Brad Rourke

Brad Rourke’s Blog

  • Resistance

    Last weekend I led a candidate training program run by the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. It is a bipartisan four-day session that brings experts in all the important aspects of campaigning — planning, fundraising, message development, communication, GOTV, and more — and wraps it all in a framework of…

  • Three Statements That Help Civility

    I am sitting in a speech by a former state delegate of Virginia, speaking at an evening session of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership’s Candidate Training Program. She’s talking about the qualities of leaders. She identified three statements that can help any leader foster better relations, better understanding, and better results. That is, foster…

  • Ethics Scenario: All The News That Fits

    Tomorrow, I will be leading a four-day candidate training program with the University of Virginia’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership. More on that program here. The program is an ethics-based soup-to-nuts campaign school, and I provide the ethics training piece. My bit is part lecture, part case study, and part small group exercises. I thought…

  • The Fuzziness Of About And Around

    Let me just get something off my chest. There are two words whose current common usage I can’t stand. Those words are “about” when used as a weasel-word substitute for “is,” and “around” when used as a weasel-word substitute for “about.” Both transgressions are often committed by otherwise intelligent people. About First up, “about.” This…

  • The Verizon iPhone Commercial

    Happy Friday! My friends know that I’ve been waiting with bated breath for the iPhone to finally come to Verizon. I refuse to put up with AT&T’s network problems. Up to now, I have been happy with my Motorola Droid (I am a big-time Google guy) but in hindsight I have to admit it was…

  • Call To Stop Child Sex Trafficking At The Super Bowl [UPDATED]

    You might be surprised to know the the Super Bowl is one of the largest events to spur demand for the sexual exploitation of children every year. According to change.org: Texas Attorney General Abbott is taking a stand and has prepared a task force to identify and respond to traffickers who plan to sell children at…

  • An Office Cleanse

    An Office Cleanse

    As many of my readers know (as well as friends who aren’t readers), I have been working independently since 2003. Since it is primarily just me, I have not found a need to rent separate office space. Our house is large enough that there’s a room I use as my office. Thing is, it is…

  • Start With Just One

    My friend Cindy Cotte Griffiths wrote a piece as the year began that holds an excellent lesson. She tells a story of a project her young son was working on. Instead of trying to add a whole bunch of elements, he wanted to see how few elements it would take te get his task done.…