OH-12 Special Election
Why Danny O’Connor Lost
“People don’t buy whatyou do, they buy why you do it” – Simon Sinek
I’m a business major and the first year I was in school I took a class that was a mile long and inch deep look at entrepreneurship and what a successful entrepreneur did. And the biggest takeaway from that class for me was the idea that good entrepreneurs take off because they convince people to invest in the reasons they are creating a product or service. We have to start at Why, then talk about How, then about What.People invest when you successfully convey whyyou care about something.
What O’Connor did:
Danny O’Connor’s campaign emails told me what he was doing. He was asking for money to defeat Donald Trump. But more importantly, his emails commanded me to give him money. Immediately that turns me (and a lot of other people) off from wanting to help them. I don’t want to be toldwhat to do with my limited amount of time and money, because it’s mine.
O’Connor also sent me 70 emails in the span of one week. That’s too many. I don’t have the time, motivation, or effort to read 70 emails asking me for money. O’Connor also repeatedly started his emails or subject lines with the fact that the campaign was broke and that they were beggingus for money. I joked that week that no one likes a needy bitch, because it genuinely felt like nothing would be enough and he would always need more, and regular workers only have so much they can give.
Both of those are bad practices, but I think they could have been overlooked if Danny O’Connor had told me why he was better than his opponent and why I should really care. But I didn’t know anything about Troy Balderson until I looked it up the day of the election and saw that Balderson was a complete supporter of Trump. O’Connor never mentioned Balderson in his emails. He never said what that Balderson’s track record was in State House or Senate, and why that was bad for Ohio. How do I know O’Connor will do better if he never tells me what Balderson has done?
Why that does not work:
Danny O’Connor, and other democrats trying to win in red districts, will notwin if they follow this model. It doesn’t work because it doesn’t tell voters or potential supporters why O’Connor is running and why we should invest in him.
In competitive races, you can’t rely on party lines to bring people out to vote. There are people that don’t honestly care that Danny O’Connor was the Democrat, and they won’t give him money for that reason alone. Those people need to know what he plans to do if he wins and why that should persuade them to not only vote for him but to give him money to win.
Sending too many emails turns away potential donors who do not have time to consistently check their emails and open it to 10 emails a day from the same person. Telling someone that you’re broke and need money turns away people that might want to invest in a winning campaign and not someone who spent everything. Only showing someone that we have to win, without giving the why, will not make people want to invest and will lose supporters, making the other two inevitable.
What they should do instead:
Aftab Pureval knows how to write an effective email. His email the night before the election told me why he and O’Connor were so essential to upholding the values of Ohio and our country. It was the only email I had gotten that week that actually made me donate $5.
Pureval said, “The only way we can protect Medicare funding, support our public education system, and combat climate change is by taking back the House in 2018. For us to do that we must win seats like OH-1 and OH-12 –and because Danny and I both have rejected any kind of corporate PAC money, we are counting your help to win big”. That line hit every reason of the why. It told me why O’Connor was running and why it was so important to care and why I should give money. It did everything right.
Every single email sent out by a campaign should tell me why that person is running and what they care about in regard to the location they are running. What issues effect your community that you will be paying attention to once you are in office? Tell me whyI should give you money. Not because someone else will beat you if I don’t give you money, but because my life will be better if you win the seat.
You have to sell yourself and the things you care about to get other people to invest in you. People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. These two things are basic business practices and need to be a strong part of the campaign if Democrats have any chances of flipping deep Republican seats.