Two prominent St. Louis political actors gave advice to students interested in someday joining the political sphere during a panel Wednesday.

The panel—hosted by the College Democrats, College Republicans, WashU Political Review and Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Mark Smith—included Darlene Green, comptroller of St. Louis, and Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder. The speakers were chosen because of their extensive political careers.

The discussion focused on the struggles that are present in any social or political campaign, no matter the scale. Smith, who ran for U.S. Congress in 2004, spoke of the difficulties many politicians face.

“As a candidate, want to guess what I spent most of my time doing? I was in a room with no windows with my campaign manager who just yelled at me telling me to call people for money,” Smith said. “It was really unpleasant.”

A prospective politician might assume that their platform alone will get them elected. Kinder dispelled this fantasy.

“You have a sales job, and your job is to sell yourself to every person you meet, every time you’re out there asking for money or asking for votes, you’re selling yourself,” Kinder said.

Freshman Daniel Kushner said the discussion on the finances required to maintain a campaign interested him.

“They focused a lot on the fundraising side of being a politician and that was a perspective that I had never really encountered,” Kushner said.

This side is often ignored because of how distant the fundraising of a campaign is from a candidate’s actual work upon winning the election. Green built on these ideas by pointing out the distinction between being a successful policy maker and being a successful politician.

“That’s how you run for office. You get to know who you are, whether or not you can do the job,” she said. “I knew I could do the job of running the comptroller’s office, now I’m supposed to figure out if I can run a campaign.”

However, in order to get to work in government, one must first know what it means to be a strong campaigner, Green added. This was not easy for Green, who had to run for Comptroller after first being appointed to the office.

“Running for office for me was on-the-job training. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was very shy, and I still am, but I had to learn how to talk in front of people,” Green said.

Green, however, conquered her initial nerves to win her first campaign and has been Comptroller of the city of St. Louis for 21 years. While Green’s obstacle involved getting her voice heard, Kinder’s was quite the opposite.

“The best piece of advice I got was from a guy I was associated with at the [Southeast Missourian] newspaper named Gary Russ,” Kinder said. “’Become a better listener.’”

Paying attention to what other people have to say is an often an underappreciated aspect of being a successful politician and something that Green said she believes is one of her strengths.

“Listening is something I did very well, because I didn’t talk,” she said. “It’s important to listen to other people’s issues, because they can become yours.”

Once you learn all the necessary skills to being a strong politician, then comes the grueling campaign itself—a feeling Smith said he knows all too well.

“I lost miserably. It was embarrassing. It was a 10 person primary, and I came in I think 6th; it wasn’t even close,” Smith said. “I lost 25 pounds the year I was running for office.”