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How to Run for Office

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TRThorpe Flag

Looking too far off camera.
He seems authoritative,but the gaze is about 1.5 feet too far to the left, made me not want to watch anymore.

Ron Faucheux: I am Ron Faucheux. I wrote a book tittled Running for Office. I also teach Political Campaign Management and Running for Office at The Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University in Washington, DC. I have also advised over a 100 political campaigns as a Campaign Consultant and I have run for office myself having been elected three times as a State Legislature.

Today, we are going to talk about what it takes to be a political candidate? How you have to prepare yourself to run for office? What are the factors that you have to consider before you announce that you are running office and what are the things that you have to keep in mind? How do you have to look at a political campaign from a candidate's perspective and what you need to be prepared for as you get in the race and wage your campaign for political office?

Speaker: What are the major reasons people run for office?

Ron Faucheux: Well, there are lots of reasons why people run for office some people want to run for office for good reasons, for no good reasons. They have important issues that they want to stand for; they have important changes they want to make in Government. They have things they want to do and they need the political power that holding office brings to you to get those things done. Of course, there are the people who want to run for office just because they want their name in lights, because they want to take the ego-trip, because they want to be famous, because they want to have a lifestyle, that brings them into contact with a lot of important people and powerful people. So you see across the political spectrum, a lot of people running for different reasons; but it is a very tough thing to run for a office and your reason should be worthwhile.

Expert: Ron Faucheux

Ron Faucheux is one of America's top political and public affairs analysts. Contributor-at-Large for Campaigns & Elections magazine - a nonpartisan publication he previously published and edited - he writes a column on politics and public opinion. Currently head of government affairs for the American Institute of Architects, Dr. Faucheux is a former state legislator and cabinet secretary. He's the author More »