The stakes are high: I'd guess the Democratic ticket could add approximately 100,000 votes to its margin in Michigan if we restructured our entire effort along these lines, including the expenditure of roughly $10,000,000 per election cycle. I think there's good evidence that our present methods can be improved. From the fragmentary evidence I've put together, I guess the Michigan Republican Party is turning out 25,000 to 50,000 additional voters on their side, using similar, but less developed, techniques. Their weak voters consistently outperform ours, election after election. In the tiny corner of the state labelled "East Lansing", we turn out 2000 extra Democratic votes in each general election, operationalizing only the first (and cheapest) steps. Nothing similar is done on any other campus in the state. In CD5, for U.S. Rep Dale Kildee, we turned out an additional 1575 Democrats, at a cost of $13,000, using nothing more complex than a computer-generated, stamped, postcard. |
