What I like best about this picture (aside from the world’s most beautiful dog) is the fact that this bag was NOT custom made for me. Someone at Frances Valentine thought, “there are enough women CEO’s, I think we can make some money by selling these.” What an amazing thing capitalism is.
Frances Valentine was founded by the original Kate Spade who in 1993 left her safe job with nothing but a dream and a bag almost exactly like this one.
In the fall of 2019, Campaigns & Elections magazine allowed me to write some articles discussing a variety of topics. Campaigns & Elections is a publication every campaign operative should be tracking. They constantly have insightful information and features from the very best in the business.
Right around Thanksgiving, they published another one of my pieces, Will Relational Organizing Prove a Breakthrough Tactic for the GOP in 2020?
Here’s a small clip:
Every cycle seems to bring about a fresh innovation that reaches voters differently or a new tech that helps a campaign run more efficiently. But one campaign principle that hasn’t seen much change over the years is how we utilize volunteers. I predict this is the next big thing for the GOP.
You can read the full article here
And don’t forget to subscribe to Campaigns & Elections to keep up on the biggest trends in politics.
Thanks for reading,
Nicole Schlinger
| Do you want to engage up to 500 people on one phone call? Do you wan treal-time feedback from your supporters/donors? Do you want to rally your audience to take action? A microforum may be for you! |
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I’ve been spending some time recounting the history of CampaignHQ in my updates about selling our original building.
I recently stumbled upon a couple of articles from The Des Moines Register, written by Jennifer Jacobs in 2011 that I thought would add more color to the storyline of what was happening for our organization during that time.
This article features Mitt Romney and his time in Iowa at that point.
Many of my friends are featured in that article – like David Kochel, Christopher Rants, Jill Latham-Ryan, Doug Gross, Gentry Collins and the list goes on.
This is a write-up Jennifer Jacobs did when I signed on with the Time Pawlenty campaign.
Speaking of Jennifer Jacobs, she is now the Senior White House correspondent for Bloomberg News. She is always breaking news and continues to be a fair and dedicated reporter. You can follow her Twitter feed for many updates.
Thanks for reading,
Nicole Schlinger
Election Night 2010. The last with our team under one roof at #700EastPleasant.
Jake Ketzner asked if I’d be in the room with Governor Branstad. They needed three people to man three computers to check election results. Basically, they needed a third body to hit “refresh” over and over again until Governor Branstad was announced the winner.
At first, I declined.The last time I’d been in the room with a candidate had been in 2006 with Bill Dix. Before that, 1996 with Mike Mahaffey. Frankly, my record of being next to a candidate while they watched election returns was bad.
Jeffrey Robert Boeyink told me if I was asked, I needed to be there.
So on Election Night 2010, I sat in a room and hit refresh over and over and over again alongside Jake and Lynn McRoberts. And lo and behold, Terry Branstad was our Governor again.
After being told I was a terrible fundraiser, after working hard and coming up short for Jim Nussle in 2006, I was finally been the Finance Director for a winning gubernatorial campaign.
Shortly after, we were brought on to help with the fundraising and ticketing for the Inaugural celebration. And while working for Governor Branstad’s campaign was a great experience, the Inauguration was not.
Our call center was growing. Our national clients that year included Tea Party Patriots and Americans United for Life.
It was time to leave Iowa fundraising behind.
We moved our call center into the new building at 109 West Front St in July 2011. The rest of us moved into the basement we now call home in October 2013.
The last Iowa fundraising event I attended was Governor Branstad’s birthday in November 2014.
And as you read this, I am no longer the owner of #700EastPleasant.
If we met in the early years of this century, you may wonder how an establishment Republican major donor fundraiser became a Tea Party conservative.
I was tired of staying in my lane while our candidates put up loss after loss, despite record fundraising. I was tired of Republicans saying they wanted limited government, and then voting for a lot more government. I was tired of being told “we only hire our friends” or “we don’t play in primaries” when all that got us was a lot more cookie cutter and a lot less authentic emotion.
So when I heard JennyBeth Martin for the first time in 2009, shortly after Rick Santelli’s CNBC rant, I knew this was the moment I’d been waiting for. (Not just a conservative, not just a fire breather, but a woman. Someone who looked like me.)
It was time to play full court press. Play like every day is the last play of the game. Let’s push people on their principles, even in primary campaigns, especially in primary campaigns.
At that particular moment, few people wanted to play in that niche. It seemed like a passing trend, and maybe a little dangerous.
Well, I wanted it. So CampaignHQ would be the Best Conservative Call Center in America.
***
2010 was a transition year for CHQ. Several key players who would build the foundation for what was to come joined us that year. Marlys De Witt Popma, Trevor Dodds, and Staci Shepard.
Marlys had been the Campaign Manager for a candidate for Governor who left the race shortly after Terry Branstad announced he was in. A key person on our staff had just quit and we were looking to fill the gap. But the notion that THE Marlys Popma would fill that gap (and more) #CHQ seemed outlandish.
Chad Foster and I giggled like little girls when I told him my big idea and read him the script of what I’d say when I called. But lo and behold in January 2010, she showed up for work and a new chapter began. When we hired Marlys, we didn’t have a place for her desk. So I moved out of my office into the vending machine closet, and my office was split in two so she’d have a space.
Trevor and Staci started on the call floor with amazing talent. We didn’t have assigned seats for everyone, and the day Trevor got a desk of his own (actually a $29.99 coffee cart from Wal-Mart) was a milestone. It was … as we like to call it… “Toilet Adjacent.”
#700EastPleasant was getting overcrowded.
In the winter of 2007, Romney was barnstorming Iowa like no other candidate. We were taking RSVPs for dozens of “Ask Mitt Anything” events all over the state.
But he wasn’t the only one. We were still raising money for Congressman Latham and now Congressman Steve King. We were still setting appointments for State Legislators.
So how do you handle RSVP’s for many candidates coming into a single toll free number?
You change your name.
No matter which event or which candidate you were calling for … if you were greeted with a cheery “Campaign Headquarters” … you called the right place.
So that’s how the name Capitol Resources got chucked out the window and replaced with CampaignHQ.
When the Romney campaign ended in early 2008, it would have been easy to go back to the same old grind. House parties. Appointments. But once David Kochel makes you see something, you can’t unsee it. We kept on doing what we’d always done, but on the side we were building the new business.
2008 was a rough year. I stopped taking paychecks again. Barack Obama was elected President, and the Tea Party movement was about to begin.
Let’s make 2020 the best year yet.
Nicole Schlinger
A defining feature of Iowa campaigns in 2006 was the constant presence of 2008 Presidential hopefuls. While traveling the state in support of our ticket, they could actively recruiting activists, elected officials, and staff.
Mitt Romney was king amongst the “non-candidates” in 2006, attending more events for more candidates than anyone else.
At one such fundraiser in Burlington for Congressman Jim Leach, I was cornered by David Kochel and Gentry Collins.
I won’t forget what Kochel said. “You could do a lot more than this.” He called it a Campaign in a Box. We would use our calling crew to drive turnout for events which I would plan and execute. This would give the campaign we signed up for a huge advantage by holding events from which they could build their organization of county chairs and precinct captains. This would culminate in the largest event of all, the Iowa Straw Poll. Putting the people on the bus would be just like putting the butts in seats at a State Party dinner.
This was shortly after Bill Dix’s primary loss. And it was the first time ANYONE had painted a bigger picture for me, had pulled back the curtain to say there’s a bigger world out there and you are good enough to be in it.
It was the first time my head peaked up over the wall of Iowa politics, to see a tiny little glimpse of what CampaignHQ could eventually become.
So while it’s a little embarrassing in retrospect to say I was too head down, too buried in house party after house party, every night giving out nametags in a different town, to see this was not the mountaintop. I’m glad David Kochel did.
On Election Night in 2006, Jim Nussle lost the race for Governor to Chet Culver. Jim Leach lost to Dave Loebsack. And Republicans lost control of the Iowa House.
And I signed up with Mitt Romney right before Thanksgiving. Campaign Headquarters was born.
If you haven’t been following along, in honor of our recent sale of the original headquarters, I’ve been throwing it back with old stories about where this company has been.
Two stories about the 2006 election cycle – the last cycle where we focused 100 percent on raising money for Iowa candidates.
So let’s recap the political state of play.
Iowa had five Congressmen, four Republicans – Nussle, King, Leach, and Latham and one Democrat – Boswell.
Jim Nussle’s would-be run for Governor was the world’s worst-kept secret. He did not immediately clear the GOP primary field. Rumors persisted through early 2005 that Doug Gross would run again, although he ultimately did not. Bob Vander Plaats was in.
Bill Dix, Brian Kennedy, and Mike Whalen were all in for the open Nussle seat. Leach and Latham ran for re-election. Jeff Lamberti ran against Leonard Boswell. Christopher Rants was Speaker of the House.
Nussle, Dix, Leach, Latham, and Rants were all our clients.
Two things happened in 2006 that would foretell what was to come for Capitol Resources and eventually for the business you’d come to know as Campaign Headquarters today.
Of all the candidates we worked for in 2006, we had the most direct connection with the Dix family. I cannot count the number of afternoons at his dining room table, drinking Gerri Dix‘s lemonade dialing and dialing and dialing for dollars.
Bill Dix was the last candidate for whom I wrote speeches. I helped write his announcement speech and the stump speech he gave at Republican dinners the first few months. While his platform was pretty typical for a Republican at that time – lower taxes, less government, pro-life – Bill had a unique voice and a special way of delivering that message that was his alone.
For those of you who worked in the 2006 election cycle, you probably remember it was the last mid-term cycle of the Bush 43 Presidency. The Iraq War was immensely unpopular, and Republicans had voted for the largest increase in government entitlements in a generation. It was the year Republicans lost the House and made Nancy Pelosi speaker. If Republicans weren’t going to be Republicans … well, you might as well vote for Democrats.
So when you convince a candidate like that to deliver a Washington, DC-style speech over and over again … well, it’s not going to work. Bill stopped saying “change the status quo.” His yard signs lost his trademark slogan, “Let’s Make it Happen.”
When I expressed concern, I was told in no uncertain times to stay in my own lane. And to this day, I regret that I did indeed stay in my own lane.
On primary night, I watched as Bill told his parents, “Mom, Dad, I don’t think we’re going to make it,” before making his concession speech.
Bill may have lost that primary no matter what. He was running against a self-funder. He wasn’t from the right part of the district. He had a statehouse record that an outsider could attack. But the fact is, I didn’t fight as hard as I could.
As I told you before, a fundraiser may get their paycheck from the candidates … but you work for the donors.
Nearly every donor I knew had maxed out to Bill Dix. And I had to answer for that.
These days, we make phone calls and text messages for hundreds of campaigns. It’s easy to forget as they fly across your desk one after another that running for office is the culmination of a life’s dream for someone, whether it’s Congress or Town Council.
When we jam them all in the same bucket, with the same tired old talking points, we are failing them mightily. When I start to forget that, I think of Bill Dix, and I know we can do better.
Stay tuned for the second story…
