How much public scrutiny will I receive when running for office?

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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 much public scrutiny will I receive when running for office?

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

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Transcripts

Host: How much public scrutiny will I receive?

Ron Faucheux: The political candidates receive a lot of public scrutiny. The higher the office, of course, the most scrutiny you are going to get. You will certainly be more scrutinized if you are running for President of United States than if you are running for the City Council, but even if you are running for the City Council, expect a lot of scrutiny. You can expect a lot of public scrutiny from your political opponents of course, because they were going to do opposition research on your career, on your record, on your personal life. Expect a lot of public scrutiny from various interest groups. They are going to look at your positions on issues and they are going to ask you questions and they are going to talk about those issues in the positions you have taken. Of course, expect a lot of public scrutiny from the news media; that's their job to ask questions. That's there job to look at people's positions on issues and to look for inconsistencies and to look for the statements. So, you are going to get a lot of public scrutiny in a political campaign and if you don't like that, if you don't want that you may want to think twice about being a political candidate because you are going to certainly get it.

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