How to Become Our Candidate

If you are interested in becoming one of the 100 candidates for the United States House of Representatives or the 10 candidates for the United States Senate that CongressionalRevolution.com will endorse and assist with fundraising and volunteer recruitment during the 2008 election, there are a few qualifications that you must meet before you may be considered for our endorsement and assistance.

What Does it Take to be Our Candidate?

1. You must reside in a state or district where a Republican incumbent or out of touch Democratic incumbent, i.e. those who want to continue Bush's folly in Iraq, holds office, or in a state or district that will hold an election for a seat where a member of Congress is retiring, or has otherwise left the seat vacant in 2008.

2. You must meet the constitutional requirements of assuming office. For House candidates this means you must be 25 years of age or older, must have been a citizen of the United States for at least 7 years, and must be an inhabitant of the district wherein you are seeking election. For Senate candidates you must be 30 years of age or older, must have been a citizen of the United States for at least 9 years, and must be an inhabitant of the state wherein you are seeking election.

3. You must either pledge to support the platform created by CongressionalRevolution.com and its members that will be posted on this site at a future date, or have positions consistent with our progressive platform.

4. You must be an articulate, thoughtful, and dedicated progressive with the integrity to hold true to the ideals of the progressive movement. You must demonstrate that you are articulate in telephone conversations held with the individual who created CongressionalRevolution.com, and with videotaped evidence of your public speaking ability. You must provide evidence of your thoughtfulness and integrity by providing at least three personal references from individuals who can attest to specific instances that demonstrate your thoughtfulness and personal integrity, and each such person should provide at least three personal references able to provide similar evidence of their thoughtfulness and integrity. We may also endorse candidates already running for office who hold positions consistent with our platform, or personal backgrounds consistent with our values.

What is Not Required?

1. You are not required to hold any political office, or to have ever held any political office.

2. You are not required to possess any specific level of education or any specific life experience; however, through your ability to speak, and other evidence, you must demonstrate an ability to make reasonable decisions about the appropriateness of any legislation as is required of each member of Congress.

3. You are not required to have a certain look or appearance, or be certain age, except that you must be at least the age required to hold office.

How to Start the Process?

You may begin the process of becoming one of the candidates endorsed by CongressionalRevolution.com by introducing yourself to our principal organizer via email. You should tell us your name, provide a brief biography, provide your telephone number, tell us which Congressional district or Senate seat you seek to run for in 2008, and tell us who the name of the incumbent office holder, as well as provide some information about actions they have taken in office that give you pause. We reserve the right to endorse candidates consistent with our values who are already campaigning online.

What Should You Have in Place?

Before contacting CongressionalRevolution.com about possible endorsement, you should have contacted and gained the support of at least one "old hand" in local party politics within your Congressional district or State for Senate races, who can provide you with some of the know how needed to get on the ballot for any primary or caucus, as well as provide a little guidance about complying with Federal Campaign Finance and other election laws. While this would be very beneficial to any campaign, and is something that any serious candidate should try to put in place early in their campaign, CongressionalRevolution.com will assist candidates in finding these people when necessary for appropriate candidates.

You should have at least a volunteer treasurer and/or campaign manager living in your district or state who has agreed to work on your campaign and assist you with the early growing pains of launching your campaign. This could be that same "old hand" or it could be another person familiar with Federal Campaign Finance laws and Federal Election law. Realistically, your initial core campaign team should include at least one attorney and one accountant for legal compliance to help you build a solid foundation for your campaign; however, our goal is to help build these teams when necessary to support appropriate candidates.

You should have at least one tech savy volunteer who can build and maintain your campaign website and blog, as well as build a suitable Myspace and/or Facebook and YouTube presence for your campaign. You should also have a tech savy volunteer familiar with video production and post production who can build video of speeches and events for use in conjunction with your website and/or the YouTube account that will be attached to your campaign.

For candidates who already have websites up and running in support of their campaign, we encourage them to list their site and their candidacy with ActBlue where we have already begun research to endorse candidates. Candidates will need an ActBlue presence to join our fundraising page.