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You are running for office and you have
an uphill climb. Why? Because your
opponent is the incumbent and has been in
the job you want.
When an incumbent has a solid foothold in his/her voting area, it is not always easy to unseat them. You have to find some reason for his/her constituency to vote him/her out of office. Just to put things in perspective here. An example would be if this rich powerful good-ole-boy had a job as CEO of a corporation, and he had been in this job for, let's say, 10 to 12 years. What would you have to do or say to convince the stockholders and the board of the corporation to terminate his employment and give you the job? Sounds like an impossible task, doesn't it. Well, I'll be honest here . . . sometimes it is. On the other hand, sometimes the best of them make mistakes along the way to their success and it is up to you to find it. There are several places you can look to evaluate your opponent's record. While in office, what has been his attendance record? Has he been there for votes? You will need to get copies of his voting records. Records are always kept of voting records and they are open to the public, usually for a fee. For example, the House and Senate on the State level have journals with the daily bills and motions and votes by name and those can be gotten by having a "friendly" office holder order them for you. In my experience, you cannot just order them yourself. .Also, in my hometown newspaper, when Congress is in session it prints the bills and info on whether those bills were passed or not, and how our state Congressional team voted on each issue. Therefore, you could in this case go to the back issues of the newspaper. Has your opponent sponsored or co-sponsored any bills or brought forth any issues to the floor for a vote? These will give you a strong indication of where he/she stands on some issues. A public office holder will rarely take a stand on an issue unless he/she feels strongly about it. These records are also public and can probably be found the same place as the voting records. Also, if the sponsored or co-sponsored bill is killed in committee or voted down on the floor, or if he/she regularly gets voted down, then you may have an issue to take him/her down on. He/she is then ineffective.
The copyright of the article Researching the Incumbent's Record in Women in Politics is owned by . Permission to republish Researching the Incumbent's Record in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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