I am not going to out anyone. But during this political season it appears that a lot of “political campaign consultants” are taking credit for campaigns that in reality they should not be taking credit for. Look, before you spend a boat load of time, effort, your money and your supporters money…do the following….
1)A simple background check. Use at least beenverified.com and spokeo.com for starters. Also go down to the City County Building and use the computer there which has all lawsuits filed in Knox County. Look, this is simple. If the person has hypothetically a lot of lawsuits, then it might be advisable to walk away.
2) Check the campaign finance forms! This is critical! Is the person you are planning to hire is telling you they won “Dan Andrews for Mayor” (this is a fake example using my name so I don’t out anyone.) OK great! Go to the campaign financial disclosure forms and see if the candidate paid anyone for their services. If they did, then see how much your consultant got. This is critical. You see many times someone will volunteer a lot and form a close bond with the person saying they are a campaign manager. If you call the person up they might not want to hurt the feelings of the “political campaign consultant.” But if you call up and say “Dan, I noticed during your campaign you paid Person 1 a lot of money for consulting, yet Person #2 states to me that they ran your campaign. Can you clarify this for me?”
3)Google…take time and Google their name.
4) If they have a website that does not look good then why should you expect them to create a website that would make your website look good?
5) Call all their references! Call, call, call! Look winning candidates have no problem recommending someone that ran their campaign and did an awesome job.
6) Ask a political reporter…Seriously, we are on the campaign trail. We watch, we observe, and many reporters don’t want to see people getting scammed. *Which is why I am typing this blog post at 2:43 am on a Monday morning…it is because I care!
The basis of this blog post is that I keep hearing multiple people name drop politician names and take credit. I literally call the politicians off the record and they are giving me a totally different story. So I have decided to give everyone a heads up. If you are running, you have been warned! Do your homework. Now I can sleep easier….good night and good luck!