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ARIZONA DAILY STAR

If you think all it takes to be a successful politician is a nice smile and firm handshake, think again.

As a room full of 50 Republican hopefuls and political junkies learned Saturday, the road to victory is bumpy, difficult and expensive.

Crammed in a meeting room at Jim Click's Auto Mall offices, these aspiring politicos were dealt a day's worth of tips on every in and out of campaigning, from getting in the newspaper to targeting coveted independent voters.

Think of it as Campaigning 101 — homeroom for Southern Arizona's up-and-coming candidates.

Both parties hold these so-called candidate schools, hoping to turn people with good résumés but zero political experience into your future elected officials.

As the classes stress, good ideas and the brains to carry them out don't make a winning candidate. It's all about strategy, planning, organization and — most of all — money.

"Ask for money and do it often," Todd Schnick, a Republican consultant with the national group GOPAC, told students Saturday. "The job of the candidate is to talk to voters and raise money. It's not to manage the campaign."

There was the normal dose of partisan platitudes — comments like "Republicans are for liberty, Democrats are for litigation."

But the speakers also stressed the importance of being objective and realistic. For instance, hiring family members for your campaign can be a nightmare, and they may not be frank with you when you need them to be.

There's also a weeding-out process at the schools.

Sometimes potential candidates learn campaigning just isn't for them.

With Arizona's 2008 legislative contests shaping up and candidates stepping forward, party officials say these schools are critical to how local races will play out.

The classes are vital, they say, because those tapped to run for office may have no prior experience in campaigns — and the low-budget life of a local candidate is a far cry from the romanticized images of campaigning imbedded in the minds of film and television viewers.

"A lot of first-time candidates forget to just go out and talk to voters," says Maria Weeg, executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party.

Some, like Saturday's GOP event, last a day. Others, like the Democratic Party's "Emerge" program for women, are more competitive, last for months and even include homework.

That program, which costs $350 and lasts for six months, has graduated 54 women since it was founded in 2004, says Emerge founder Dana Kennedy.

The program is extensive, prepping students on public speaking and winning endorsements, with a particular focus on challenges faced by female politicians.

"Women often need to be asked to run," Kennedy says. "Even if they're qualified, they don't think they are."

Though men have well-established political networks in place, Emerge fills a gap Kennedy says exists for women.

"We're trying to start the new girls network — surrounding women with powerful women," she said, a play on "the good old boys network."

The first and only graduate of the school to be elected to the Arizona Legislature is state Rep. Lena Saradnik, D-Tucson, who attended while running for office in District 26 last year.

On taking the class while already running, "I wouldn't recommend that," Saradnik says with a laugh. Take it before you take the plunge, she says.

"I learned I wasted time by focusing on areas that were really not the best use of my time. I learned to focus specifically on voters in my district," she said.

Saradnik, also a graduate of a well-respected women's campaign school at Yale University, says a good program will teach candidates to be true to their own values and stress the importance of governing — not just winning elections.

And those ideas were also highlighted at GOPAC's Tucson event, where sitting in the audience was local Republican blogger Trent Humphries, who hopes to challenge Saradnik in next year's legislative race if he survives a primary.

"Because of divisions in the party, someone needs to bring us together," Humphries says, describing why he's running. But, he points out, "I'm not a politician."

Here, that's no reason to be dismissed.