Lisa Spies
President, The LS Group
Book Recommendations:
Recommended by Lisa Spies
“Most books about money in politics take a cynical view that is wrong and makes the system worse. Michael Cohen’s refreshingly candid Modern Political Campaigns shows the practical side of political fundraising. He demonstrates that it is good business and good politics for fundraisers to retain their ethics while working to provide campaigns the resources they need to compete and win.” (from Amazon)
Michael D. Cohen(you?)
Modern Political Campaigns brings together academic, practical, and interviews to help understand how professionalism, technology, and speed have revolutionized elections, creating more voter-centric races for public office. Dr. Michael D. Cohen, a 20+ year veteran of working on, teaching, and writing about political campaigns take readers through how campaigns are organized, state-of-the-art tools of the trade, and how some of the most interesting people in politics got their big breaks. The book takes readers through clear-eyed chapters on parties and elections, campaign planning and management, fundraising, independent groups, vulnerability and opposition research, data and analytics, focus groups and polling, earned, paid and social media, and field operations. Finally, the book revisits the Permanent Campaign in terms of modern approaches to winning elections raising questions about today’s uniform preference for turnout over persuasion and what that means for our American democracy. Modern Political Campaigns will appeal to students and political activists interested in working in political campaigns. It is also a great read for anyone who wants to better understand the nuts and bolts of campaigns in practical terms from professionals, and the opportunities they provide all of us to be more engaged citizens and hold our leaders more accountable each Election Day.