Politics is About Personal Relationships as Much as About Philosophy

There is a story in the New York Times dated November 24, 2007, about how a former Marine is organizing western Iowa for Barack Obama. The essential point of the story is that he is trying to develop a network of voters who will recruit other Democratic voters to Obama's cause for the upcoming Democratic caucuses. This is a quote from the article:

The outcome of the Iowa caucuses, a set of 1,781 precinct meetings to take place across the state on Jan. 3, hinges on creating a strong and loyal person-to-person network. Mr. Steele is among the hundreds of Democratic and Republican campaign aides stationed in Iowa responsible for building — and sustaining — those networks throughout the state’s 99 counties.

Most local campaigns don't understand this point: In politics relationships are as important, if not more so, as philosophy in winning elections. People don't go out and work for candidates in local elections because they agree with their philosophy, they go out and work for them because they like them. This is not so true on the national and state level, but is very true on the local level.

People who are thinking about running for office need to work on developing a network of personal relationships they can draw on for their campaigns. It is possible to win local political campaigns without such a network, but it is much easier with such a network.