I’ll have much more to say about Sasha Issenberg’s opus on the Democrats’ midterm turnout strategy when I have some time to write about it. I think I will be returning to it repeatedly throughout the year.
Right now, I only have time to give a teaser and my first impression. I will bet my right arm that the Democrats’ approach will work much better than a traditional advertising-heavy campaign. As a veteran door-knocker and community organizer, I may be biased against the media consultant types and the academic “framer” types, but everything I’ve learned in the field leads me to believe that the best way to create a new voter is to talk to them in person. If you can’t talk to them in person, then talk to them on the phone. If you can’t get them on the phone, talk to their best friends. And if you can’t do that, send them highly-targeted mail.
And, here’s the thing. The most important asset a political campaign can have is volunteers who live in the district or neighborhood in which they will be canvassing. Mobilizing the base is largely about mobilizing the politically active to do more than vote. You need them to work, preferably for free. So, contra Issenberg, I don’t think the Democrats’ more populist agenda items are aimed solely at winning over soft Republicans. Highlighting the War on Women and fighting to raise the minimum wage can win over soft Republicans while raising the morale and enthusiasm of the base at the same time.
The main thing is that the Democrats’ new strategy is based on social science, not wishful thinking. It should work precisely because it has been demonstrated to work. Attack ads have been shown to have a short half-life, so running them in the spring is a stupid idea and an almost complete waste of money. Unless you get them to go viral (in a good way) on the internet, they’re horribly inefficient at reaching the voters you want to reach.
The midterms will be fought by two teams with much different playbooks. Our playbook is better.
“I will bet my right arm that the Democrats’ approach will work much better than a traditional advertising-heavy campaign.”
I often wonder whether political ads are now viewed by most of the populace as anything more than a good reason to go and put the kettle on. I really, really hope that the Democrats have finally awoken to the absolute, overriding need to make the ground game their number one focus. Get people on the streets, knocking on doors, registering voters, threatening the negligent with FEMA concentration camps (well, ok, maybe not that, at least, not yet) – and generally doing everything to get people to the polls via human contact.
everything I’ve learned in the field leads me to believe that the best way to create a new voter is to talk to them in person.
Oddly enough, most other areas where a person’s job is to convince someone else to take an action know this. It’s a staple of fundraising, for example, or activist organizing. Yet for years Democratic consultants have been pushing the “just throw money into media buys” approach, because, of course, they get a cut of media buys. The candidate can only lose a couple of times before they’re discredited as candidates, but losing consultants can go decades making a more than comfortable living. The system works, for them.
When we got an open socialist elected to Seattle City Council last year, that was one of our secret weapons: over 400 active volunteers, most of whom spent from one to six shifts a week canvassing neighborhoods and public events and working phone banks – that structure also converted directly into our GOTV effort. It was extremely effective, in large part because if someone sees narrative A in a piece of direct mail, and remembers conflicting narrative B from a personal conversation, guess which narrative has more credibility?
Say it loud. Say it often. But listen to the concerns of the one you are trying to persuade. You can’t get anyone on to your side by telling them that they are wrong. That just gets people to dig in their heels. You have to show them that they are wrong and let them come to that conclusion on their own.
A very low level example. Person thinks Democrats are Communists and just after free stuff for loafers. After reasonable conversation, person starts to realize that his neighbor is a Democrat and doesn’t carry a copy of Das Kapital. Neighbor is a guy like him. Neighbor has kids in the same school. Neighbor has same concerns about politicians in general. Neighbor might be right about the (R) candidate being just for the big money boys after all. Of course, it helps if the (D) candidate doesn’t parrot Republican talking points.
That’s all excellent advice.
But in a midterm year, there is low hanging fruit that only requires us to go talk to someone with views already similar to ours. The midterm turnout rate nationally is something like 40%. It’s bound to be a bit less for Dems. We just need to find that “missing 60%” (and I know it’s more complex than that) and remind them that important issues are at stake.
Framing works but not to get people to the polls. If this approach is based on data, well it won’t be the first time I’ve changed my views because reality demands it. The data is right, you are not.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Did I say, “Yes”? Yes.
A good piece of what you’re describing is the backbone of classic organizing, is it not? It was what the Obama play book was based upon and other Dems learned the power of the model as well. It helped to create the 2 biggest election year turnouts (VAP) since 1968. Neighbors face to face, sharing thoughts and motivation with other neighbors.
Anyway the article looks like it has some interesting pieces on a variety of details. I thought the swipe at Obama in the second paragraph (“Beyond the narcissism implied”) was silly though.
The bottom line doesn’t change so much. We still have a huge challenge. It will help if Obama and Obamacare approval ratings continue to trend up until November. That rising sea will lift a lot of boats.
The Obama campaign went out of its way not to create coattails. I found that very strange. All of their mobilization was just for the Obama candidacy and not done as a unity campaign.
It was not strange under the PermaGov/fix playbook. Think on it.
AG
I don’t find the 2012 Obama campaign’s distance from House campaigns to be a deep mystery. At least I think there are some fairly public moves, stats and comments that suggest some reasonable explanations for how the campaigns unfolded.
Perhaps I missed the stories, but I don’t remember seeing many headlines with House challengers inviting Obama to their state and being upset because he refused. That door to unity campaigning also swings both ways.
There’s a difference between Obama coming to their state and the Obama GOTV campaign actively campaigning for Democrats on the slate. A lot of Obama voters did not vote down-ticket as a result in both 2008 and 2012, and it hurt. It also prevented him from using coattail victories to enforce some degree of party discipline. Obama did not have to show up in a district to do this, just tweak his GOTV operations.
I get you now. (I think your first comment was a little vague.) I watched in horror as we lost a Senate seat in Nevada when Obama won with decent numbers. How that happened is of keen interest to me. But I think your characterization of how that happened (in your first comment to me) is very simplistic.
I wouldn’t say you’re biased towards a ground game. I’ll say you value winning more than lining someone’s pockets.
To get a member of Congress elected, you have to make sure of 170,000 (175,000 to make sure) voters actually voting for your candidate. Ads might validate that the candidate is running but personal advocacy, even transporting people and providing child care, is more sure to remove all the excuses to someone actually walking in the polls and voting for your candidate. The idea of a base is that that is a source of volunteers and enough material support that people understand that your candidate is (1) on the ballot; (2) supported (signs in peoples’ yard say more than signs in public rights of way. Framing is important in having volunteers say things in a way that is indeed effective in getting potential voters screened from opposition voters in canvassing. The most important part of the whole operation is canvassing records and honest commitments of potential voter for whom you can estimate turnout and identify issues that might keep them home.
The most powerful asset is the candidate and their ability to touch on issues (mostly a matter of policy but also a matter of some framing) that are of interest and credible to potential voters.
Campaigns are only expensive if you waste money on consultants and media and too many signs and do not set up enough and well-attended meet-the-candidate sessions in which the candidate responds candidly.
Candidates used to be able to pitch civic organizations and get interest from 25-50 people at a time who would vet them for acceptability even if they disagreed with the candidate. It’s much more complicated now.
In furtherance of the goal of highly-targeted mail, more money should be poured into the infrastructure to data mine the bejeezus out of the American electorate in order to figure out how to tweak messaging so that vastly different mailers can be sent to people living in the same neighborhood.
But I think attack ads still have a place. The goal should be to create spots so provocative that journalists feel obligated to comment on them, shaping the media narrative. The dream would be to have something as influential as LBJ’s “Daisy” ad.
And the nightmare is the Swiftboat campaign of 2004. I’d love to see Dem attack ads if they’re based on facts, but unfortunately we’ve wandered into a post-truth era in politics, and duelling attack ads have become just so much fantasy fiction. I bet the voters at large see them that way as well.
Yes we have, smith.
Yes we have.
In fact, we have wandered…been herded might be a better way of putting it…into a post-truth era up and down the board.
Advertising is the essence of “post-truth,” and it is now almost impossible for most people to avoid essentially subliminal advertising on every level from the internet right on down to questions on schoolchildren’s tests. (Brand names that appear in NY standardized tests vex parents)
So is a culture based on digital alteration…as are almost all of the pop music and so-called blue screen-produced action films/video games of the present…and so is the public communication of the reality of governmental actions from the top down.
Jan. 30, 2014: Senate hearing on surveillance and CIA Director’s answer:
Not only is the Big Lie Effect now endemic to almost all communications systems here, when caught out in that kind of lie the stonewalling is automatic and monolithic.
You write:
I’ll bet you’re right, which is why the average IQ of habitual voters in this country has most certainly shot down precipitously along with the percentage of people who actually vote. The smart voters now know how deeply the fix is in here, and when they see the kind of PermaGov/Uniparty bullshit that now passes for “political discussion” in this country, they just walk away from the whole thing in disgust.
Remember the old ’60s meme, “What if they threw a war and no one came?” Now the real question is”What if they threw an election and no one voted?”
Any day now.
Aaaaaany day…
Even the dummies are getting wise.
Go read my recent post here The U.S…Back In The U.S.S.R.!!!
In it I quote the web site The Vineyard of the Saker, whose owner makes a good comparison between the attitudes of Russian citizens just before the breakup of the U.S.S.R. and the attitudes of rapidly increasing numbers of U.S. citizens today.
There it is.
Deal wid it.
AG
advertising. Obama defined Romney before Romney could define himself before the convention.
In my state, Colorado, Udall IMO has to define Gardner before Gardner can redefine himself from the tea party hack he’s been his whole tenure representing counties that voted to secede from the state.
Once people know what the negative message is about the opponent, gaffes (like the 47% video for Romney) reinforce the earlier message.
I don’t want to minimize the importance of grassroot campaigning, but negative advertising has its place.