GOTV - Part 14 - Money

The Colorado model (0.00 / 0)

Mark-I don't know if you've read The Blueprint by Schrager and Witwer, but if you haven't, I would recommend it. While the book focuses on how the Colorado Dems set up the money system to adapt to the changing election laws, it also provides the mechanism on how they set up an organization to handle some of the GOTV work.

To implement what you are proposing, I'd recommend that the MDP and other interested parties setup an organization called the Ruether Institute, that would be funded by an array of interested parties. The MDP would set up a eight year commitment schedule for major organizations (for example the UAW would put down 15%, AFL-CIO 15%, SEIU 15%, MEA 15%, Coalition for Progress 15%, ASFEME 15%, and the remaining 25% would need to be fund raised every year). So, in an off year the UAW would need to commit $300,000, a sizable amount, but nothing unreasonable.

What would be necessary for this to work is that all parties be committed to improving the Dems GOTV efforts and not being stuck to the same broken model that currently exists.  

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by: pbratt @ Fri Mar 25, 2011 at 13:34:59 PM UTC

I'm planning a final essay, precisely on the question of funding. (0.00 / 0)

Thanks for suggesting The Blueprint - I'll take a look.  In my mind, the problem boils down to capturing the money that is spent anyway now, with so much less effect.  Today's money generally isn't committed until too late to use efficiently, and attached to strings that would interfere with sensible planning.  In presidential years, it's mostly national.  I suppose almost all of it arises from organized labor, if you trace the flow back to its source.

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by: Grebner @ Fri Mar 25, 2011 at 17:07:38 PM UTC

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reluctance of independents to being labled (0.00 / 0)

Overall I've enjoyed you commentary and totally agree that changes are needed.  I wonder though if the difficulty of sustained GOTV has more to do with voters' willingness to participate in a sustained effort due to a perceived risk of being labeled with a partisan identification?

Drawing on my admittedly limited experience* in the last campaign cycle, I encountered many voters who were very reluctant to express an opinion.  When soliciting donations from allegedly strong democrats I received countless responses stating that I had their vote but not their public support.  For some it was certainly a reluctance to part with money for an unknown and long shot candidate, but for others it was explicitly stated to be more about going on record as a partisan donor (public, yet non-monetary, support options were often also turned down).

Many who questioned why I had targeted them for support were very surprised that voter databases existed at all and were outright distressed that these databases attempted to assess partisan affiliations and support levels.  Going door-to-door I encountered countless voters who were happy to hear what I had to say but were very turned off when I would ask if I could count on their vote in Nov.  On more than one occasion, the response was something to the effect of "thats none of your business."  I stopped asking this because it frequently soured an otherwise positive voter interaction.  

These anecdotal accounts only come from those voters who were even willing to talk with me.  There were countless others who were completely uninterested in engaging at a one-on-one level.  I can only guess at their reasons, some might have been busy, some might not have been tuned in yet, some might have already had their minds made up, but still I think others just keep their opinions and decisions to themselves.

I wonder if people cherish the secrecy of the ballot box far too much to be willing to participate in a sustained GOTV effort.

To summarize my opinion (please correct if there is evidence to the contrary), there are at least five groups of voters/potential voters:
1) Proud Partisans - voters who don't mind being labeled
2) Closeted/secretive Partisans - voters who are opposed to being labeled publicly but willing to express support privately
3) Independents - voters who, due to privacy concerns, are unwilling to publicly or privately express support
4) Swing voters - voters willing to engage but not committed to any partisan group
5) Irregular voters and non-voters

questions: Can a sustained and comprehensive GOTV effort ever reach voters in categories 2 and 3, or is the focus only on categories 1, 4, and 5?  Stated more generally, does participation and engagement with a GOTV effort require a voter to give up some of their privacy?  If so, are there enough voters out there willing to make such a sacrifice?

*Other than a single training session conducted by the House Dems, I didn't have any professional or formal assistance or training.  So its entirely possible that the reactions I received were the result of inexperience and/or lousy tactics

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by: ibelieveinMichigan @ Fri Mar 25, 2011 at 18:24:28 PM UTC

Collecting political party preference from "independents" (0.00 / 0)

My approach is simpler than your questions suggest.  First, we try to figure out who probably votes Democratic.  We have lots of ways to identify such people, some of which depend on their cooperation, while others do not.  If you simply go up to somebody and say, "Hi, I'm working for the Democratic Party - are you a Democrat?"  You'll get usable answers from about 80% of the people you approach.  Either they'll admit to being Dems, admit they're Republicans, or insist they split their tickets.  I've done a lot of cross-checking, and the party IDs collected using such blunt methods appear highly reliable.

For people who won't answer, or who are never asked, we have dozens of other methods.  How Democratic is their precinct?  Have they signed nominating petitions for one side or the other?  Does their surname suggest an ethnic groups with substantial partisan leanings?  Do we have an ID on anyone else in their household?  (There are about ten additional methods.) By weighting such hints according to their known reliability, we can construct a pretty good estimate of partisan attitude without ever talking to the specific person in question.  While the estimate may not be perfect, anybody who has ever worked with PPC's walking cards will tell you we have almost everybody correctly pegged.

The second step is to take those IDed as Democrats and attempt to turn them out.  During this phase, we really don't care what they say about their partisanship - we just want them to vote.

To address your question, using your numbered categories:
1) Is simply a GOTV target.
2) Is a GOTV target, if they've ever told us they were Dems, or if we were able to figure it out.  If they're so secretive we don't know they're sympathetic, there's nothing we can do - except ask them again.  
3) If they're really "independents" we don't want to include them in a GOTV program.  If they're not really independent, but are just hiding a Dem orientation, they're the same as category 2).
4) Not GOTV targets.
5) If we can figure out they lean Dem, we try to turn them out.  If we can't figure it out, we ignore them.

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by: Grebner @ Sat Mar 26, 2011 at 05:57:23 AM UTC

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