"What do you Mean..."

As a follow up to my posts about money in politics, a quick travel story while waiting in the airport for my next connection.

In my 2nd campaign for US House, I was being considered for the first wave of the DCCC’s coveted “Red-to-Blue” program. I was told this was an important “honor”, as it showed the Dems inside the beltway viewed my race as one of their highest priorities.

Before having the “honor” bestowed upon me, I had to sit down with the new Chair of the DCCC - Rep. (now Senator) Chris Van Hollen from Maryland (side note: I really like Chris - he was - and still is - one of the good guys fighting the good fight on our behalf).

So we met. After pleasantries and small talk, Van Hollen got down to business. He noted that I had raised what at the time was a record amount of money for a House candidate - for either party - for my first House run in a deep red state. Then came one of the briefest and funniest convos I had during my time running.

CVH: “You did a great job raising money. Who was your Finance Director?”

ME: “What do you mean, Finance Director?

CVH: “What do you mean, ‘What do you mean, Finance Director’?”

ME: “I needed a Finance Director? What does a Finance Director do?”

CVH: speechless, eye roll, then, “How did you raise so much money for your race?”

ME: “I called everyone I knew”

CVH: speechless, eye roll, “OK, we’ll get you a Finance Director”

Turned out candidates needed a Finance Director. Who knew? Now, you may ask yourself, “How did I get here”? Oops. Sorry, that’s from a Talking Heads song. But you may be asking yourself, what does a Finance Director do?

Well, they keep your finances organized; they compile lists of people/PACS/organizations to call for money; they can serve as a proxy for the candidate when talking to people about money.

But mostly, they force their candidate to do assigned call time, preferably several hours every day, to call potential donors - most of whom the candidate has never spoken to previously - to ask for contributions. I haven’t met one candidate or elected who actually wants or likes to do call time. So, the Finance Director role was invented to force them to do just that. While my subsequent Finance Directors were very nice people, their job is thankless and, at least from my experience, candidates come to “hate” them because when they show up, we know it’s call time.

PSA: Don’t let your children grow up to be Finance Directors for campaigns.

What a system…