Another primary, another post-mortem. And as we saw in Cuellar v. Rodriguez, there is still something missing, something key, in the approach of Dems in general, and of party reformers in particular.
Now, in IL-06, we have seen a small decline in the number of Dem voters at the primary poll, versus 2002. Make no mistake, this was an electoral disaster. A hard-fought primary between decent candidates should have brought plenty of people to the polls. The adamant progressives should have been out there in force for Cegelis, and the moderates, determined to take out the Republicans with a strong Fighting Dem, should have been out in force for Duckworth.
I argued in
another diary that the failure in Cuellar v Rodriguez was a straightforward failure by Rodriguez to Get Out The Vote, due to a failure to break out of the conventional approach to campaigning. In an accompanying poll, a plurality voted me a pompous ass for claiming that I could have won the primary for Rodriguez. Bummer. But I do not concede. Yet
While voters can be subdivided into a variety of categories, at any moment during a campaign the categories that matter are:
a. Those who are going to vote for the other guy.
b. Those who are going to vote for your guy.
c. Those who are going to vote 3rd party, but would vote for your guy if the 3rd party were not available.
d. Those who are going to vote 3rd party, but lean to the other guy.
e. Those who are going to vote 3rd party, and will not be swayed.
f. Those who are not going to vote, but would vote for your guy if they did.
g. Those who are not going to vote, but would NOT vote for your guy if they did.
h. Those who are going to vote, but can't make up their mind between your guy and the other guy.
i. Those who are not going to vote, but could not make up their mind between your guy and the other guy.
There are lots of refinements and supplements to these categories, but I don't care about them.
Current campaign strategy takes this approach:
1. Focus on (h). Address most of your resources to shifting their opinions.
2. Run negative TV ads to persuade (a) to either stay home, or switch to a 3rd party. (it's best if they stay home)
3. If (c) is more than a handful, run negative TV ads, representing the 3rd party candidate as a spoiler. Play up the "Wasted Vote" meme.
4. Use phonebanks and literature drops to try to transform (f) into (b).
So what's wrong this approach? Well, (2) is simply unethical. It is bad for the body politic to discourage people from voting, and negative ads almost always distort the truth. They invite retaliatory strikes, which further disgust and disillusion the electorate. In particular, the more thoughtful the voter, the more likely the voter will see the negative campaigns for the exercise in bamboozlement that they are. Thus, thoughtful, decent voters become disgusted and frustrated with the system, and opt out. (1) is bad for a couple of reasons. the first is that, particularly in a system as polarized as ours, people who doubt whether to vote Death Party or Democrat are fools. directing the debate towards them must inevitably debase the essential nature of the political discourse. This has the same effect as (2): it drives some of the most thoughtful voters out of the system, disgusted and frustrated by the obvious double-talk. And it drives less-thoughtful, but still sympathetic (b) voters out of the system, when they see the candidate "move towards the center". Thus, one way or another, tactic (2) pushes (b) voters into groups (c) and (f). (2) is also expensive: the main techniques are pushpolling (which is often done in outrageously unethical fashion) and TV advertising. TV advertising has several problems. The first is that it is very expensive, and that, to the extent it is "positive", it tends to rile up the opposition, turning (g)'s into (a)'s. And it is grossly inefficient -- 90% or more of all the viewers whose attention is being sold to the campaign are not legitimate targets for the message. (3) is bad for all the reasons that (1) and (2) are bad: it makes your candidate look spiteful and condescending, it insults and alienates voters who might contribute to your base, it debases the whole concept of democracy, it distracts you from your real opponent, and ultimately it is difficult to determine whether it makes any difference at all. And what is wrong with (4)? What is mainly wrong with (4) is that it is simply not effective enough. Lit drops are, in my opinion, a huge waste of human and financial resources. Phonebanks can certainly make a difference, but usually they are neither precise enough nor effective enough. Ultimately, somebody will say anything to get you off the phone, but it doesn't mean they'll turn out on election day.
So what's an alternative, better approach? Well to begin with, I claim that in general, people in group (h) don't matter. They are fools, and campaign managers are fools to target them. There are few enough (h) types to begin with, and they cannot be persuaded with reasonable arguments. They hear nonsense like, "It's dangerous to change leadership in the middle of a war," and somehow it makes sense to them, nevermind that the immoral, incompetent leadership created the situation in the first place. Forget about them.
My guess is that in almost every Congressional District in the US, (h) voters are outnumbered at least 2 to 1 by (f) voters. In many or most districts, I'd guess it's more like 3 or 4 to 1. I also believe that identifying (f) voters and targeting them personally, face-to-face, both before election day and, most importantly, ON election day, is the most cost-effective way to increase one's percentage of the total vote.
But there is a place for television. I note, again, that a big problem with targeting the monkeys in the middle is that it debases the debate. 30-second TV soundbites are moronic, and any thoughtful person sees them that way -- and concludes, not unreasonably, that the politician who approved them has contempt for the audience. But these ads are not intended to affect the thinking of thoughtful persons, they are intended to affect the thinking of idiots. In my life, I have seen two individuals realize that there are thoughtful people out there, and that they can be moved by an appeal to their thoughtfulness. One of these individuals was, unfortunately, a lunatic: Lyndon Larouche. The other was, though eccentric, not insane: Ross Perot. Ross Perot had more authentic faith in the American voter than any other politician I've ever seen. He demonstrated this faith by running full half-hour discourses on national prime-time television. Think about what this says. Every other politician assumes that nobody will watch or listen to political content, unless it is presented in brief digestible morsels slipped into the interstices of ordinary entertainment. Yet Perot demonstrated that this was clearly not true: that Americans are fascinated by the political debate itself, that they want to be treated like thinking adults, that they want to see the candidates sit the hell down and talk sensibly for an extended period of time.
One caveat: something significant about Perot was that he was offering a viable alternative. This meant that the people who were undecided were not monkeys in the middle. They were miscellaneous Republicans and Democrats, sincerely troubled by the options the two major parties were presenting, and now given something else to consider. Nonetheless, I hypothesize that if Democratic candidates at all levels spent their TV money, not on soundbites, but on substantive extended presentations to the public, they would be able to get the voters who already agree them up off the couch. I also think they'd gain among the monkeys in the middle, as a side-benefit, because most communications aimed at the MITM are disinformation, which can be deftly countered within the context of an extended presentation.
Two days ago, dailykos got all squishy over the discovery of an extended personal portrait of Al Gore, produced during the 2000 campaign, but largely buried by the campaign's managers. This video clearly demolished most of the nonsensical, ahistorical fun-house portrait of Gore that the Death Party had so ably -- and unethically -- painted. Yet it was never seen by most Americans. Why not? Because self-important, overpaid, hyper-analytical political hacks who can't think outside the Beltway couldn't even comprehend the idea of buying half-hour slots during prime-time to play the video and then present Gore talking in depth about specific issues.
There you have it folks. The UntimelyRippd How to Win Elections and Influence Voters (tm) Guide to Electoral Revolution: Spend the hundreds of millions of dollars on two things: Hiring blockwalkers, and paying them well -- 30 or 40 dollars per new voter at the polls -- to get out the vote on election day. And buying TV time to have an extended conversation with the voters.
It's not rocket science. I don't have the math skills for rocket science.