Get Involved
Leading by Example: Running for Office Adapted from ‘How to run for office’ https://www.npr.org/2019/10/15/770332855/how-to-run-for-office
In Chelsea, you can run for City Council or School Committee at age 18. Young people are being elected to important public offices across America so it’s not as difficult as you may think. If you break the challenge down into individual action steps, and take them one at a time, you can be a contender, especially if your friends and family pitch in. If you have the courage to try the, the sky’s the limit. Remember, every successful politician had to start somewhere. 1. You don’t have to know every- thing before you run. And you don’t need to be rich. What matters is that you care enough to run. That’s according to former Massachusetts State Senator Marian Walsh, who wrote a book about how to win public office. She never lost an election throughout her three-decade political career. “There will always be people in any arena who will know less and know more than you,” Walsh says. “The question is, do I care enough? And am I willing to do more of both. More caring and more learning.”
Read the American Majority’s worksheet on how to calculate win number
2. Ask a lot of questions . If you’re running for local office, you’re going to want to ask questions — to people who have run before, your supervisor of election, people who have done the job, even the person who currently holds the office. What was their day-to-day like? How big was their team? How much money did they raise? What did they do to campaign? Is the election a partisan race? Be a sponge. A number of organizations like Veterans Campaign, Run For Something, The Cam- paign Workshop and American Majority also run campaign bootcamps across the country for people to learn the basics of running for elected office, so that’s an option if you want a place to ask questions and meet people who could be resources.
I come from a neighborhood where they say “don’t talk about it, be about it.” Pitbull Armando Christian Pérez, known professionally by his stage name Pitbull, is an American rapper and businessman. He began his career in the early 2000s, recording reggaeton, Latin hip hop, and crunk music under a multitude of labels and has sold over 25 million studio albums and over 100 million singles worldwide.
28 | Get Involved
Students Pocket Guide for Civic Engagement
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker