Storytelling for Local Political Candidates

If you are running for a city or county office, especially if you are running for re-election, storytelling will be an essential part of your success. But telling your story is just part of the process. You need to help your voters tell their own stories by gently informing them of the ways your public service makes their private lives better.

For more years than I will enumerate here (you could guess my age from the dates I graduated college, and actually I am older than that), I have followed county politics in Central Texas. A few days ago, I came across a perfect example of appropriate storytelling by Travis County Commissioner Howard.

The Travis County Commissioners put two bond issues for parks and transportation on the November 2023 ballot. Austin is affluent, politically aware, environmentally conscious, and outdoorsy. It is no surprise that the bonds passed. But Commissioner Howard integrated the passage into her story.

I do not, by the way, believe this was a calculated political move. Just a good one.

Commisioner Howard posted in her social media feed a few weeks before the bond election that she and her husband had been out birdwatching, and she found it to be so much fun that she wondered if it is ever addictive.

Then she moved on to other topics.

But the point is, she identified herself with her political objectives in a personal, relatable, authentic way.

One afternoon watching birds is not going to win anyone a political office, not even an elected office in your local chapter of the Audobon society. But dozens of self-revelatory moments add up.

If you are running for office, do you need a social media manager? You absolutely do. But you also need to be out there doing the things that make you relatable and authentic, and then give your voters a way to find out about them.

There is a little more to political storyteling than just that, of course.

I believe there are three components to effective political stories, which don't have to presented all at once.

Affluent, financially stable, well-educated voters support candidates who give them a gentle nudge into "the flow."

If you read Harvard Business Review or the Wall Street Journal, you will see "the flow state" repeated like a mantra. Or maybe it is a mantra.

The flow state is a noun, not a verb. It is a state of mind. You can't put yourself in the flow. Your voters can't will themselves into the flow to avoid stopping at Dunkin Donuts on the way to work, or fall asleep before midnight, or to hit the gym three times a week.

They are just more likely to find their flow when they experience eustress rather than distress. Not when there is no stress in their lives. When there is manageable stress in their lives.

How does eustress happen?

When there is a stop sign at the intersection their children must cross on their way to school. You still have to get your kids to school, but you don't worry as much about their safety.

When there are sidewalks for taking the baby out in the stroller on your walk to the store. You don't have to venture out into the street to get your child some fresh air and sunshine.

When the pool opens for the summer on time, or when there is a diversion program that keeps a troubled teen out of jail.

On a biological level, public improvements reduce the production of cortisol in the reticular activating system so individuals can use their whole brains to take control over their lives. On a political level, this means getting a road paved can get you more votes than the fact that you got your JD at Harvard Law School or you used to be Navy SEAL, although those are also salient points in your resume, especially for your constituents who were Navy SEALs or got their law degrees at Harvard. Just remember that you need half the vote.

Identify the ways you make your constituents' live easier. Or, you are running for the first time, the ways you will make their lives easier.

Another way successful candidates get votes is by helping their voters achieve a lack of ego.

That does not mean the successful candidate lacks ego. We can all point to politicians who have enormous egos who have won elections.

What I mean by the voter's lack of ego is this:

With regard to you, your voter does not feel all that different.

Maybe they are like you. Or maybe they want to be like you. But you aren't alien to them.

So, use the level of language your voters use. Without becoming ostentatious, let your voters know you enjoy the same lifestyle they do. Don't make them have to wonder if they speak your language.

Now to address the elephant in the room. If voters are more comfortable with candidates whose lifestyle is like theirs, how does, ahem. some self-professed billionaire have such a following.

Voters are generally, although not always, smarter than politicians give them credit. They recognize a lie when they hear one. It can simply be easier to go with the liar you are sure is a liar than the truthteller you can't quite believe.

And there are voters you cannot reach because they do not share your perception of reality.

My advice to all candidates is to be a truthteller. It may not be better for you politically. but it is better for the rest of us. Sharing your truth makes democracy stronger, especially when you make us think.

A third way politicians can help their voters write their own happy stories is to create a focus.

The traditional way of doing this is uniting voters around a common enemy.

It could be, as the late Austin-American humor writer John Kelso described it, the Manitoban hordes sweeping down to Texas across our unprotected Great Plains from the Canadian frontier.

Or a disease, an economic threat, or an evil corporation.

Don't get me wrong. I want my political leaders to stare down evil corporations and to protect us from real-world threats.

But I long for political leaders who can unify us around common goals, such as my boyhood (again, dating myself) who captured out national imagination by promising a mission to the moon.

(Even at the age of 12, I was disappointed when I learned that Dick Tracy was wrong, and there weren't really any Moon People.) I could forgive JFK for disabusing my belief in Moon People because he encouraged the programs that got us to the Moon.

Make lives better, and make sure your voters know that your accomplishments make life better for you in the same way. Be relatable. And put something relatable "out there" every single day. And don't be afraid to be aspirational. Just be sure you deliver.