Hunley: The job before the job

You think your organization has problems?

Consider this ...

All over Virginia right now there are boisterous, confident folks beginning work with, for the most part, unpaid and unskilled labor.

They will work nights. They will work weekends. Their prime time will be when everyone else is off: essentially, when you and I are out having fun.

And not only will these daring CEOs ask their people to work for no pay, they may actually ask them to give money to the cause.

Who would attempt such a stunt, a venture so contrary to common sense, especially when the economy is bad?

Candidates for political office.

Many people don't like politicians. They think they're smarmy at best, liars at worst.

That's a discussion for another day, though.

What's really impressive is not how noble or notorious a given candidate is. It's what a heck of a difficult task fielding a campaign is.

Money is necessary, of course, because it pays for advertising and incidentals.

That's why Lyle Beefelt, chairman of the Prince William County Republican Committee, jokingly told a crowd at a fundraiser Saturday to "take out all your money, and put it in a basket."

But what a campaign really needs is intensity, excitement.

That's "so much more valuable than just an endless amount of resources," Prince William County Supervisor Mike May told me.

It even can pull volunteers through the rough days of a campaign.

"I think that if someone believes in the cause and believes in what the candidate is trying to do," May said, "that's where they can draw the most motiva-tion."

You have to look no further than last year's candidacy by now-President Barack Obama to see that this is true.

Democrats want to maintain that passion, and Republicans want to come roaring back, especially here.

I talked to Beefelt and May at an event for Rafael Lopez, the GOP candidate for the 52nd District seat in Virginia's House of Delegates.

It was at the Tiziano Italian Restaurant & Bar on Va. 234, but the kind of folks who attend these events feed on politics in addition to pasta.

They're the ones Lopez and all the other pachyderms will have to have on their side be-tween now and Nov. 3.

I started thinking about this subject after reading about Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign in a book titled "Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die."

But Beefelt and his cohorts -- no fans of Clinton, mind you -- unknowingly made this concept of campaign as months-long miracle come alive.

The party chairman told the GOP faithful that getting Lopez elected would require knocking on doors, writing letters to the editor and demanding that debates be held.

"He has a great message. He's got a great track record. He's a very good person," Beefelt said about Lopez. "That won't help us if people don't know about it come Election Day."

Indeed, perhaps dozens of people will put in hours and hours of work, no matter whether Lopez or his Democratic opponent, the Rev. Luke Torian, is elected.

And that's all before the job they're all worried about -- state delegate -- even begins.

Jonathan Hunley is a staff writer at the News & Messenger. Contact him at 703-369-5738 or at jhunley @insidenova.com.