, mock his or her physical appearance or bring up issues about his or her marriage or family.

Those are personal attacks.  And they often end up damaging you and helping your opponent.

Voters have a right to know why you are the best candidate, as well as why your opponent does not deserve to be in public office.

Attack your opponent early.

Attack your opponent often.

Attack your opponent with enthusiasm.

Most importantly, stick to the issues and make your attacks credible, believable and fully researched and documented.

My rule is “if Grandma would hate what I said more than what he did, don’t do it.”

Our freedom wasn’t won by people playing nice and sitting around a table “debating” each other.

Freedom must be fought for, and that’s how we will win it back.

But Obama coasted to a re-election victory last week.

How did he do it?

Simple.  As a former community organizer the Obama White House understands voter identification and mobilization like no other.

They understand you don’t need a majority of the people behind you to win — all you need is to get more people to the polls than the other guy.

That starts with identifying everyone who supports you.  The Obama campaign made that priority number one.

“Obama’s campaign probably spent $200 million to $250 million — a quarter of every dollar collected — to create a state-of-the-art voting profiling operation that allowed it to more accurately assess the electorate than standard polling,” POLITICO reports.

“Like generals with good intelligence, Obama campaign officials could move resources quickly around the battlefield — like the late deployment of volunteers to critical Cuyahoga County in Ohio.”

As he laid out in his 2005 book, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe took simple neighborhood-level political organizing and replicated it by an exponent of thousands to carry Obama to two historic election wins.

According to Obama adviser Jim Messina one Columbus, Ohio woman told him: “I know everybody in my neighborhood — the ones that will always vote, the ones who don’t — and what it takes to get them to vote,” the woman, a committed Obama volunteer since 2007, told him. She added, with a chuckle: “They just shipped in a Romney staffer a couple of weeks ago. … Who do you think is going to win around here?”

Do you know your neighborhood?

Can you walk down the street, point to each door and tell someone whether the residents are Libertarians, Republicans, Democrats, swing voters, inactive voters or not registered?

If not, you need to learn that.

1) Talk to your state or local Libertarian Party.

2) Make sure they have the voter registration database.

3) Use party registration or primary voting history to determine your Libertarians, Republicans and Democrats.

4) Use the party membership list to identify non-voting Libertarians.

5) Also take note of lawn signs or bumper stickers on cars in the driveway

In short, be like a beat cop.  Collect information.  Learn your neighbors.

That way, next November, you know which Libertarians and Libertarian-friendly voters you need to get to the polls to pad LP election numbers.

Email all of your supporters and remind them to vote.  Don’t just assume they know the election is Tuesday, or that they will even remember to vote for you.  Your supporters are intelligent, but they are also busy people with families, jobs and businesses.

Prepare your election night speech and press statement for three potential outcomes: a win, a loss and an inconclusive result.

Use your email, Twitter account and Facebook to post updates and tweets throughout the election day.

The minute the race is called, post a thank you note on your website, and any social media feeds, thanking your volunteers and donors.

Prepare list of people you must call after the results are announced.  The first should be your opponent to either congratulate (should he or she win) or thank (should you win.)   The next on the list should be your biggest donors.

BEFORE Election Day, contact an attorney experience in election law.  Let him know you may need his services should your voters or poll workers need assistance.

Speaking of which, if your race is called, and the margin is close enough to be in doubt, DO NOT CONCEDE!  Simply tell the press and your supporters very politely and professionally you will wait until all the votes are counted AND VERIFIED before declaring victory or defeat.  Immediately contact an attorney experienced in election law.

No matter the result, be gracious and professional.  Remind your supporters of the same.

“So how can a campaign with limited staff and financial resources get the voter data they need and radically increase the power of their field operations? Enter the Internet, and more specifically, affordable political software.”

Finding a good database program to manage the voter file could deliver tons of extra votes simply because you are better at identifying active, undecided voters than your opponent.

Having a good website that automatically loads content to social media networks could help you reach voters your opponent can’t.

Some programs available on iPad or iPhone allow you to update and automatically sync databases, allowing you to flag supporters and favorable voters for your Get Out The Vote from right there at their front door.

So talk to past candidates and political pros.  Ask what they use.  Try new programs. Find what works for you.  Political technology decides elections.

But don’t whine about it.  Go on the offensive.

Campaigns and Elections magazine offers these helpful tips:

Earning media from yard sign thieves

A Google News search for “yard signs” returns 39,000 news results in just the last month. Long story short, the media loves to report on yard signs—including sign theft and vandalism. When a supporter recounts their story of a stolen sign, ask if you can include information about the theft in a press release. Once the campaign has accumulated a few similar stories, issue a press release decrying the actions of your opponent’s supporters, and offer quotes from your supporters about the purported thefts. With any luck, you’ll get a sympathetic news story.

Sign theft and volunteerism

Angry supporters are ripe for a volunteer ask, and yard sign theft is a powerful source for supporter anger. When a supporter calls the field office to share their story and ask for another yard sign, you’re likely to get a “yes” from a volunteer ask because they’re motivated by anger and want to reciprocate. In addition, many campaigns successfully trade a sign for a volunteer shift, which also works well.

Turning sign theft into dollars

Using the same process as above, small dollar contributions in exchange for a yard sign are common, and upset supporters will be quick to open up their wallets for a few dollars to replace their sign for virtuous reasons and spite alike.

Ben Donahower is a contributing editor to the free guide, Get Out The Vote To Win, and a campaign veteran. You can connect with Ben on Twitter at @iapprovethismsg.

A simple way to solve that, and get your campaign rolling at the same time is to collect signatures door to door by working off a registered voter list.  That way everyone who signs can quickly be verified as a registered voter and eligible signer.

How do you do it?

1) Contact the proper voter registration office and purchase the full voter registration list.  You’re going to need it anyway.  In many cases you must file a statement of candidacy first, so get that out of the way too.

2) Your best bet is voters who are Libertarians and those registered with, or vote in the primary of, the party opposite the incumbent.  Just tell them, “My name is _________ and I will be running as a Libertarian against (Republican/Democrat) _________.”

3) When you turn in your signatures, you can now also include a direct list of each signer, in order, with their verified voter registration.  That makes it harder for the government to disqualify your signers.

And not only does this let you work the kinks out of your door-to-door operation early, you can also ask these people if they’d like to volunteer or donate, and if they’d like a yard sign when they come in.

Not only can you lock up your ballot access early, you’ll be hitting the ground running with door-to-door practice and an early list of supporters.

They just ask.

The secret to raising political money is simple.

1) Ask everyone you know.

2) Ask confidently.

The Libertarian cause is important enough to ask your family and friends to donate generously.

1) Get out your “Christmas card list” and personal phone book.

Simply put, you’re going to get your easiest and probably biggest checks from your family and friends.  It doesn’t matter if you haven’t spoken to them in years.  These people believe in you more than anyone else.  You owe to to liberty to call them first and ask them to make the biggest contribution possible.

2) Set a target.

Here’s a tip.  People aren’t offended if you ask them for a very large contribution.  In fact, many people are flattered you think they’re worth that much.  As a general rule I ask for the maximum legal limit all the time, or if there is no limit I ask  for three times what I think is the most I can get from them.

There’s a reason for that.  It’s easier for them to negotiate the number down than it is for you to negotiate the number up.

You’d rather ask for $1000 when you think you can get $250 than think you might get $250, ask for $100 and they quickly agree.  You avoided a longer phone call, but you left hundreds of dollars out of your campaign.

3) Practice your call.

It’s easy.  Trust me.  Most fundraising phone calls are five to ten minutes.  Here’s a sample of what it might sounds like, from LocalVictory.com:

“Hi, this is Quinn.  Yea, it’s been awhile.  How are you and Nikki doing?  Great, us too.  Listen, I’ve got the craziest news.  I’m running for Congress.  Yep, how about that?  I’m getting involved because I am so frustrated with the economic mess we’re in.  It seems like no one is focused on the economy.  You know me, I’m laser-focused.  That’s how I’ll be in Congress.  Laser-focused on the economy.It’s going to take $2 million to win this thing, crazy, I know, but true.  I need your help.  Would you be willing to support me, and donate $1,000 to help me win?  You would?  Amazing.  Thank you so much.  I’ll send over a brochure and an envelope.  Listen, I have to make more calls, let’s catch up next month.  See you soon….”

Practice in front of a mirror.  Record it, play it back and see how it sounds.  Pretty soon you’ll sound like a pro.

4) CALL!

Just do it.

Your first few calls may not go as smoothly as you like.  But be confident, ask shamelessly and pretty soon you’ll be filling your campaign account.

Political fundraising is surprisingly simple.  There are few “secrets” and little training involved.  The best political fundraisers become the best by following two rules:

1) Ask everyone you see.

2) Ask for as much as you can possibly get.

As long as you are spending your campaign dollars wisely and ethically, there is no shame whatsoever in making fundraising phone calls.

In fact, be proud when you call Aunt Suzy to ask for $2,500.00!  You’re going to spend that money to spread the message of liberty and fight to win!

And you owe it to liberty to win.  Your family and friends already like you, and support you.  Call them first and call them confidently.

You will know them by their yard signs.

Between now and Election Day, drive around your district and write down the addresses of homes with Republican and Democrat yard signs.

If you are running against an incumbent Democrat next year, you can be pretty sure folks with Romney or Republican yards signs will be willing to vote against him or her, and will be likely to sign your ballot access petition.

The same is true if you are running against a Republican.  Write down the addresses of every Obama and Democrat yard sign.  Those are the houses you visit first to ask for votes and get ballot signatures.

Why?  Because pretty much everyone who will be casting a ballot next year is showing up on Nov. 6.  You need to be at the polls to introduce yourself.

First, be sure to catch them on the way OUT.  They will have enough people wanting to talk to them as they walk in.

Second, start by thanking them for voting.  Then, quickly introduce yourself and offer them a card or brochure with some basic information on you.

Don’t give them a lecture on issues unless they ask for it.  Your first job as a candidate is to make sure people actually remember your name.  The average person needs to hear a candidate’