You’ve probably never heard anyone make the first statement out loud, unless you live in the Deep South (in which case they may not have said “Negro”). You may have heard the second one, in any Red state, county, town, or family gathering.
But a lot of the voters who feel this way won’t say so. Whether the Bradley Effect (that a person won’t admit to racism, but will show it in the voting booth) is as strong as it once was, or not — racism and extreme anti-Dem partisanship has got to be worth a few points in the general election. One of the (IMHO) most transparent and credible guys on the internet said so yesterday:
It’s already the Obama v. Nobama election – you overhear it in all the volunteer-to-volunteer discussions. “Obama Scares Me” is not just the unofficial motto, it’s actually a button we’ve seen sported. Nate Silver, 538.com, 9/30/08
If you are totally unconcerned about these issues, or think that Obama has a big enough lead to guarantee a win regardless of them, read no further. Otherwise, please join me after the fold for a strategy that may help phone callers and door to door canvassers deal more easily with these issues…
Win with WITV, or Canvassing Made Easy (Well, Easier): A New Strategy to Test, for Transcending Racism and Partisanship (with script) in Swing States
Why try to make a hard sell, if an easier sell might get you the results you seek?
I know many Republicans, and even quite a few of those who now hate Bush and are not sold on McCain, seem like they would not want to vote for a Democrat — especially not for an African-American one. I also have heard of the (possibly mythical) PUMA voter, who while not really a McCain supporter might vote for him due to anger at Obama and the desire to vote for a woman as VP.
Could these voters be persuaded — not to vote for Obama, but not to vote for McCain either?
We can, of course, hope that their lack of enthusiasm for McCain would lead them to simply stay home on Election Day. Yet my belief and experience is that many conservatives (especially older, more male, type voters) take their voting very seriously (as we all should), and would consider not voting to be an…almost cowardly…act. That’s why I don’t want to count on them staying home on that first Tuesday in November.
In a way, this might be called a "meta-framing" issue. It's like the concept of supporting a third party so as to help one of the big two win an election. Except, IMHO, it's a little more ethical, in that you are going to be:
- Suggesting that a voter choose a "candidate" in whom he or she really believes (whether this candidate is actually running, or not), and
- Telling them that most states allow "write-in" votes, and
- Encouraging them to cast a write-in vote for that candidate.
I’ve used the Write In the Vote (WITV) argument with some limited success already (“Well, hmmmm, I never thought of that, I might consider doing it…”), although what people will do in the privacy of the voting booth is not easy to predict (that Bradley Effect again). However, if a voter feels at all ashamed of their Bradley-ism (and lying to a pollster or canvasser about being racist is evidence of at least some shame), this may provide them with an easier out than overcoming their racism and voting for Obama.
(Please see the footnote at bottom regarding the “countability” of write-in votes, and how to be honest about that while still promoting the WITV strategy.)
I plan to test this more when I do some door to door canvassing in a red area in upcoming weekends.
Here are some simple "scripts" that would let YOU test it out.
Note: I wish that this election could be run on the issues and deep-level personality characteristics (not "who you would rather shoot a moose with").
I wish that racism and partisanship were not such intractable problems in our nation.
I believe that electing Obama will do more to overcome these divisions and distractions than trying to win the election by attempting to bring said divisions and distractions to the public's attention at this late and desperate date. I wish that this was not the case...
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For Phone Calls or GOTV Door-to-Door Canvassing (see email, below), once you’ve identified the person (likely to be a conservative male) as not being sold on McCain/Palin but unwilling to either:
- Vote for an African-American, or
- Vote for a Democrat (or an African-American Democrat)
It sounds as though you are not completely convinced that Sen. McCain will take our country in a new direction. And you’re not convinced that Gov. Palin is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. But you don’t like (or trust) Obama either.
That’s okay.
In most elections in most states, you have the right to “write in” a candidate. someone who is not on the ballot by “writing in” the name of the person whom you wish to vote for.
For example, if you are unhappy with Sen. McCain’s support for the Bush administration’s foreign policy and its attacks on personal privacy, write in: Ron Paul or Bob Barr (unless they are on the ballot, and you can vote for them without writing in).
You can write in anyone who has views or policies that you like. They don’t have to be politicians.
For example, if you are unhappy with McCain’s lack of support for a viable immigration policy,
write in: Pat Buchanan or Lou Dobbs.
You can do this with “punchcard ballot” machines or with electronic voting machines, although it’s a good idea to ask the poll worker how to do it before you enter the voting booth. Usually, all you need to know is the correct spelling of the person’s name whom you want to write in.
Exercise your rights as a citizen! Write in a vote for a candidate who you truly believe in!
What if they say “but my write-in candidate won’t win” to you?
Reply: “Well, you don’t really want McCain/Palin to win, do you?”
And if they reply, “But then Obama will win” you can use the excellent line from Underground In Ohio’s great diary (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/30/11932/8079/823/615481):
“…Finally I said, ‘If you were to suddenly fall into this lake (the running/walking trail is around a lake) and need mouth-to-mouth, and there was me, who knows CPR, and a white person who didn't, would you rather me not give you mouth-to-mouth because I am black?’
…
Finally she said, ‘I'd want you to save me. No doubt about it.’
So then I said, ‘Well, our country is just like you would be if you'd fallen into the lake. It is in dire straights. And the only person who can save it, happens to be the black guy. Do we really want to watch our entire future be jeopardized because of something like this?’”
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For Phone Calls or GOTV Door-to-Door Canvassing, once you’ve identified the person as a possible Hillary supporter who is tempted to vote for McCain/Palin
Okay. You supported Hillary, and don’t want to vote for Obama.
You’re tempted to vote for McCain/Palin, at least partly to see a woman in the White House.
But you know that the Republican agenda is not woman and family friendly.
And you’ve seen how McCain has treated the women in his life.
And you know that Palin is anti-choice, anti-equal pay, anti-sex education.
Consider casting a vote for the candidate that you believe in: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In most elections in most states, you have the right to “write in” a candidate. someone who is not on the ballot by “writing in” the name of the person whom you wish to vote for.
You can do this with “punchcard ballot” machines or with electronic voting machines, although it’s a good idea to ask the poll worker how to do it before you enter the voting booth. Usually, all you need to know is the correct spelling of the person’s name whom you want to write in.
Exercise your rights! Vote for a candidate in whom you truly believe:
Write in the name of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
You CAN vote for a woman, without voting against all women.
FYI to Canvassers Who Have Considered Using The WITV Strategy When The Issues Are Not Enough:
A number of states expressly forbid writing in the name of a candidate who was in the primary but lost there, as discussed in the Note below.
Note on Write-In Votes and “Countability”: The non-partisan League of Women Voters website
(http://www.lwv.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&CONTENTID=6695&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.
cfm) says this about write-ins:
“Most of the time, there is a way to vote for somebody even if he or she is not on the ballot. It’s called write-in voting…
Not all states allow write-in votes at all elections. Sometimes, a candidate has to declare that they are an “official” write-in candidate or the election officials won’t count votes for them.”
I would guess that this “apply in advance to be a write-in candidate” law is to avoid having to make poll workers tabulate votes for Donald Duck and Ivana Beer (say it fast, with a Russian accent).
And some states will not allow a candidate who has lost their primary in that state to be counted on a write-in basis. So if being “countable” counts for you when doing WITV, you might want to call your local election board. (I tried to do this for you, by studying Hillary and Ron Paul write-in campaign sites, and found somewhat inconsistent information on “countability” so I hesitate to put my findings in this diary).
It does appear that Arkansas, Hawaii, possibly Indiana and Oklahoma (the sites disagree on this), and Nevada don’t allow write-ins at all. So, to be honest, you can’t say that write-in votes will be “counted for the candidate of their choice.”
But you can honestly say (except perhaps to those in AR, HA, maybe IN and OK, and NV) that “It is your right to cast a vote for a candidate you believe in.”
Addendum — The Truth in Diarying Act: I posted a version of this diary (my first ever, after all these years of reading a plethora of amazing ones by the talented and prolific DailyKos folk) a few minutes after McCain "suspended" his campaign. It was lost in the flurry (or perhaps sank beneath the suspension waves on its own merits), so I've re-written it and an trying again.