Does every applicant receive an interview?

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pldinh6

5-Year Member
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Dec 8, 2013
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Im just curious to see if every applicant receives an interview or does the Congressman's Interview Panel conduct a pre-screening and only gives interviews to candidates they think will have a chance of receiving a nomination? Also in the application form for the Congressional nomination, it asked for my home town paper, I'm just curious as to why they would ask for my home town paper? (I'm guessing they will have a story on the newspaper about candidates who have received a nomination)
 
You are correct about the newspaper aspect, they will most likely submit their nominations to your local paper. And I am fairly certain all candidates receive an interview for fairness purposes, as some candidates may be great in interviews but not so great on paper.

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It depends on the competitiveness of the state and congressional district. A senator with 750 candidates probably isn't going to interview all of them. A Congressman with 50-75 candidates may or may not interview all.

A lot of newspapers will print a list of the nominations to each SA submitted by the Senator's or Congressman's office in the local newspaper. Again, just depends on the local newspaper.
 
Each MOC can select their nominees how they choose. We are in Kentucky. Neither Senator had any interviews at all. It appeared that our Representative interviewed all the candidates that applied. So it just depends. In Kentucky, the MOC's share information in an effort to maximize the total number of nominations. Once a nominee receives one nomination to a particular SA, the remaining MOCs will choose another candidate. Even a candidate that has much lower scores. MOCs in some other states share information as well.
 
Our two senators (in MI) did interviews (well, their panels); representative did not. DS received nomination from representative, rejected by one senator, awaiting word from other senator. I don't know if every applicant was interviewed by senators' panels.
 
It is MOC dependent. Years ago I served on a nom cttee for a congressman who wanted every applicant to be interviewed. In all honesty, it was a waste of time b/c some people were just not competitive and, no matter how well they interviewed, wouldn't get the nom. However, for constituent relations purposes, we had to do it. So, at that time with that MOC, getting an interview was meaningless in terms of how competitive you were perceived to be.

Over the years, several MOCs in this state have made nom decisions based only on "paper" -- no one gets an interview. Obviously, in such cases, not getting an interview means nothing in terms of your competitiveness. Other MOCs will weed out the non-competitive candidates and interview the remainder -- in this case, getting an interview suggests you are competitive.

Thus, whether or not you get an interview may mean quite a bit or nothing at all, depending on your MOC(s).
 
One of our IL senators had interviews. One did not. Congressman did interview.

I think this, like most everything else in the NOM process is unique to each state.
 
I concur with everyone regarding it is up to the MOC regarding interviewing or not.

As far as the release issue it is what people will call boiler plate paperwork for legal terms, this is a CYA for them. Many MOCs have a website. It is not just for local papers, but their website too. Our DS received every MOC nom. and had to sign off on all 3 the release question. His name was never in the local paper, but if you went on their website news releases you would have found his name.

Don't read into it at all why they are asking you to sign this disclosure.
 
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