How the aspiring politician may gain election

Abstract

It is not easy for aspiring politicians to get elected, and for a simple reason: the advantages of incumbency are overwhelming. And if the wannabe politician has no public record, the task is extremely difficult. But not impossible. Indeed, an extensive example is supplied, in great detail. On the other hand, if there is no incumbent, the task is much easier, and again the author lays out how a challenger must proceed if he is to succeed.

He that goeth about to persuade a multitude, that they

are not so well governed as they ought to be, shall

never want attentive and favorable hearers.

Richard Hooker

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1593), in The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, Anthony Jay, ed. (Oxford: 1997), p. 182. And this is why elections are more often lost than won!