Finding Political Speakers (Surrogates)

If the visitor is a DNC member or DNC officer, always get in touch first with the global Excom - the Excom will extend the invitation for you and make the introduction.

For other visitors, below are a few useful hints for setting up meetings.

How to identify when a US political visitor is coming in town

1. Keep track of local conferences and events that might attract US political visitors
           Hints: Creating a listing of annual/biennial conferences is a great task for a volunteer. 
           Subscribe to local NGOs, universities, institutions, etc event listings and newsletters. 
   
2. Set up Google news alerts to help stay aware of visitors to your country or city. You can do this in both English and your country’s language. Examples: senator + travel + {your country or region}, governor + travel + {your country or region}, “US Representative” + travel + {your country or region}, “congressional delegation” + {your country or region}
   
3. Subscribe to your US consulate’s newsletter, if applicable, or ask at the embassy for other means of hearing about visits (response is highly variable depending upon embassy staff).
   
4. Think beyond politicians. Consider political writers, and journalists as well for events. They are often very interested in promoting their writing and will be much easier to get in touch with.

Once you know someone is coming in town, the next step is getting in touch.

1. Consider the visitor’s travel purpose. Is it private travel? Are they traveling to promote a book? Are they campaigning and fundraising? Traveling to a conference or to speak to a local political party? On an official CODEL* visit? By knowing the purpose you then know who to try to contact - publisher, campaign hq, staff, etc. 
   
2. Once you have an idea of who to contact, try a multi-pronged approach, keeping in mind that personal contacts work best. To find these contacts try:
   1. LinkedIn searches for both the visitor and their supporting organization - create a search link for the individual and their organization. Circulate those links to your excom to see if anyone has a connection.
   2. LinkedIn searches for contacts with the local organizers
   3. Local network searches - ask your excom and volunteers about their network and connections to local organizers
   4. Contact through the politician's organization.
      1. President Obama and Michelle Obama's scheduling page: https://barackobama.com/scheduling/
3. Once you have a contact, send your invitation. Keep it cordial, short and respectful of the person’s time while traveling.
   
   

Ideas for meetups

• Voter registration table in front of public event
• Voter registration sign ups at lines into public events
• Invitation to speak at a member’s home
• Tickets for public event

*CODEL = Congressional delegation, government-paid trips abroad. Paid for by the Treasury and organized by the State Department, these trips are designed to be non-partisan in nature and it is unlikely that you will be able to meet.

Useful resources for looking up network connections (see Linkedin search recommendations above): 

Obama for America on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/18824/

OFA staff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?facetCurrentCompany=%5B%2218824%22%5D

Hillary for America on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/10158911/

HfA staff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?facetCurrentCompany=%5B%2210158911%22%5D

MoveOn.org on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?facetCurrentCompany=%5B%2236343%22%5D