Because the politics of yesterday just won't work today

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SMR Strategies will get you results
 

We Get Results for You

SMR Strategies runs results driven campaigns.
Read about our successes below.

Client Testimonials

“Steve, while working with Focus the Nation, put together a 7-week clean energy campaign focusing on green job generation and a clean energy future. He successfully confirmed a panel of experts on the issue, engaged his community and led a youth discussion on the prospects of a clean energy economy. Steve is an incredible organizer and an asset to his community and the youth constituency of East Lansing, MI bringing to the table the real changes that need to be made to our current job market and how to accelerate the transition to green jobs and prosperous clean energy businesses.”

Alicia Eimer
Communications Coordinator, Focus the Nation

“SMR Strategies helped me turn out over a hundred students, many of whom had never voted before, to vote for county commissioner in a special election in the middle of February. All 87 votes cast from MSU's Brody Complex, Precinct 1, were for me–Youth Organizing at its best! Using Facebook, Twitter, email, targeted mail, and canvassing, SMR strategies helped me (a virtual unknown), win an impossible victory against an opponent whose name is a household word to Dem primary voters in East Lansing, by a slim margin of 22 votes.”

Penelope Tsernoglou
Ingham County Commissioner

In the News

Consequence Youth Lead Clean Energy Forum at MSU
Benton Strong | April 14, 2010 | read full article

Focus the Nation, along with the Will Steger Foundation and Global Exchange, hosted a clean energy forum open to any and all members of the community. A diverse panel of professors, economists, grassroots organizers, and legislative members gathered to discuss our clean energy economy at a federal, state, and local level.

Who Says College Students Don't Vote?
Kyle Melinn, Lansing City Pulse | March 3, 2010 | read full article

The effort seemed a lost cause. Early internal polling showed Tsernoglou down 3-to-1 to favorite Bob Alexander, the Democrats' twice-nominated congressional candidate.

“The whole thing was hopeless,” said Ingham County Commissioner Mark Grebner, Tsernoglou’s boss at Practical Political Consultants. “I told her to give up.”

Tsernoglou did not. Instead she ran what Grebner called “one hell of a campaign,” knocking on doors, canvassing neighborhoods and ginning up excitement among the voters in the 8th District, basically everything in East Lansing north of Brody between Interstate 127 and Abbot Road…

(On campus) Tsernoglou unleashed a massive get-out the-vote effort. Twenty volunteers chased dozens of students out of their dorm rooms to Butterfield Hall to put in their vote…

The final results from Precinct 1 (MSU's Brody Complex)? Tsernoglou: 87. Everybody else: 0…

Alexander released the following statement after the defeat: “Many voters said they had a difficult choice as each of the four candidates did a fine job of presenting their skills and experience. Penelope and her campaign maximized her advantages on campus and in the neighborhoods and earned her victory”…

All the while, Grebner just shook his head. Who would have thunk it? Brody's late Christmas present put Tsernoglou over the top.

East Lansing Voters Put Tsernoglou in Election Driver's Seat
Dawn Parker, Lansing State Journal | February 26, 2010 | read full article

EAST LANSING - Just 22 votes separated the front-runner from her competition in last week's Ingham County Commission election.

Penelope Tsernoglou will go forward as the Democratic candidate in the May election, having received 492 votes to Robert Alexander's 470.

A total of 1,280 votes were cast, or slightly less than 12 percent of the registered voters in the six affected precincts in the election Feb. 23.

“I'm actually pretty surprised that I won,” Tsernoglou said Wednesday.

“I'm pretty happy that I did. I think everything we did yesterday in the field getting people out to vote, especially on campus, (helped).”

Tsernoglou got all 87 votes cast in Precinct 1, which covers the Brody Residential Complex at MSU. That may have made the difference, as she and Alexander each won three precincts.

“That's a tribute to her effort,” Alexander said of Tsernoglou's shutout.

What Obama Has Going For Him
Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight.com | November 2, 2008 | read full article

“…Still, what probably did McCain in is the fact that 98 percent (!) of the state's eligible population is registered, a reflection of both the state's longtime status as a battleground and the yeoman efforts of Obama volunteers. I am told that in East Lansing, for instance, the Obama campaign registered more than 10,000 Michigan State University students, roughly the size of that school's freshman class. In the face of those kinds of numbers, the McCain campaign wasn't about to win a ground skirmish, and not long after the bailout they bailed.”

City Clerk: E.L. had 65 Percent Voter Turnout
Allison Bush, StateNews.com | November 5, 2008 | read full article

Students who were gathered at the polls by 7 a.m. on Election Day had taken East Lansing City Clerk Nicole Evans’ advice: Get to the polls early to avoid the peak hours.

“Students heard the call about off-peak hours being at 7 a.m. — so they all showed up at 7 a.m. and created a new peak time,” she said, laughing.

These students were part of the 23,859 registered East Lansing voters who voted in the presidential election Tuesday, a 29.8 percent increase from 2004.

“The turnout for East Lansing was 65 percent (of registered voters), and the turnout in 2004 was 63 percent — it doesn't look like a record turnout; however, you have to compare the number of registered population in 2004 and in 2008,” Evans said.

There were 18,376 registered voters in East Lansing in 2004.