Step 1: Figure out if it’s a “party” position or not.

If it is a “party” position:
Step 2: Get nominated for and win a “primary” election (an election performed inside a political “party” to decide who the party will officially support for the position) in a “party” that currently has access to the position (this usually related to that party recently obtaining some minimum number of votes for eith the same, or another, “party” position; a “new” “party” will usually have to do the non-”party” steps). You might have to spout some complete nonsense to win, since political “parties” tend to have an above-average percentage of political extremists (e.g. the Libertarian and Republican parties are going to have more than your average number of “Tea-Partiers”). The “party” “apparatus” (a.k.a. the “party’s” internal bureaucrats and/or power-brokers) After this, all further steps are shared with non-”party” positions.

If it is NOT a “party” position:
Step 2: Get the paperwork for the position and fill it out. This will often require obtaining a minimum number of signatures from people who are eligible to vote for the election in question (such signatures WILL be double-checked if you have an opponent in the race, likely by the opponent’s staff, and courts occasionally throw out an entire sheet on the basis of ONE signature: be thorough, don’t cut corners, over-collect; also, the signatures will likely be checked if you don’t have an opponent as well).

Step 3 (common step): Do your campaigning. In smaller areas this commonly involves going “door to door”. In larger areas you’re best off if you STILL do door-to-door meet-n-greets, and assign staffers from your campaign to as many other locations as you can. This is close to impossible for US Senate campaign, due to the populations in question. After door-to-door comes public campaign meetings. Personal phone calls presumably fall in this category as well, but mostly they’ll either be impossible (too many people) or unwise (face-to-face meetings don’t require phone minutes… FROM THE PERSON BEING CALLED). Everything else is going to be less important in most cases (Independents might distinguish themselves in debates, Republicans & Democrats just have to do it because of expectations). Campaigns for “big” positions (e.g. Senator, President) have an excessive amount of time spent on fund-raising events (e.g. $100-per-plate lunches) due to the cost for the advertising: state offices will be cheaper in the vast majority of cases, and vastly-so as well.
Note on current circumstances: Modern corporate-speech rules + Modern American disregard of the opinions of others == lots of rogue political advertisements, sometimes aimed at SUPPORTING you. Keep an eye out for the excessive ones, and publicly and quickly renounce them.

Step 4: Win, and do it legally. Positions such as President will occasionally have disputes, but you have to weigh the political consequences of bringing them to light: In Bush Jr’s first run for President, Florida was NOT the only questionable state, but bringing up some of the others that had gone to Gore wouldn’t have gone over well. Since the major news outlets are based in liberal-leaning areas, Republicans risk much more perception of “thuggishness” and “bullying” for such actions than Democrats initially do (insider-vs-outsider mentalities: you see actions of your “tribe” differently than actions from “foreign” “tribes”).

Step 5: Don’t screw up. In many cases the spotlight will be dimmer while in office than during the campaign to win it, but as Anthony Weiner (if you’re going to run for office, do what you have to do to avoid having a joke as a name, including changing it: and if that doesn’t work, at least don’t make it WORSE) demonstrated, the spotlight IS still shining, and those people still paying attention to it (mostly critics & potential opponents, but it varies) will notice “interesting” things, and spread the word.

Laws, such as those of thermodynamics, might work well for a machine with a default mechanism for processing the kinetic energy into some useful form. [Keep in mind I'm not suggesting everyone can just go out and develop their own perpetual motion machine and learn the finer points of zero point energy (if such things even exist).] But, supposedly we are to also simultaneously agree that a larger organism requires less energy than a smaller one to survive. And, that my friend, just doesn’t seem right. Especially since, even when one is counting calories and carbs, monitoring sugar and starch intake, as well as calculating the physical energy expended on a daily basis, there is no guarantee of weight loss or measurable progress.

It probably doesn’t help my argument that the quality of one’s food is based on the quality of ones income or resources and that it actually does have an effect on the ultimate result.