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How to Run for Office: Pressures Candidates Face

How do I know if running for office is right for me?

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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 of the acclaimed book for candidates, Running for Office; editor of The Debate Book, a manual of standards and guidelines for political debates; and editor of Winning Elections, a treasure chest of the best campaign advice ever published.

He's handled 116 candidate and issue campaigns as a media consultant and campaign strategist. He's worked on a wide range of issue advocacy, association, corporate and grassroots lobbying campaigns.

Since the early 1990s, he's made over 350 national television appearances and has anchored his own national cable TV news show. His network appearances have included the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The Lou Dobbs Show on CNN, ABC's Nightline, NBC's The Today Show and ABC's Good Morning America.

He's trained thousands of political candidates, issue advocates, corporate executives and association leaders. The campaign "message development" process he created has been used successfully by many campaigns, large and small, around the world.

Dr. Faucheux graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, received a law degree from the LSU Law Center and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of New Orleans.

He teaches courses in Campaign Management and Running For Office at The Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University and at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute.

He was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives at 25 - at the time the legislature's youngest member. He was re-elected twice, once with 84 percent of the vote and once without opposition. He also served as state Secretary of Commerce.

Dr. Faucheux resides in the Washington, D.C. area. His office is located at 1735 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20006-5292

How do I know if running for office is right for me?

In this video, expert Ron Faucheux shares his tips and techniques on how to run for office.

This expert: 33,746 views

This series: 6,647 views

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Ron Faucheux: I am Ron Faucheux. I wrote a book titled "Running for Office" and I teach Political Campaign Management in Running for Office at The Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University. We have been talking about what it takes to be a political candidate and now, we will focus on the pressures that it takes to run for a office.

Host: How do I know if running for office is for me?

Ron Faucheux: It's an important decision to make before you run for office, whether running for office is really for you or not. You have really need to look before you leap. You have really need to have some realistic sense of what it takes to wage a political campaign; what it takes to win a political campaign and then the efforts that you have to put into the public office once you are elected to serve. So you have to be very sure of that. It's not for everybody; it's a tough process to go through. It can be very difficult, you call names; it's a very hard work. You have a lot of pressures on you to raise money and to reach out and to constantly work in campaign and do things that are often times not very easy to do and if you are not prepared to walk into that with your eyes wide open, knowing the kind of efforts going to take, it maybe very difficult to actually perform as a good political candidate.

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