LBJ School News Brief

September 13, 2004

Bruno photo

Steve Bruno is interviewed during the primaries in Duluth, Minnesota.

Campaigning
for a president
Steve Bruno talks about his experiences on the political
campaign trail

Sometimes the best way to bring about change is to start at the ground level. Whether the goal is individual—like jumpstarting your career—or something broader—like working to change the top tier of federal government—sometimes you just have to start at the bottom and work your way up.

This was the advice given to students by Steve Bruno (M.P.Aff. 2001) during the first of this year’s Alumni Exchanges program. The program, initiated last year by LBJ School students Joe Laufer and Phillip Savio, connects students with alumni throughout the academic year via teleconference calls.

Bruno, who is currently working as a field organizer and delegate tracker in the John Kerry for President campaign, focused most of his remarks on the career benefits that can be gained by participating in a political campaign. He also spoke about his day-to-day assignments as the presidential election approaches.

“There’s nothing else that gives you the skills you get in running a political campaign,” Bruno said, speaking from New Mexico. “It is just a unique experience. No matter what you do afterwards, people are impressed by it, and you learn a lot—things you would never learn anywhere else.”

He urged students to take advantage of being situated in Austin and at The University of Texas at Austin, where there are “so many things you can get involved in.” He shared his own experiences in Texas, when he worked for the Texans for John Sharp (Texas Lieutenant Governor) campaign. In that capacity, he helped the finance director raise approximately $10 million for the statewide campaign.

“The difference between state and national campaigns is the scale and the level of intensity,” he said, “but it’s still about organization and working with people. If you’re interested in local issues, look for state, city council or mayor’s races.”

Bruno also stressed that in order to succeed in the political campaign arena, one has to have a good attitude, a strong work ethic, and good writing and communication skills. “I learned more about political campaigns simply by showing up and starting to volunteer, even sweeping floors at the beginning,” he related. “You have to earn trust and slowly get more responsibility. Don’t expect that just because you’re involved in a policy interest, that you’ll be absorbed into the campaign automatically. It takes a little bit of work to go where you want to go.”

With about two months left until the presidential election, Bruno is heeding his own advice and is focusing his efforts at the grassroots level. Currently, he is heavily involved in direct voter-to-voter contact, both on the phone and door-to-door. He says that he and his coworkers try not to get distracted by controversies, polls, and their opponent’s campaign but instead focus on keeping their message positive, mobilizing their democratic base and targeting independent voters.

“In any election, it gets to be a numbers game. You start calculating how many votes you need to win,” he said. “I try not to pay too much attention to polls. When you get into this, it’s easy to get swayed, but I have goals—to get X number of voters a day and to get volunteers on the ground.”

He predicts that this year’s presidential election will have a record voter turnout, and said that one of the most remarkable things he has heard in his conversations with people is the elderly who say this is the most important election in their lives.

“It is going to be a lot bigger than previous races and it’s going to be close,” he said. “Lots more resources are being poured into battleground states, but there’s stuff going on in places like Texas, too.” He urged students to check out their candidate’s web site to look into such opportunities as travelers’ programs sponsored by political parties to get people to work in battleground states.

Responding to a student’s question, Bruno said that his approach in trying to attract voters to his camp is to get them to talk about issues that interest them and then present his candidate’s policies on these issues. He added that the issues he hears most about are health care, the economy, the environment, the reestablishment of foreign alliances, and pocketbook issues such as jobs being shifted overseas and tax loopholes for businesses.

Bruno has been with the John Kerry for President campaign since October 2003. Before the Democratic National Convention in July, he was responsible for outreach and coordination with delegates from Alaska, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. He has also been involved in organizing counties in these four states in preparation for state primaries and caucuses, and he has managed field offices in Iowa, Minnesota and New Mexico. In addition, he has conducted volunteer recruitment, handled voter outreach, worked with the Get-Out-the-Vote and Get-Out-the-Caucus programs and assisted in site-finding and crowd-building activities for Kerry campaign events.

During his LBJ School summer internship in 1998, Bruno worked for the National Low Income Housing Coalition in Washington, D.C. He has also been a project manager with Diana McIver & Associates in Austin, where he prepared funding applications for affordable housing funds from federal, state and local sources on behalf of clients nationwide. From 1998 to 2000, he worked for Texas State Representative Craig Eiland, and from 1996 to 1997 he worked with AmeriCorps VISTA at Texas Action for Cooperative Housing in Houston.

Since Bruno is interested in issues related to affordable housing, he hopes that if his candidate wins, he will have an opportunity to work in Washington in a housing-related position.

“But we’ve got to get there first,” he said. “The risk you take when working in political campaigns is that your person doesn’t always win. But I feel really encouraged because whether you win or lose, you learn a whole lot.”

by María de la Luz Martínez

Related links

LBJ School 2004 Voter Resource Guide

The Presidential Election: Is fear driving our choices?

The Youth Vote Counts: Presence of young voters at polls is critical to political process

Will Social Security enter the race?

Will foreign policy win the vote?

LBJ School policy experts forecast key issues

The rhetoric of presidential campaigns: A historical perspective

Wesley Wilson heads Bush e-campaign (May 2001)

13 September 2004

Comments to: lbjweb@uts.cc.utexas.edu

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