How To Run For City Council in Tempe, Arizona (Revised)

By Kolby Granville

Local politics needs fewer information gatekeepers.

 

Step into the world of local politics with confidence and knowledge, thanks to this comprehensive guidebook. Leave behind the days of information gatekeepers and gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to run for office and succeed on your own merits. This invaluable resource provides a detailed roadmap for those looking to run for city council in Tempe, Arizona, and offers insights that may be transferable to other cities. You'll gain access to a wealth of information, including useful website links, so you can hit the ground running and make a meaningful impact on your community. Don't let the system hold you back - empower yourself with the knowledge to succeed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kolby Granville
• Release date: Jun 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393647836

Book preview

How To Run For City Council In Tempe, Arizona (Revised)

Written By:  Kolby Granville

Revised Book Introduction

THE LEAST YOU NEED To Know – (1) There is no secret to winning, the secret is work, (2) I am going to frontload all the revised information into the next chapter, (3) and any changes throughout the book will be listed via [bold brackets] when added, and bold strikethrough when removed.

I wrote the first version of this book when I was living a vacation lifestyle in Thailand. Even still, looking over this book years later, I’m struck by how complete and candid the entire book is. I really was 100% honest when writing it, probably to the point of fault, and included absolutely everything I had learned about campaigning in Tempe over the years.

Now, three years later, even though I’m living in Thailand again (via 17 other countries), my days are much busier. I founded and, for the last three years, have been running, the publishing non-profit, After Dinner Conversation a monthly magazine that publishes short stories to encourage thoughtful, and respectful, conversations and debate. I love it, and it’s more than a full-time job, and the idea of taking time away from that, for this, is really hard to justify.

Related to nothing, I should also mention that, even after all my clauses in the first edition that this is just what I do, everyone does it differently, and there is no ‘right’ way to campaign I still got an angry social media post from a former council member saying, something like, You make it sound like what you did is the only way to do it, and it’s not! You make it sound like you are the only one who helps educate people and you’re not! If I find a candidate I like, I help them too!

This is all rather funny because it means first, she didn’t even read the book; like Barb Kelner in the SNL sketch, she just read the title and figured she knew everything the book said. And second, by picking which candidates she was willing to help, she was doing exactly what I don’t think should happen. She was serving as a gatekeeper of information to the democratic process; only those worthy of running would get her information they needed to run a potentially successful campaign.

Watching from afar, the thing I’ve been most struck by over the last three years is how little information I provided seems to have been incorporated into city campaigns. I’m struck by how few outsiders have been elected and how little the standard results supporting special interest groups have changed. I didn’t expect many people to read this book, a dozen at most, but I did expect them to use the information I provided. From what I can see, that wasn’t the case. The old guard (mostly) continues to run the table, and new blood continues to run horrible campaigns destined to be slaughtered on election day.

I’m left wondering why this is and I’m reminded of two things my old archery coach said to me:

The secret to winning is there is no secret. It’s just work.

The reason garbage men make so much money is because they are willing to do what nobody else is willing to do. If you want to win, you have to work when everyone else isn’t.

AS SUCH, MY FAVORITE days to train were holidays, because I knew, for sure, nobody else was.

At any rate, I’m revising this book, in spite of a very busy schedule, in spite of it going mostly ignored, going into another Tempe election cycle not because I think more than a dozen people will download and read it. I’m revising it because it will only take me 4-5 hours to update, and if it provides a more democratic election process for just one or two candidates, it was worth the time. Really, if it gets one outsider even a chance of getting reviewed by voters on the merit of their ideas, it’s time well spent. Who knows, maybe you, the one reading it right now, is that one special person.

Okay, so on to a practical matter. I hate reading revised books because it’s so hard to tell what is revised information, and what is new information. Who wants to re-read an entire book so they can get three pages of new information!

To solve this problem I’m going to make it easy on you. First, I’m going to put the revised information in the next section, all in one lump sum. So, if you have read this book before, just read the next chapter and you pretty much good.

Second, as I re-read the other chapters, any new information I have I will put in [bold brackets]. And any information that is bad will have a bold strikethrough. That way you will be able to easily see what has changed.

And finally, as a person who now runs a publishing company nonprofit that publishes 12-15 books a year, I’m embarrassed by the formatting of this book. It’s a disaster, but I am also unmotivated to fix it. So, my compromise is just to apologize about the juvenile nature of the formatting and leave it at that.

And one last, last thing, this book is meant to be free, but they keep resetting the price without me knowing, even after I set it to free. So, I’ll post this book as a free .pdf on social media, but feel free to forward, copy, print, or share it with anyone. No copyright lawsuits from me, it’s meant to be freely shared.

The Revised Section

THE LEAST YOU NEED To Know – (1) Social media advertising is King, (2) social media knows what you do on social media, but also everything you do on your phone, on your computer, where you are, what websites you visit, what videos you watch,how long you watch them, and who you are standing near, it also can create look-alike audiences based on contact information you upload and (3) campaign contribution limits aren’t going to lower the amount needed to win a campaign, they are simply going to push that information to PAC’s and make it harder to know/track.

[The two biggest things to change in the last three years are social media and campaign finance. To be fair, these are not areas I have any experience in regarding campaigning in Tempe. I do, however, have a pretty significant amount of experience with social media advertising via After Dinner Conversation. So, this revised