Cindy Siegel - Harris County GOP Chair Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, well this might fire you up. If you're
going to campaign boot camp? Are they going to play
any inspirational music? Are they going to have revelry at
six o'clock in the mill will probably be earlier than
six in the morning. Send these single joints? Is Harris
County g OP chair? So exactly what is campaign boot camp?
How does this work?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Well, it's a camp that we actually as a seminar,
we provide for our candidates and also campaign workers, people
who want to help run campaigns, covering everything from you know,
the legal side of it. How do you appoint a
treasure what reports you file with the Texas Election Ethics

(00:38):
Commission or the Federal Elections Commission to you know, how
do you message? How do you do your social media?
How do you give your thirty second to two minute
campaign speech? Everything you want to know about running and
being a candidate?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
All right, so no push ups, no, no revelry at
five point thirty in the morning, none of that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
But they may feel like that after it's over.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
It's just it's an intense it's an intense I guess
it's just an intense seminars. What you're talking about here, right,
it's a chance for people who maybe have thought about
running for public office, would like to run for public office,
but have no idea how to do it, to give
them a prepper on exactly how you go about doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Right. So this is actually the third class of that
type we've offered. The idea behind it is that if
we can make all of our candidates as strong as possible,
whomever comes out of that primary is going to be
in a better position to win and be you know,
the leftist progressive next November.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
You know, we've talked to the past two Cindy Siegel,
that there are just some political positions out there that
go unopposed that we don't have republic candidates for us.
It's also maybe a way to try to recruit people
to run in those races that right now are unopposed.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yes, it is. We had earlier this year what we
called our info sessions, and we targeted your partisan races,
like your judicial candidates. We've had a couple of those.
We also had one that was targeted towards other partisan
races other than just the judges. But you know, we

(02:29):
really put a big emphasis this year in trying to
get a full slate, and I would encourage people that
this is a great time that if they've ever thought
about running for office, now is the time to run.
We think we've got a really good shot next year.
We're putting a lot of resources into winning and continuing

(02:52):
to win. We've won some races, but we want to
take back the county and make it read again. All right.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
For somebody who's ever thought about running for political office,
what is the typical skill set do you think that
makes for a good Republican candidate? So you could look
right in the mirror and say, yeah, that's me. I
would be good at this.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well. Obviously from the party's standpoint, and as a Republican,
we want people who believe in our values, that believe
in our way of governing principles. They don't have to
agree with this all the time. It's like Ronald Reagan
said that if they agree with me eighty percent of
the time, they're my friends. And you know, hea a Nos,

(03:31):
I don't agree with my husband one hundred percent of
the time, and we've been married almost thirty five years.
But from there, I tell candidates three things. I look
for someone who's got the fire in the belly who
really wants to win and understands that it is going to
be a twenty four to seven job until they get

(03:51):
through the election. I look for someone who has a
good support network, because it is twenty four to seven
and it tends to at times be the high of
the highs and the low of the lows when you're
running for office. And then more importantly, I look for
someone who has a paths of victory, who's thought about

(04:12):
their campaign and knows where they're going to go after
the votes, what their message is going to be, how
they're going to persuade voters, how they're going to turn
out our base, that they've really put some thought into it.
They didn't just wake up one morning and say, oh,
I think i'll run for office today. And that, in
part is why we're helping hosts this boot camp campaign

(04:38):
boot camp because it helps people, I think, put that
plan together for their campaign.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Okay, Sidney Siegel, thank you as always for your time.
Do appreciate it. Are's gund top chair, Sydney Seagle. It's
six twenty eight