The Elizabeth Colbert-Busch Guide to Running in Another Party’s Safe District

Before we get started, it goes without saying that you need to run a strong campaign, not have any personal baggage, raise at least twice as much money as your opponent, and decisively win any debates. Once you’ve got that down, just follow these four simple steps. *Guide tested in South Carolina District 1 special election between Elizabeth Colbert-Busch and Mark Sanford, May 7, 2013. SC-1 voted for Mitt Romney at 11 points above his national average in 2012. Sanford won the election with 54 percent of the vote. Timing is everything. Whatever you do, don’t run in the general election. General elections have a high turnout and are highly predictable. Voters are unlikely to split their tickets. Instead, wait until a special election – that is, until your current representative is appointed to a higher office, retires mid-term, resigns in disgrace, or dies. It should happen eventually, if you don’t die of old age first yourself. Special elections tend to garner national attention, and they allow more emphasis to be placed on the individual candidates. Support the other party’s policy positions. There’s no way you can get elected just by representing the viewpoints of your party’s supporters. Don’t completely forsake them, but also don’t be afraid to register your opposition to your party’s most important legislative accomplishment in recent memory. Family fame. You’re going to want to have a close relative who is a popular celebrity. Not just a B-lister; this should be someone who has a personal legion of fans from both parties and, ideally, has a TV show on which to advertise your candidacy and mock your opponent. Speaking of which…  Choose your opponent wisely. This may be the most important step. If you’re facing an average or even mediocre candidate from the other party, you will lose. Your opponent needs to be embarrassing. Here’s an example of an opponent who was bad, but not bad enough: in 2008, Representative Henry Brown ®, incumbent of South Carolina’s District 1 (61 percent Republican), was forced to pay a fine for starting a fire that ended up burning down 20 acres of a national forest. Brown still won his election by 4 percent. No, you’ll want an opponent who’s done something even more embarrassing than recklessly causing massive environmental destruction. Something like a sex scandal. Better yet: a sex scandal funded by taxpayer money. In case the scandal took place a while ago, try and keep it current. Make sure your opponent does something new to remind everyone of the really scandalous thing he or she did, like trespassing on an ex-spouse’s property. It should ideally be shameful enough that your opponent’s national campaign committee pulls out all its funding from the race. DISCLAIMER: If you somehow manage to make all of that happen, don’t get too excited. You will still almost certainly lose. And if you do win the special election, you’ll probably just lose in the next general election anyway. But at least you did everything you could to strike a blow for disenfranchised minority party voters all over the country! Or here’s another idea. If you get tired of waiting for that perfect storm to fall on your district, you could always help the U.S. House switch to using multi-member districts elected under fair voting methods that would guarantee minority party voters the ability to elect a candidate in every district in the country. No sex scandal necessary—just a federal statutory change. Reprinted with permission from Fair​Vote​.org.