This just happened, and I thought it was something Kossacks might want to hear about...it's a cute campaign story...follow me below the fold.
Some of you might remember that my brother is making another run at the state leg in our very wacky 10th district...the registration numbers are really starting to even up, but the same posse of R's have retained power for ages.
Bro has really had to pay some dues over the number of campaigns he has waged but he's finally built up enough name id that the local pizza guy doesn't screw up my name anymore...thanks to last cycle's phonetic campaign signs...sometimes for his sake, I wish he could be a teabagger so all he'd have to do is one wacky thing and be set for life, but in truth, of course, I'd hate that. A. has wanted to be in the legislature at least since his first campaign attempt in '04, but he got spanked like many other Dems at that time.
Why am I bringing this up now? Plenty of people have seen much less lofty dreams crumble, after all. But that year, he sent out some cute mailers of his and roommate's dogs wearing campaign T-shirts. I thought they were cute, but I'd never guess they'd affect an election so far in the future...my brother got a note from his neighbor saying that she wasn't planning on voting this cycle, but she got one of his current mailers and she remembered his name as the source of the cute doggy photo on her fridge and she thought that kind of "loyal" was worth her time at the polling place. My brother's dog Bubba had name-recognition!
Don't be afraid to make a personal connection in your GOTV efforts...you never know how it'll pay off.