Political Business Venture

[waxie]

I am currently working with a partner to develop a proposal and am curious to see if this forum has any input. I have been relatively disappointed by the level of discussion in this forum thus far, but maybe you guys can change my mind.

I am planning a new politically oriented business venture that will combine policy research, strategic communications, and earned media creation. Basically, we will be providing several different services for a small group of candidates. We will be focusing on city council races with relatively small budgets. At this point, we have identified three campaigns and all have projected budgets of under ~$300k. Combined they will likely raise somewhere between $750k and $1 million.

We are considering two options for this project. The first option is that we would work directly for the candidates and encourage them all to combine their resources to pay for our services. We would get to choose who we worked for without answering to anyone. I have strong connections with several of the campaigns (one candidate actually asked me to mange his campaign, but I turned it down) and they all trust me. However, not all the candidates have strong relationships with each other. Therefore, I would be serving as the main bridge between everyone. There is a chance for infighting and other squabbles.

The other option is slightly more complicated. We are considering approaching a small number of labor unions and asking them to sponsor the project. Basically, we would be funded by their political action committees and perform services to candidates that the unions endorsed. As far as I know, this sort of thing has never been done before. It would give us less freedom to choose candidates, but it would be more stable and we’d be likely to make more money. It would also provide us with a strong link to the labor movement and potentially open up the door to larger contracts in the future.

What do you guys think? I’m curious about general impressions and also specific ideas for how to structure this.

Ps. I am currently a 21-year old student studying political science at a small college in Pennsylvania.