IEG provide a variety of services, including political consultation, marketing, fundraising and public relations. We help our clients hire, train, and coordinate the activities of staff members and volunteers in all aspects of a campaign.

Campaign work is certainly not for everyone. There is usually little formal mentoring, little structured feedback, little administrative support, and little free time – and given the finite nature of the campaign cycle, often little long-term stability. And as in other career arenas, getting involved in one campaign is usually the best way to get involved in others down the road, creating experts with a clear and proven track record.

While the given political landscape is an important factor in any campaign — in many cases the most important factor – the difference between winning and losing is what goes on inside the campaign.

There are three types of political campaigns that have nearly no chance to achieve victory on Election Day due to their own internal failures.

The first is the campaign which does not have a persuasive message to deliver to voters and does not have a clear idea of which voters it wants to persuade. This type of campaign lacks direction from the beginning and the situation will only get worse.

Second is the campaign that has a concise, persuasive message, and a clear idea of which voters it can persuade but lacks a reasonable plan of what to do between now and Election Day to persuade these voters. This type of campaign wastes time, money, and people as it wanders aimlessly toward Election Day. It is often distracted by the day’s events, by things the opponent’s campaign does, or by things the press says, spending more time reacting to outside factors than promoting its own agenda.

Finally, the third kind of campaign is one that has a clear message, a clear idea of its voters, and a plan to get to Election Day, but it fails to follow through on the plan, not doing the hard work, day after day, to win an election. This is a lazy campaign, which makes excuses as to why it can’t do what it knows must be done and, in the end, makes excuses as to why it lost.