One of the benefits of working outside of politics is the ability to bring in experience that has never been tried - and to come up with ideas that aren't held back by notions of what works in politics.

I've volunteered for campaigns. They wanted me to come in make phone calls while editing an Excel sheet. I was stuck in a cubicle making calls next to an executive who dressed like he made 200K a year and a housewife who fretted over imposing on people during dinner.

The truth is the modern campaign needs strong backs and grunt labor because they are set up that way. The lack of grunts to work in political campaign is not taken into account, so we take highly qualified people, and try to square peg/round hole their skills and the campaign's needs.

So the question - is how do you engage people - truly engage them? It's no different of a question than that asked by every manager out there, but for some reason, our campaigns think in narrow boxes, and then complain about the results.

So I say let's think big. Let's bring in people from outside the political spectrum. Let's bring in call-center operators - customer service specialists, recruiters, and other people whose job is to find, train and motivate customer-facing employees, often for short periods of time. Let's bring in caterers, and wedding planners and logistics personnel, and start thinking what needs to be done, and what kinds of people have the skill that we need. I'm not saying a wedding planner will be the next Karl Rove, but if we learn to ask the opinions of the people we regularly run into, we're more likely to get expert advice on how to organize and run grassroots organizations.

We are facing a major uphill battle in the next 18 months - and most of the odds are against us, certainly in the House and Senate, but also for the White House. Yes, the Republicans have a vaunted 72 hour campaign, but why every year are we forced to wait until Labor Day to start campaigning and take ourselves out of a polling hole?

I hate to say it - but's time we started thinking outside of the box. And the people who can help you are already in front of you. Are you going to ask them for help?