Sure, a healthy campaign bank account and fundraising prowess helps.  So does a dedicated volunteer force, a killer message and healthy name recognition.  But the most effective candidates in any political campaign, whether for school board or governor, have one vital quality in common: Authenticity.

If your message isn’t genuine, and if you don’t really believe in the things you claim to be fighting for, it’s much more difficult for your campaign to catch fire and pique the interest of your audience.

Can candidates win without authenticity?  Sure.  Insincere politicians are so common that they’ve been stereotyped as such for hundreds of years.  In fact, some new political candidates think that they have to be insincere in order to please the widest possible swath of voters and scrape out a win on election day.

But what many first-time campaigners don’t realize is that sincerity and authenticity, rather than being anathema to a candidate, are the most important qualities you can possess.

So, does that mean you should roll out every sincere conviction you have for the voters to pick through and digest?  No, of course not.  If one of your authentic beliefs isn’t relevant to the office you’re running for, then focusing on it isn’t fair to you or to the voters.  They have a limited amount of time to get to know you, and want to learn about your stance on the issues that are important to them.

What authenticity does mean is that you should never get on a soap box about any issue unless you really believe what you’re saying.  Are you running for City Council because you want to encourage local business growth?  Great, then make that a central focus of your campaign.  But don’t start introducing other issues that you aren’t authentically interested in just because you think that’s what the voters want to hear.

Believe me, the voters will be able to tell when your message is genuine . . . and when it isn’t.  An authentic message will be easy for you to campaign on, since it’s something you passionately believe in.  It will invigorate your volunteers, because they will know that you care about the same issues they do.  And it will bring life, excitement and attention to your campaign.

But what if you are genuinely passionate about several different issues?  We’ll touch on that with more depth later, but suffice it to say that the smaller your targeted office, the fewer issues you should focus on.  A congressional candidate can successfully run on a much more broad set of issues than a county commissioner candidate.

For now, though, just remember the importance of authenticity to every campaign, big or small.  Identifying your genuine reasons for wanting to run for office, and preparing yourself to showcase that authenticity for the voters, are important steps on the road to election day victory.

Related posts:

  1. Practicing What you Preach in Political Campaigns Great post today on Marketing Beyond Advertising, one of my...
  2. Taking My Own Advice: New Political Campaign Website Design Last week on Killer Campaigning, I published two posts that...
  3. The Most Important Element of a Political Campaign Here’s a quick plug for the poll that Killer Campaigning...