I have not written in a while. On immigration, unfortunately my many attempts to propose a sounding plan [see previous entries] reached nowhere as I found nobody really willing to attempt something different but only the conviction that persisting in the error this time would magically bring a different result. I am afraid there is still necessary to have more deaths and lives destroyed to move the pro-immigrant leaders to embrace a mature attitude.
While I prepare new entries on other issues, let me share with you my experience as volunteer in the 2004 and 2006 elections for Democratic candidates. It may be helpful for some of you willing to put words and action together.
If I have to define the Kilroy campaign from what I could see, there is no other word but disorganization; disorganization whose casualty was Mary Jo Kilroy. I volunteered for John Kerry in Maryland and Pennsylvania in 2004 and specifically for DCCC in Buffalo, NY in 2004 too. In Buffalo we faced a less friendly general context in which Naples, the Republican candidate, had been endorsed by a very popular retiring Republican Congressman for whose seat we were competing. Nevertheless, we had good organization and we defeated Naples. Early in the morning we were called and assigned to groups in which the person in charge gave us the guidelines before leaving to canvass; the lists with the addresses whose doors we knocked were reasonably good and very little time was lost. If we compare the results for Ted Strickland and Mary Jo Kilroy, we see that we cannot accept the easy answer that the Kilroy’s defeat resulted from external factors or from fate. If the OH-15 campaign will be good for something it is to know what not to do in the future:
- Information
Karl Rove believes in organization and information. Apparently the Headquarters of the Kilroy campaign does not. In a last week, when we should have been getting out the Democratic vote I found myself calling conservative Republicans and canvassing in neighborhoods in which more than 50% of the neighborhood were supporters of Pryce, the Republican candidate. I found myself even canvassing in neighborhoods where more than 50% of the residents had apparently moved. I was told that the reason was that the information on our lists was 2 years old but that does not look like a realistic explanation. The most probable explanation is that the information on those lists is older and nobody bothered to update it.
- Organization
2.1 Lack of line of command
Different from Buffalo, where I knew all the time to what team I belonged and to whom to ask in case of doubt, here guidelines were given and teams were formed based on a buddy criterion, so people without buddies could find themselves waiting many minutes for a person saying what to do and then in the least expected moment that person could realize that somehow and somewhere the assignments had changed and the teams had already been formed and left .
2.2 Lack of criterion to adjust
The lack of a clear line of command not only cost us precious time but also reflected a sad lack of initiative. When nobody seemed to know what to do next, we were doing tally-counting without any feedback asked or given on lists we all knew were more than 50% inaccurate.
2.3 No use of previous Know-how
Another way in which the know-how of Buffalo 2004 was missing in Columbus 2006 was the way we lost the first day: On 11/4 we were told that the packages for canvassing were not ready and, worse, we were put to do coloring on lists and maps until 3:00 p.m. In Buffalo we were given the maps and lists and we distributed the work according to our criteria instead of according to an inefficient standard criterion. In my group of 2004 we distributed the routes in pretty small areas where each one was close enough to help the others if finishing early and to not lose time looking for each other in extended areas after the assignment was completed. As a result we could move quickly from one area to the next and get very good results. In Columbus nothing like that happened and we lost precious time. That loss was even worse when some people put the results of the coloring of the first day before some effectiveness on working the routes.
2.4 Inefficient matching of assignments and resources.
Just to mention an example, once groups were formed, sometimes we had to go back and forth from Headquarters to the Plumbers and Pipe-fitters Union to find an assignment. I do not remember a moment in which Linda and other members of the Kilroy campaign were not wondering what to do with no allocated volunteers.
2.5 Lack of coordination
The lack of coordination could have harmed our candidates as many people complained that they had been receiving from three to ten calls daily. To the fact that each campaign seemed to plan its phone banks independently adds the fact that organizations like Move On and Working America were canvassing and phone banking on their own too.
2.6 Lack of concept of GOTV
The main concept in the last week was to get out the Democratic vote but not only we found ourselves getting out the Republican vote but also I found no effort to physically get out the Democratic vote. Meanwhile, in 2004 we were asking people if they needed our help to reach the voting places (even tough in Buffalo, different from Columbus, there had not been precedents of problems of this kind in the previous elections).
2.7 Treatment of volunteers
The Foleys, who gave housing to two of us, could not have treated us better. Unfortunately, different from my previous experiences, I cannot say the same of the treatment coming from interns and staffers campaigning with us. In one occasion it was even very condescending, a real test for my temper. It would be a good idea that DCCC instruct interns and staffers about people like me, who volunteer for conviction and do not have a paycheck depending directly or indirectly of the success of a candidate.
- Additional Recommendation: personalized e-mail (and mail)
If there is something I believe can give us great results for the next elections, especially among young voters, is the use of personalized e-mail. Answering letters and e-mails for Kerry in 2004 I saw that many people wrote about many touching situations but their letters were answered with standard answers that, I am sure, could have resulted offensive for those people who put their hearts on those letters and e-mails and found a slogan unrelated to their situation as answer. Nevertheless, that fact also brings an opportunity and, as Karl Rove says, an election is gained vote by vote.
The advantages of personalized e-mail (and letters) are:
3.1 There is no time lost with people who is not at home, something that happens more than 50% of the time when canvassing or phone banking. The letter or e-mail will be waiting for the voter in his mail or e-mail box and will not be immediately trashed if the voter differentiates it from the rest of the junk-standard mail.
3.2 The voter controls the time of his answer, different from phone banking, in which the campaigner can unknowingly be calling in a very inconvenient moment. With personalized mail or e-mail, the voter chooses the timing of his answer.
The same way, the campaigner has better control of the communication, i.e., replying with a detail and knowledge that is not possible in phone banking. Besides that, the e-mails from the voters do not come all of them at the same time and the campaigner can organize better the time of his answers so he can avoid a saturation and fatigue of his voters and himself.
3.3 It is a more efficient way to reach young voters. While phone banking would have to get cell-phone numbers to reach them, most young people have e-mail addresses. It should not be difficult to get those addresses. We could begin with organizations like Rock the Vote and then buy lists from, in example, CD and DVD sellers.
3.4 It lets the campaigner to organize with his chief of group better occasional chatting between his voters and party leaders.
3.5 It is not only more efficient but also cheaper for DCCC than phone banking and the campaigner can manage his voters even from home or the internet access of a public library without additional cost.
3.5 The content of the e-mail or letter is more effective because it answers to the needs of the voter and the campaigner knows the issues and interests of the voters in his account and provides an extraordinary opportunity to get feedback of good quality from voters and from campaigners who are volunteers.
Organization:
An invitation to the voters, members of the list (cfr. 3.3), is sent to get their opinions with respect to the last elections. At the beginning the results could not be the best because in the past e-mails have been sent to ask feedback in general but the opinions of the voters were never answered or the occasion was simply used to put their e-mail addresses in a list to which standard letters (junk mail at the end) were sent.
Once you receive answers, you separate the letters in at least two groups:
i - People not particularly interested in issues. Basically people with emotional motivations, they need somebody with whom they can identify themselves. A young Karl Rove once said: It takes young people to communicate to young people.
ii - People interested in issues. The campaigners who answer to these people should be distributed by issues in groups.
Each group is called an account an assigned to a campaigner who has a chief of group to whom report and from who to get answers in case of doubt.
Requirements:
a) Computers and internet access.
b) Campaigners, volunteers or not. Those interested in the group ii must have basic knowledge of the Democratic position on the issues and receive periodic briefings online.
c) Prepaid letter so the voter does not have to pay for his communication with the campaigner if he chooses the traditional mail instead.
Fortunately the governorship of Ted Strickland and the general results in the Senate and the House must give us a better ground to fight in next elections but we should rely on more mature hands for then,
Alfredo M. Bravo de Rueda E.
End Note
[1] Amazingly, to mention just the worst experience, on 11/7, after coming back from an early assignment from 5:00 a.m. to 6:30 a.m., I found myself asking in three different times to three different people, including Linda, what to do next. All of them told me to wait so while at that same time I was making visibility in Buffalo in 2004, in 2006 I was watching Nanny 911 in Columbus. Finally a person of a previous team got me an assignment so I was sent to the Presbyterian Church at 10:00 am to deliver voters the Democratic ballot. I stayed there until 7:30 pm, when a volunteer of another campaign gave me a ride because it seems Headquarters had just forgotten me.
On 11/5 I was simple left at home and I had to make my more than 2 mile way to Headquarters walking as soon as possible as I had no information and it could have been another change of plans.
On 11/7, once at home, I found myself asking at what time we were supposed to be at Headquarters, if at Headquarters, to take the bus to DC. Headquarters’ people did not return my calls, did not answer or even hung up on me. On 11/8 I could finally get somebody to tell me that the time and place was Headquarters at 9:00 am but the other volunteer, who went to the party, came with different information: Headquarters at 10:00 am.