John Tsarpalas: My guest is a seasoned politician. He was first elected to his student body presidency at his university. We are going to talk about his experiences with fundraising, meeting and growing his base, networking, events, and going door to door. All politics is local with State Senator Jason Barickman, Commonwealthy #17.  

Well, I am very excited today because my guest is State Senator Jason Barickman. Jason is one of the busiest guys I know and he has just been busy his whole entire life. You are only forty years old. You have two young kids. You are an attorney. You are the former student body president at Illinois State University. Is that correct, Jason?

Jason Barickman: Yeah, that’s right. Good memory.

John Tsarpalas: Well, good Google search. It’s that simple. Commonwealthy is all about local politics and running for office. But let’s jump back to you running for student body president. Is that like a campaign? I know you’ve got lots of political campaign experience, but let’s go back to that.

Jason Barickman: Yeah, it absolutely is a campaign. It was my first forte in to that environment. ISU is a campus of over twenty thousand students. They organize themselves once a year to elect a student body president. Just like campaigns that we are used to dealing with today, that campaign required an effort to get my name on the ballot.

We had to organize a ticket. Although there are not political parties per se, there are organized local parties. So we organized our ticket. We put together kind of a full-scale campaign that lasted for many months.

At the end of the day, we were successful in it. I had a great experience and was proud to serve the ISU student body. Back then I had really just kind of begun getting interested in politics. I must admit my role in the student government really probably kind of helped push me towards some of that. I had a positive experience with it and enjoyed every minute of it. I look back on it very fondly still today.

John Tsarpalas: At that level, is it about coalitions, people who know people, or is it just kind of going around shaking hands and meeting people? Or is it all of those kind of things?

Jason Barickman: Honestly it is no different than a race for the Illinois legislature. I one of these who believes that all politics is local. You cannot buy your way into public office, whether it is on a campus environment or a state legislative race or otherwise.

Voters like to know who they are voting for. So what that suggests to me is you’ve got to get out. You’ve got to meet people. Certainly there is an element of handshaking, but it really goes beyond that where you are trying to forge those personal relationships with people. Maybe it is a person of influence.

To use an example, if you are campaigning on a student campus and you go through the dorms, there is always one person on every floor who knows everyone on the floor. That is the person that you really need to get to know because they can help you with their floor.

The same thing happens in a neighborhood or a precinct. Often times there is that one person or maybe a couple of people who seem to know everyone in a neighborhood or a precinct.

If you can spend some time with them and have an opportunity to develop a relationship with that person, they are going to go out and put their credibility on the line on behalf of the candidate. You begin to compound your efforts exponentially. The results of that often times is very favorable on Election Day.

John Tsarpalas: Gotcha. One of the things I’ve liked about your political career is you’ve worked your way up. When I met you, you were the county chairman of Champaign County, Illinois, when I was with the state party. Let’s talk a little bit about that experience.

And perhaps let people know, because this podcast is not just Illinois, how someone becomes a county chairman. You are elected, I believe, by the elected precinct committeemen within the county. Is that correct?

Jason Barickman: Yeah, that’s right. We have primary elections. The primary is when, as Republicans, all the Republicans go out and they cast their vote. Every voter lives in a precinct in Illinois. Each precinct elects as Republicans, we elect a Republican precinct committeeman.

Those committeemen that have been elected come together shortly after a primary election and elect among themselves a chairman, which is the chairman of the local political party. In my regard it was the Champaign County Republican Party. They elect a person to serve a two-year term as the party chairman.

John Tsarpalas: And again, how does one work that? You just get on the phone and you call all of these precinct committeemen up and try to get to know them and work them?

Jason Barickman: Yeah, and to your point before, I took the approach of working my way up internally. So these precinct committeemen were not people from whom I did not already have a relationship with. I was one of those people who helped the local party. I showed up at various events and tried to volunteer my time. If candidates came through town, I always tried to be available and be a part of the team.

That’s really what it is. When you are a member of a political party, you are part of that team. I tried to demonstrate that I was a team player and that I would help the party and give it my time and my money.

Back then, the result was when I put myself forward and said that I was a candidate for the chairman of the local party, I was really asking for the support of a number of people of whom I had worked with over the years. I had relationships and friendships with over the years. The result was they overwhelmingly supported me with their vote.

John Tsarpalas: That’s how it is done. Back in my day I guess, because I am older than you are, we used to talk about carrying water to the elephant. I carried a lot of water to the elephant. So I understand. I started off as a precinct captain and got involved in campaigns and did lots and lots and lots of fun things. I enjoyed it all. It was lovely.

Jason Barickman: That’s right. It is fun. Some people say, “Why would someone get themselves involved in that?” But really it is an enjoyable process. You meet some terrific people. I think this is probably true for people on both sides of the aisle. You get involved in your local organizations, you are going to meet some wonderful people.

And politically, from a policy level, you are having an opportunity to influence the direction of our government by exerting whatever efforts you can on a local level. For all of us who are involved in politics, we obviously have strong feelings about public policy. This is one way we can try to exert some influence on those governmental outcomes, by becoming involved locally.

John Tsarpalas: Absolutely. I was just a precinct captain. We call them precinct captains in Cook County. The rest of the state calls them precinct committeemen. I had interactions with my congressman, my state rep, state senator, and county board people. I would see everyone at events, talk to them, and help them, but they would listen to me. And they would listen to my feedback.

It was just such a good feeling of being heard. I think that’s what government is about and how it should work. So I urge people to get involved with their party. Their local party is where the base is at, where it happens. It is just such a great place to meet people, get involved, and feel involved. And lots of good things can happen from there.

But let’s jump a little bit forward then. So you are county chairman and then there is an opening for state rep. Is that what happened?

Jason Barickman: Yes, what actually occurred was we went through an election cycle where the sitting state senator for the district that I lived in, a person named Dan Rutherford, was the state senator, had run for the office of Illinois State Treasurer. He won that election. As a result of his victory, the domino effect played out. He moved from the state Senate to the office of Illinois State Treasurer, which created a vacancy in the Senate.

When that vacancy opened, the current Illinois state representative was appointed to that Senate seat, which created a vacancy in the state rep seat. I put my name forward as a candidate for that and was selected to fill the state rep seat. Of course, that created a vacancy in the office of the chairmanship that I occupied, which created another jockeying by other people. But that’s how I first entered the Illinois legislature.

John Tsarpalas: Okay, and did you run for re-election in that seat? Or did you then run for state senator?

Jason Barickman: I was appointed to that state representative seat I believe in January of I think 2011. By May, some four to five months later, the state legislature drew new legislative maps, the redistricting process they go through every ten years. And those new maps caused a very significant change for me at a personal level.

First of all, the district that I represented was removed. My house was placed in a district where another Republican was, a guy named Adam Brown, who is in the state House today. So the result was I had to decide, if I was going to continue to try to serve, where I might try to do that.

In addition to where my house was, there was a district basically to the immediate north that composed of much of that Illinois House district that I had been representing for several months at that point. But it also included the area in which I grew up. I grew up on a family farm. The Barickman’s had been farming some of the same land since the 1830’s.

This new Senate district that was created included, again, the district that I had already represented plus the area where I grew up and parents and all my family lived. So as a result, I was able to move closer to home and run for office in a district that really was a good fit for a guy like me who grew up in it. I ran for that in the Illinois Senate and was victorious.

John Tsarpalas: Well, that’s great. So in some earlier podcasts I talked about how important it is to have name recognition, that people know you. That someone who is well established in a town or community and people know the family and know you have an edge as a candidate. It sounds like that was part of what was going on for you.

Jason Barickman: Yeah, people like to know who represents them. This is one of the foundational forms of the type of government we have. We don’t have kings; we have representatives. In a representative form of government, the people like to know who it is that represents them. Even if they don’t always agree on every issue for which the person representing them votes, they like to know them.

So for me, forty years old, I have lived probably thirty-five of those years basically in the district that I represent. My family is there. The people I grew up with are there.

The result is many people in the district will say things like, “Well, I am not very political. I don’t know anyone in politics except for Jason. Jason is a guy that I know. I’ve known him for a long time. I trust him. He is a guy who is visible. We have seen him our whole life. Even though he is in politics today, we continue to see him involved in our community. He shows up at events. He is accessible.”

The result of that, hopefully, is a certain amount of support that will allow me to continue to serve those people well in our Illinois government.

John Tsarpalas: Another thing you’ve got going for yourself is you are just likeable. You are a good guy. You are likeable. You are personable. You are friendly. You smile. All of those things are important for a candidate and good as a person, too. That is one of the reasons I sort of connected with you. There are a lot of county chairmen I met that I didn’t talk to again, but I talked to you because you were fun to talk to and interesting.

So I can see you have charisma, if that is the right word. But I also think if people are going to be running for local office, they need to be friendly. They need to be outgoing. They need to be smiling.

Jason Barickman: Well, that’s very kind. You say very nice things. And like I told you before the show, I am glad to send you the twenty bucks I said I would send you if you said something nice about me. So I now I feel like I am going to have to do that. So I send you a state check, which means that you can’t cash it because we are out of money.

But, no, in all seriousness, it always helps when a candidate is friendly. This is a people business. And for anyone who has done sales work or things where they’ve had to interact with the public, we all know that certain people are more successful if they are friendly, if they are pleasant to speak with, if they don’t mind jumping into a pancake breakfast where people are there and just stopping by tables and saying, “Hey, how’s it going?” Introduce yourself and learn a little bit about the other person.

Those friendly interactions go a long way in politics. I remind people that it is those one-on-one friendliness that is much more important than, say, the ability to give a great speech to a crowd of five hundred people. The reality is there aren’t crowds of five hundred people showing up to listen to political speeches, unless maybe you are the governor or the president.

At least in the Illinois legislature, for those who serve as representatives and senators, for us all politics is local. Having a friendly guy or gal who can work their way through a crowd or what have you I think can go a long way in helping get them elected.

John Tsarpalas: So this all takes time. How do you balance your time? You’ve got family. You’ve got little kids. You’re married. You’ve got that pressure. The Illinois legislature is part time, so you also have a business as an attorney. You’ve got a lot of pressures. How do you balance that?

Jason Barickman: It does take good people. I have always believed that anyone who is successful has likely surrounded themselves with people who help them. You can’t do it on your own. And I’ve got a great team around me.

I have a law firm where I’ve got partners and staff who allow me to stay focused on the things I need to focus on in my law practice when I am doing that. On the legislative side, we’ve got wonderful staff who keep up organized and together.

As an example, I usually have a fairly aggressive agenda as a part of my legislative role. I sponsor a number of pieces of legislation. I get very involved in significant negotiations. This year, as an example, I’ve been very involved in an attempt to rewrite the way our public school systems are funded by our state government.

So it takes a team. If you’ve got the right team, I think you can be very effective and efficient in how you use your time so that your time goes to those areas where you are going to have the best impact, whether it is your governmental role, your private business role, or your family.

I work with my staff all the time to make sure that I have very significant amounts of time set aside so that I can just spend time with my family without the distractions of phone calls and meetings and other things. We’ve got two toddlers, two very young kids, who need a dad around. I enjoy that time greatly because of the work that my staff does to make sure that I have that availability that allows me to hopefully be a good dad in addition to the professional things that I do.

John Tsarpalas: Right. So you literally block out time in your schedule for family?

Jason Barickman: Absolutely.

John Tsarpalas: Going back to sort of the early stages of your first run for state Senate, you don’t have a lot of staff. On the legislative level in Illinois, the party does supply help and people to your campaign. If someone is running for a smaller office- county board or school board or park district or some other type of a local board- they are not going to have much staff support available.

But I think it is important for them to try to find volunteers and to delegate and choose their priorities well. What have been your experiences with volunteers? Have you had a lot of luck with finding volunteers? Do you have some great ones?

Jason Barickman: Yeah, this is one of the tricks of politics. First time candidates for office too often think, “Well, if I put my name out there and say I will run for ‘name the office,’ then suddenly there is going to be this apparatus that is going to show up and do all the hard work that it requires so I can go out and give speeches.”

That is the furthest thing from reality that exists in politics. Those campaigns, especially the early ones, require candidates to rely heavily on friends and family. Often time’s friends and family have no political experience, which really creates some difficulties.

But I found that candidates who approach that, especially that first time, in this way can be the most successful. One, you’ve got to recruit a team of people, regardless of their experiences who are committed to the candidate. That’s why you go to your friends and family. They are the ones who, when it is a hundred degrees out and there is a parade, they are going to show up or if it is raining or snowing. They will show up for you.

But you also need some experience. The local political party often times will have people that have the experience that is needed. If that candidate can identify one or two or a small handful of those people and pull them in, suddenly you’ve got a team that has some experience and has the commitment that is necessary to win.

And then it is all about delegating. If you think about, “Well, here’s what I want to do as candidate.” Maybe it is, “I want to raise this amount of money. I want to place this number of yard signs. I want to knock on this many doors. I want to attend these parades.” The delegation part consists of taking that team of volunteers and tasking them with the many things that the candidate wants to do.

Having someone who is designated as the coordinator of all the parade entries that the candidate needs to have means that that person is going to out and identify those parades. They will figure out what application or form needs to be sent in with maybe a check or not. They will line up volunteers to show up at that parade.

That removes all of those administrative headaches from the candidate so the candidate go out there and just go and continue to meet people and meet voters.

John Tsarpalas: You hit on a bunch of things, but I actually wanted to go back to a small thought. That is, and this worked for me, by being involved in my local GOP organization, I identified people who had strengths in different areas in campaigns and then recruited them for nonpartisan races, for the local school board race, because they were interested in all levels of issues and politics.

I think that is a strength that you had by being a county chairman and being involved, although your county was a different county than where you were living at this time. You get to know those people and it is a way to get volunteers quickly because you know who to call. Most of those people will say yes if they know you.

Jason Barickman: Yeah, those local political organizations are flush with people who have, by the sheer fact that they have shown up and been involved in the party, demonstrated a willingness to be actively involved in politics. So they are the ideal people to ask to help you. If you are someone who has gotten to know them, you’ll recognize that some people have different strengths that they can offer to a candidate.

Some people are very friendly and personable and organized. They might be a great person to tap as a volunteer coordinator for you because they are clearly showing that they maybe excel at what that job might entail.

Other people that maybe show up at the party maybe are a finance background or an accountant and kind of a heads down person. That might be the right person to ask to run the finances of your campaign and the reporting things that are required.

Those local organizations are flush with people who could be great volunteers for a first time candidate. But you’ve got to get to know them and identify them.

Ultimately the biggest thing is they have to be asked. If a candidate is not willing to go out and ask people to help them, then people just assume the candidate has things worked out on their own and that they don’t need their help. So it is very important that the candidate go out and ask for the help that they need.

John Tsarpalas: Right. You touched on earlier goals and fundraising. Let’s jump into fundraising because money is part of politics and it is necessary. You are going to have to at least have a palm card or a few yard signs or something. All of that has cost.

Let’s talk about your fundraising experiences. Do you have a preferred method? Is it one-on-one meetings? Is it events?

Jason Barickman: Fundraising always has a one-on-one aspect to it. Again, this is one of those things that sometimes first time candidates have expectations that aren’t really based in reality. The thought that, “Well, if I run, all of these people are going to show up with checks and are going to help me. There’s going to be big donors and others who are going to make this easy.”

Fundraising is very difficult. It requires relationships. People don’t want to write a check for you for fifty dollars, let alone something bigger, unless they have a relationship with the candidate. I try to make it local.

When you are a candidate, there are people who will tell you, “I want to help you along the way.” Sometimes you have to interpret that. Sometimes you just need to follow up and ask. Someone who says they want to help may mean they want to put a sign in their yard. It may mean they want to vote for you. But it also may mean they want to write you a check.

Ultimately I like to use the notion of people of influence, at least at a local level. So sometimes you will identify someone who traditionally hosts and organizes an event for you as a candidate. That is a great person to ask, “Are you willing to organize an event for me?” But even if that person is willing to do that, it still takes an effort by the candidate to go out and identify a group of people for whom they can solicit from.

More times than not, if the candidate is willing to make that one-on-one ask of people- “Hey, John, I am having a get together over at Joe’s house. Joe’s going to have barbeque and drinks on Thursday night. I’d like you, John, to help with it. It’s a fundraiser. We have tickets for $50 a piece. I’ve got sponsorships at higher levels. I am looking for your support to help me in this campaign. You know why this campaign is important.”

Laying that out on a one-on-one level is going to result in fundraising that is much more successful than those that just sit back and hope that the dollars will show up. It is a constant effort. You can’t ask enough people.

Whatever the district size, there is going to be a number of people out there for whom you may want to have an opportunity to ask for dollars. It all takes time and it all relies on those relationships. So the more you build those relationships in advance, the easier it is going to be to raise those dollars when it comes time to do that.

John Tsarpalas: So you are using a combination of phone calls, meetings, and then also finding someone to sort of sponsor an event or host an event to try to get a crowd there. You are driving some people to that event as well.

Jason Barickman: Yeah. I do a number of things. I do direct mail where I’ll raise money. I do events that are staged by geographic location.

So I live in a town called Bloomington. So I might have an event once or twice a year in Bloomington. It’s a regular event. We schedule it every year. It gives me an opportunity to invite Bloomington area donors to contribute at least on an annual basis at an organized event. I call in advance of that.

But aside from those regular events and aside from a maybe direct mail appeal, what I am always trying to do is build and grow the network of people who will help finance my campaigns.

So people will introduce you to people. That’s the name of the game. As you meet more people, you are continually growing your network. You are adding people that could be added to your mailing list.

You are adding people that could be invited to a local event. And you are adding people whom you can sit down with one-on-one and just make a personal appeal for them to support you with a check. A mix and match of any of those is generally what will result in a good, organized finance plan.

John Tsarpalas: Okay. Do you have a regular schedule you keep? Or do you set certain goals? Or does it kind of work out by when events are happening? How do you keep yourself on track?

Jason Barickman: I set an annual schedule and an annual budget. There is a certain dollar amount that I feel I need to achieve on an annual basis. When I say annual, it is really built around the election cycle so that I peak at certain times based on the election cycle that I am subject to.

I have an annual budget. Within that budget is a schedule of activities that I believe, if they occur, I will achieve my budget. Truth be told, I do two budgets. I do kind of my stretch budget and then more of a realistic one.

Then I build into that, over that twelve month period, my plan for doing certain events in certain locations and for doing certain mail at certain times of the year. And of course throughout the year, I am continually trying to build and grow that network so that even if I have not identified potential donors today, if I identify a new potential donor tomorrow, I am certainly going to follow up with that and then try to plug them into that plan in a way that I keep growing my donor base.

John Tsarpalas: Got it. Okay. And you touched earlier on door knocking. Did you do much door knocking in your campaign?

Jason Barickman: I did. My wife told me that this was the funniest thing of my campaign. As a county chairman, I preached door knocking to every local candidate that ever wanted to run for office.

John Tsarpalas: I preach it, too.

Jason Barickman: I would go out with them and I would tell them, “You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do this.” So then I run for office. Shortly after I announced, we were putting our plan together. I started questioning that strategy with my small team, which included my wife and a handful of others. I was asking myself, “Do you think it is really going to matter whether someone for running for a state legislative office spends huge amounts of time knocking on doors?”

Don’t ask me why I did that, but I certainly questioned it. But as a group, we said, “Well, let’s plan to knock on a lot of doors. And if we feel like it is not a good use of your time, then we will scale down the amount of time you do that.”

So I went out nine months before the election, starting to knock on doors. The single largest beneficial that I did during that campaign was not raising, was not identifying yard signs, or anything else; it was knocking on doors.

Still today- that election was in 2012- almost four years later, I continue to meet people in the district. Our districts are about 220,000 people. I don’t know all of them. I will meet people every week who will stop me and say, “Hey, Jason! You knocked on door several years ago. I remember that. I cast my vote solely based on your decision to knock on my door and visit with me for three minutes on that day.”

There is, to me, no greater thing any candidate can do than knock on doors if they want to be successful.

John Tsarpalas: Absolutely. I have been stressing that from the beginning of this podcast and throughout my whole career. The only way I was involved with a winning election is if we, and that is volunteers and the candidate, got out and knocked doors. When we neglected that side, we always lost.

It is about knocking on doors. It is about one on one. It is that simple.

Jason Barickman: Absolutely. Can’t say it enough.

John Tsarpalas: Great, excellent. So now, let’s jump over to social media because people think that is replacing door knocking, which I don’t believe. But do you do much with social media?

Jason Barickman: I do. I suppose everyone has an approach to social media that is different. I do not overly rely on social media. I use Facebook and Twitter. But some people tweet let’s say five times a day or more; that’s not me. Some people post Facebook posts three times a day; that’s not me.

What I try to do is make regular social media interactions with the people for whom are in that network, followers or what have you, in a way that is designed to engage them in a substantive matter so that there is this dialogue between my social media followers and me.

I might say things like, “We are in the middle of a budget crisis in Illinois. How is this impacting you personally? Share your comments so that I can have that perspective in my negotiations on the state budget.” That’s an example of a post that you will probably see from me here soon. And you will watch the replies.

So one is I try to engage people. But the other thing I am trying to do- I mentioned the district I represent is roughly 220,000 people, but is also very large. For me to travel the district by vehicle would take me over two hours from one end to the other.

From east to west is over two hours. North to south is a good hour plus. So it is this large geographic district. There are about eighty to ninety towns in that district and six counties. Well, I can’t be everywhere all the time. We all know that every town has this fair or that pancake breakfast or this Rotary event that I just can’t be at all the time.

So rather than having those constituents wonder where I am and what I am doing, I like to give some flavor of that through social media so that those who are interested in what I am doing and have decided, “I am going to watch Jason and follow him” still see that I am not just sitting around doing nothing. I am out in the district. I am visible.

I may not be in the town that they are from, but I am somewhere else or I am down in the state capital doing what we are supposed to be doing on behalf of the constituents we represent. My hope is that by doing that my constituents feel like they have a handle on how I am representing them even if they don’t necessarily see me in their local community.

John Tsarpalas: Good, yes. It helps you to be everywhere when you can’t be. That’s wonderful.

I think you hit on some key points here, door knocking being number one. Fundraising, just ongoing and just part of the job. I always like to conclude with some inspiration, why someone should run for local office, why this is important, and why good people need to step up. Some of the fun side of this.

Jason Barickman: In addition to some of the other things I do, I also teach. I teach a state and local government class at our local university, Illinois State University, which happens to be my alma mater. So I teach one class a semester.

The initial class always starts the same way. It is about thirty juniors and seniors who are interested in government. The class is a mix; a third of them might be Republican, a third Democrat, and a third are other, whether they are independent, Libertarian, or what have you.

We have this class. We talk about the issues of the day that face our governments at the federal, state, and local level. I ask them, “Why do you think it is important to get involved?”

I leave them with this, which is something I picked up along the way that really has struck a nerve with me. It is that the decisions our government makes are made by those who show up.

There are a lot of frustrations out there at all levels of government today. For those who maybe we agree with the direction a governmental unit is going or we disagree, you have to know that for your views to be represented in it, you have to show up. You have to participate. And ultimately, if you feel strongly about a willingness to serve, you have to run for office and put yourself out there.

That’s the form of government that we have. For everyone who wants to have a say in government, I think it is just critical that they put themselves forward. For those who know good people who are willing to put themselves forward, I think it is critical that they support them.

Often times, we will get asked, “Why is it you’ve supported this person or that person who is running for office?” I am often willing to reply with the simple fact that we need good people to run for office. And when we identify good people who have good, ethical values and who will represent their communities well, we need to encourage them to run for office. The result of it is most people enjoy it.

Here I am in Illinois where we face some of the worst financial problems that exist in our country. We have incredible unfunded liabilities in our pension system. We have billions of dollars of debts that we don’t have a plan to pay for.

Often times people ask me, “Why is it you are willing to go out there and fight those battles?” The reality is because I want to see us be better. I love the state that I was born in and I live in. I want to see our state be better and do better.

I have young children. I want to have an opportunity for them to be educated well in our state and ultimately to get a job in our state so that my kids and hopefully my grandkids will be close to me.

This is why we do the things that we do. But it also comes with the benefit of it is oftentimes a very enjoyable job. You meet with thousands of people around the communities. Those people by and large are good people. I have met some wonderful people who we have developed great friendships with.

Part of the experience of serving in public office is you are going to meet some wonderful people. You are going to develop some friendships that will last a lifetime. I think for all of the struggles of some of the days, over the years people look back on public service and say, “That was a really rewarding time of my life. I enjoyed the opportunity to represent my community. If I had it to do again, I certainly would do it.”

John Tsarpalas: People need to step up. That is how the system works. Thank you for stepping up.

How can people find out more about you? How could they reach you if they wanted to send you an email or something?

Jason Barickman: Social media again makes you very visible and available. My website is JasonBarickman.com. You can find out more information about me. My email is Jason@jasonbarickman.com. I am on Facebook under Jason Barickman. My Twitter is JasonBarickman. My wife’s got a Pintrest account. I mean, I am out there.

John Tsarpalas: Okay, well we have a link to all of this on our website at Commonwealthy.com. Thank you for taking the time today to inspire and give some thoughts to those who might be considering running for a local office. State Senator Jason Barickman, thank you very much.

Jason Barickman: Thank you, John.

John Tsarpalas: I hope you enjoyed the interview with State Senator Jason Barickman. Much to be learned there. Good thoughts on fundraising, going door to door, and just networking and people.

Politics is a people business. It is about meeting people and growing that base that will support you. And then calling on them, and you have to ask- ask for the vote, ask for a check, ask for help. All of those things are key to any political campaign, whether you are running for university student body president, school board, county board, or, in his case, state Senate.

As always, we will have show notes and a transcript of this podcast at Commonwealthy.com. We also have some other things on the site. There are posts that offer training on different topics. There are a few videos.

So check out our site at Commonwealthy.com and sign up for our email list while you are there. We will keep you posted. We don’t send a lot of email, but we will keep you up to date.

Please tell you friends about us. Leave a review on iTunes for us. And let us know if there is anything we can do for you. You can always reach me at john@commonwealthy.com.

Thanks for listening!

Jason Barickman: We need good people to run for office. And when we identify good people who have good, ethical values and who will represent their communities well, we need to encourage them to run for office.