Why are you running for public office?
This is a question you will be asking yourself over and over during your campaign. When things get hard, you will ask yourself, “Why in the heck did I even want to do this?” Throughout the process your answer may even change. It is vital you look within yourself. What is calling you to do this? What do you want out of this? The answers to these questions will give you strength to keep going and push harder. Vying for public office opens yourself up to personal scrutiny. Your home, family, career, past mistakes, wardrobe, personal interests, and your integrity will be fair game to arbitrary, often unfair judgement, and it will be draining. Vying for public office is also a huge time commitment. Even as a paper candidate you may have to spend hours collecting signatures. If you plan on challenging the incumbent, you will eat, sleep and breathe your campaign for 9 months. I am going to be very honest with you, running for office is a lot of work for very little payoff - especially as a libertarian. Your reason needs to be altruistic or you will lose steam very quickly.
Wrong reasons to run for office ❌
- The potential salary
- Fame or attention
- Seeking status
- In reaction to a policy that made me angry
- Revenge against a politician I don't like
Right reasons to run for office ✔️
- Educate the public about issues that concern me
- Further the cause of the Libertarian Party
- Help make my community better
- Give voters another option on their ballot
- Serve my community/country
After you have determined the reason you are seeking to hold public office, the next questions you need to be able to answer are:
- Is my spouse/family ok with it? Campaigning doesn't just affect you, but also your immediate and extended family. The time spent away from them, the possible digging into your past by the media, the judgement, the money you may spend - these are all factors that may negatively affect them.
- Am I cleared by my job? Depending on what you do for a living you may not be eligible to run for office. Your job may consider it a conflict of interest or there may be a law against it. For example, the Hatch Act restricts federal employees from holding public office.
- How will you react to losing? Let’s be honest, the chances of you winning are slim. Not impossible! But slim. If you are running for local office like school board or city council, your chances are much higher. You can either take the loss poorly, leaving the liberty movement completely and take it as a personal failure or you can acknowledge that what you are doing is slowly shifting politics toward choice, freedom and change. You are giving people the option to say no to the two party system and yes to something better. Change takes time. Name recognition takes time. Don’t let a loss stop you from helping make things better. Keep going.
- Are you sure you want to do this? If there is any hesitation, you may want to wait until you are 100% sure.
Bottom line is, if you can’t articulate a compelling reason for running, you will be wasting your time and potentially end up with a negative experience. Many of our candidates run multiple years in a row and have fun doing it! You just need to understand why you are doing it and what you are realistically going to get out of it. The New Jersey Libertarian Party has resources available to our candidates to help give them the best chance possible.
Questions?