By Bob Roegner, Inside Politics

During the last election cycle, I received a lot of questions from readers that I thought you might find interesting. Here are some of them with my responses.

Q: You mentioned in a couple of columns that some of the candidates got a late start. What did you mean by that?

A: Many of the candidates seemed to start in May or June. When you run for public office, the goal is to win. Most candidates, other than incumbents, should have started the previous November with contacting individual endorsers, setting the campaign plan, designing signs and drafting all the letters, mailers and handouts. If you do all the behind-the-scenes work early, it increases your chances of winning. Spring doorbelling gives you a chance to introduce yourself to voters and to refine your message. May or June is too late for most candidates.

Q: What was the biggest election surprise?

A: That so many “name” Democrats would publicly support Republican Dan Satterberg. I worked with Dan, and he is a very talented public official, but I thought the Democratic support would be a little more low key.

Q: Were you surprised by the Federal Way School Board elections?

A: A little bit. Suzanne Smith’s and David Larson’s wins were more predictable, although Larson’s margin over Ron Walker was a surprise. The one that surprised me the most was Amye Bronson-Doherty’s big win over Evelyn Castellar. Bronson-Doherty was an outstanding candidate. I expected it to be very close and thought Castellar might survive.

Q: Sometimes you leave a thought kind of hanging, like a hint. Why do you do that?

A: Because sometimes there’s more to the story, but it may be beyond my comfort level to put it in print, so I try to get the reader to think it through.

Q: On your Neal Beets evaluation story, you were a little vague in a couple of places. Why?

A: Neal, our Federal Way city manager, is still fairly new and has a very difficult job. While speculation or an educated guess are frequently a part of what I write about, it wasn’t as appropriate in that column and might have made Neal’s job harder. Fairness to those in public office is important.

Q: Why did you write about the mayor’s race in Renton? What does that have to do with Federal Way?

A: Two reasons. Because of the interconnected political fabric of this region, what goes on in other cities does have an effect on Federal Way, sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious. Secondly, it provided an interesting example for Federal Way voters of what a race in a strong mayor form of government can be like. Admittedly a bit extreme, but illustrative nonetheless.

Q: You mentioned in a column that there is already speculation on who might run for mayor if Federal Way changes to a strong mayor system. Who? And why? We haven’t even voted yet.

A: I’ve heard almost a dozen names of people who are either interested or, given the right circumstances, could be interested. Many actually oppose the change, but if the change is made, they would have a hard time passing up the opportunity. They’re just thinking ahead and want to be ready in case.

Q: As someone who may run for office, which campaigns were done the best, and which ones can I learn from?

A: Newly-elected Federal Way City Council member Dini Duclos ran the best overall campaign. Everything was solid, if unspectacular. I kept a checklist of all things I expected her to do and marked them off as they surfaced. The key was she didn’t make many mistakes, at least not ones the public could see. Hope Elder ran a very good technical race with limited resources and her “Hope for Federal Way” slogan was catchy and memorable. The best individual newspaper ad was probably Evelyn Castellar’s photo with a group of children. It conveyed a nice message. Roger Freeman’s second set of small blue signs was creative for a limited budget, but he defined his message too late. Some of the voters pamphlet write-ups were weak and a surprising number of voters actually do read them, so be sure to write a good one.

Federal Way resident Bob Roegner, a former mayor of Auburn, can be reached at bjroegner@comcast.net.