Making Food a Campaign Issue by Sept. 15, 2012
If candidates in your district are not currently running on a food plank, is it possible for grassroots groups to quickly educate candidates and help them craft a food plank? perhaps by Sept. 15, 2012?
These resource pages are designed to help any group in any district craft a simple plan for getting a candidate’s attention and commitment to food as a federal policy issue.
LEVELS OF CANDIDATE ENGAGEMENT
Chronologically, the basic stages of a candidate’s engagement are:
1. Listening to your group’s food concerns
2. Understanding that food system issues are broad-based, maximum-leverage, bipartisan issues that connect to every newspaper headline
3. Addressing food system concerns in a concrete, public way, e.g.:
- attend a food system event (panel discussion, roundtable, film+discussion)
- host a food system listening session
- write an op-ed piece about food (to gauge public response)
4. Committing to food as a campaign issue, such as
- identify food as a minor campaign issue: posting 1-2 sentences on campaign website
- identify food as a major campaign issue: posting a paragraph or more on campaign website
5. Becoming a champion of food system issues:
- have a food system expert as a senior campaign team member (volunteer or staff)
- craft a “white paper” on food issues (1 page fact sheet)
- make food a primary topic of every stump speech
- identify action items if elected
CRAFTING A PLAN to make food a campaign issue in your district in 2012 involves:
A. Preparation
1. Identify a core group of people in your district who are concerned about food issues and who want to make food a campaign issue in 2012
2. Self-educate as a group, if necessary, about:
- food system issues
- candidate(s): track record, hot button issues (for and against), personal connections to food issues
3. Identify 3-5 food concerns that:
- group is passionate about
- group can articulate in a 1-page fact sheet
- group can answer questions that a candidate might ask about
B. Getting your candidate’s attention on food issues
Depending on how comfortable you are approaching your candidate(s) and/or whether you and the candidate(s) are already acquainted, there are two basic ways to get the ball rolling:
1. Informal
- At a campaign event (attended by one or all candidates), ask a food-related question. (If the opportunity arises, you and your group can ask multiple food-related questions.)
- Staffmember. Getting to know a member of the candidate’s staff can be very helpful. Often a staffmember already has an interest in food as a political issue. Most people are happy to learn about food system issues.
2. Formal. Ask for a group meeting with candidate (public or private) to:
- Articulate group’s food concerns
- Ask candidate what it would take for him/her to make food a campaign issue in 2012
- Seek to discover candidate’s deeper interests and motivations
C. Getting a candidate to commit to making food a campaign issue in 2012
1. Follow-up on the initial contact to gauge candidate’s interest
2. Be prepared to offer some help to the candidate:
- Identify other constituents who might have food concerns
- Draft a statement for the candidate’s website, campaign literature
- Host a coffee or meeting to help the candidate draft a statement and/or plan some outreach about food issues
