Final

—Option2- Campaign Development—
Final Assignment Due: Sunday, July 26th, on Canvas by 11.59 pm FINAL ASSIGNMENT PROPOSAL 
 Background:
In this class, you learned about the various steps of a political campaign. From social media strategy to turning out voters, a political campaign is very difficult to execute. If you choose this type of assignment, you will pretend to be a campaign manager for a chosen political campaign (the type of campaign is up to you). In this assignment, you will illustrate the steps of what you would do for every main phase of the campaign.
Instructions:
You will choose a political candidate that you would the run the campaign for. The political candidate can be any candidate who is running in 2020 in any political office in the US (local, state or national level). For this assignment you will have to do some preliminary research on your chosen candidate (from what is available in the news and other online sources) and write a 6 page campaign memo explaining the various steps of your campaign (except fundraising, which is not at the core of what we learn in this class).  
-Campaign Memo
Explain the various steps for the campaign (a few sentences for each step).

Describe your candidate and what office they are running for in a few sentences
Describe your candidate’s opponent in a few sentences.
Who are your main target markets in your campaign? Why do you think that focusing on this target market would be effective?
Develop Message

What are some of your candidate’s positive attributes?
What could your candidate be attacked on?
What are some of the competitive advantages of your candidate compared to their opponent?

Communication

Paid Media

What are some media outlets that are you planning to buy your ads in?
Describe the message of at least one ad that you are planning to run.

Earned media

Describe the content of at least two press releases you would send to journalists OR describe the content of at least two free social media posts you might write.
Are you using any other type of communication, beyond mass media? Which one?

  6. Structure of organization

What are some of the roles that would be important in your campaign? (social media manager? Strategy?) You can be creative and create roles that are particularly important for your campaign.

GOTV (Go to vote initiatives)

What GOTV initiatives are you planning to put in place during your campaign? Why do you think they are important for the success of your campaign?

Format: the memo should be 6 pages minimum, double spaced, Times New Romans 12. It’s up to you how much space you devote to each section of your campaign. For most campaign, I would expect the media section to be longer.
REMEMBER: The presentation of your thoughts counts! Check carefully that you have followed all instructions in terms of format and content. Organize your arguments clearly and concisely. State an argument at the beginning of a paragraph and then support it with examples from the newspaper content, references from class readings, lectures, or class discussions.  Make sure you cite sources.
Grading:
This paper is worth 25% of your final grade.  Essays will be graded according to the following criteria:

Did the author follow the guidelines of the assignment, complete all requirements AND provide evidence of this in the memo? (50%)
Did the author demonstrate a good understanding of all the different phases of a campaign? Did the author provide a good rationale for their strategy choices? Is the discussion of paid media and earned media ideas clear? (40%)
Is the writing clear, coherent and concise?  Does the author use proper grammar, spelling and punctuation? (10%)

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