| Interesting article in the LA Times, telling you to pay attention to the Republicans' GOTV man-behind-the-curtain, Karl Rove. (Note to reporters: how about cutting the crap with gooey terms like "virtuoso performance"? How about Just The Facts, Ma'am?) You may have heard about Rove's famed pyramid-scheme approach to voter contact; the microtargeting of voters; the "72-hour plan"; the shameless use of executive-branch officials to promote locally-focussed pork-type projects. ("Hey, didn't you use to be Mike Brown?")
All that is fine and well for the GOP, and it may win them some extra votes and even some extra seats. But compare this to the approach favored by Deval Patrick's campaign manager John Walsh. Walsh's standard line is that the way to win gubernatorial races is the same as winning city councillor or State Rep: shoe leather and word-of-mouth.
And guess what? Patrick's campaign has so far crushed every obstacle in its path, from the caucuses in February through the September primary. Now Patrick's up by roughly 25 points in the polls. As Tufts prof Jeffrey Berry pointed out last week on WBUR, Patrick's lead has been pretty consistent over the last month, with the exception of one possibly outlying poll that showed Healey within 13 points.
Now, it is hard to know exactly to what to attribute this resiliency. Certainly Patrick's charisma and the general Zeitgeist for change has something to do with it. But perhaps Walsh's insistence on a word-of-mouth approach partly explains why people seem to be reluctant to ditch Patrick, even in the face of extremely tough negative advertising and even his own stumbles. The one-on-one emphasis values quality of voter contact over quantity, but without compromising either.
In other words, one conversation about a candidate with someone you trust is worth any amount of TV ads ingested. The negative stuff just bounces off if you've already been predisposed to like a candidate. If your best pal just loves Deval, you're probably not going to believe that he's going to free all the rapists.
This is totally unscientific, but I'll bet campaign smart-guys would say that you could rank quality of voter contact by the following kinds of relationships, from more influential to less:
- Parents/family (most fundamental values are instilled by parents, and I would bet most folks vote like their parents)
- close friends
- work colleagues
- neighbors
- other influential community leaders: ministers, union stewards, etc.
- canvassing
- phone-bank
- radio ads
- TV ads
- campaign literature drop
etc. Folks with more campaign experience than I can correct this list, and of course there is wide quality variation within each type. But it seems wise to try to move folks up the quality-of-contact ladder, as it were, as well as maximize absolute coverage.
In short, if Patrick's lead holds up (and no, I'm not taking anything for granted), people all over the country are going to want to know exactly what the hell happened here. Much of that attention would naturally fall upon the candidate himself, but John Walsh & Co. would also be in-demand and newly expensive. Certainly Howard Dean's ongoing 50-State Strategy would have opportunities to export such expertise.
PS: It also strikes me that liberals and progressives need a method and a vocabulary for developing the relationships we already have. That sounds terribly manipulative, but after all, most people view their politics as extensions of their own values. Today's article in the New York Times discusses a supposedly increasing prickliness between folks of differing political views. Is there a way to address Big Political Issues without pissing off Uncle Bill? But that's a post for another day. |
