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An Exchange on Campaigns
Civic Values Mailing List
September, 1994
Civic Values and Fall Campaigns
Ed Schwartz, Philadelphia
Immediately following Labor Day, the fall Congressional and Senatorial
campaigns will begin in earnest. Here in Pennsyvlania, where Senator Harris
Wofford is facing a stiff challenge from Republican Congressman Rick
Santorum, and there's a gubernatorial race between two non-incumbents (we
have a two-term limit here that prevents Bob Casey from running again),
the campaigns already have begun.
It would be a waste of time here, I think, to get into a "who should win?"
discussion of various candidates. That's what the "politics" list is about.
But the relationship between citizens, the community, and campaigns is
central to the fulfillment of civic-values, and we might be able to help
each other understand it better through a careful look at the political
process now operates around the country.
Earlier this summer various people from both the United States and Canada
asked how to influence an unresponsive public official. Well, this is the
time when it's supposed to be most possible. Elections are supposed to force
politicians to take a careful look at what we are thinking. Moreover,
campaigns are supposed to give citizens direct access to what their
representatives are saying and doing--ideally, through public meetings were
people can confront their officials face-to-face.
For all its defects, a city with an organized political party system
provides this opportunity to thousands of precinct workers or
committeepeople. I served as a Democratic Committeeperson for 14 years,
before taking a non-partisan position as Director of Housing and Community
Development forced my resignation. I was even a ward leader for a stretch.
Without going into a long discussion here of how this system operates--that
might be appropriate later on--let me just say that in every election I had
to chance to meet just about every serious candidate for every office in my
own party, large and small. Moreover, the exchange of views on issues that
took place in ward meetings between committeepeople and candidates were
every bit as serious as the exchanges one sees on these televised town
meetings that Clinton and others are fond of putting together today.
Moreover, the candidates are on their best behavior because each
committeeperson stands in front of a polling place on election with a sample
ballot that has significant influence over how the voters will vote. In
fact, in minor races that don't make the newspapers--city councilpeople,
legislators, etc.--the committeeperson's ballot is "the" deciding factor in
how constituents will vote. That's one sort of system.
Then there are occasions where citizens mobilize effectively to shape a
political campaign. Perot's candidacy is the most powerful example in recent
time. Here again: I'm not getting into Perot the personality or where he
stands on issues. But his impact on the political process is worth looking
at. By demanding that citizens circulate petitions to get him on the
ballot--and succeeding--he and his followers demonstrated how open the
system is, really, to people and groups that want to exert influence within
it.
One final example: Years ago, I was living in Cambridge. It was the late
60's, and the Vietnam War was the primary issue.
There was a vacancy in one
of the Congressional seats in the area, and a number of liberal candidates
were vying for the position. Several of the peace organizations decided to
have a convention of their own, hear the candidates, endorse someone, and
then ask the rest to get of the race. They were concerned because a pro-war
candidate was also running, and they felt that if six peace candidates ran,
the pro=war candidate would prevail.
Well, they did hold the convention, and Father Drinan ended up winning their
support. He went on to win the Congressional seat. Also making a powerful
impression on the convention was a young man named John Kerry who had just
returned from Vietnam and was organizing Vietnam Veterans
Against the War.
He's now a Senator from Massachusetts.
So here are three distinct examples of where citizens have organized
politically--either as part of a party system, in response to a particular
campaign, or on behalf of an issue. Without the citizen involvement, the
candidate would not succeed.
Now: we've discussed various issues on this list related to federal policy.
We've talked about
housing and homelessness, welfare reform, the crime bill,
and elections themselves. Every congressperson in the United States is
running for reelection, as are many Senators. The complexion of the Congress
could change dramatically after November.
Where you live--in your district--will there be any opportunity at all to
attend at least one public meeting to explore these issues with your
representative or his/her opponent? Or will the campaign be fought out
entirely over television, with voters having almost no opportunity to
confront the officials directly? Have any groups attempted to organize
public meetings themselves to push candidates to talk about these issues?
Could you?
This is supposed to be democracy in action, folks. Is it?
DON HOMUTH, OREGON
I've run for office, been elected and beaten. I've run political campaigns,
big and small, won some and lost some. I've been in statewide campaigns
and in local campaigns. I've consulted on
strategies, developed theme/message
components, constructed polls and analyzed results, run focus groups,
written radio and TV political commercials, press releases, speeches,
position papers, opposition research, fund-raising plans, budgets,
personnel requirements, appearance schedules and advance plans, stuffed
probably 250,000 envelopes _personally_, knocked on well over 25,000
doors, and just generally been involved at a number of levels.
So, I have some observations to share:
1. Political campaigns aren't _anything_ like folks think.
The modern technique of polling, coupled with the ability to
absolutely know how voters group, the ability to get precise (>85% correct)
mailing lists segregated by demographic characteristics and past voting
patterns and outcomes not only by ZIP code, but by precinct and block,
makes it possible for a well-funded political candidate to craft specific
theme/message units and put them in the hands of *precisely* the voters
who will most react to the message.
For example, it is not at all uncommon for a campaign to mail,
on the same day, a letter to registered voters (unregistered voters'
opinions don't count, so no one asks them any questions in the polls)
who are likely to vote in the upcoming election, segregated by party,
sex, age, issues of interest, and signatures judged most persuasive.
Work out the permutations and combinations, and one mailing on a given
drop date can have as many as twenty separate message approaches to the
same batch of voters in an area.
The TV and radio commercials are best used for "attack ads." They
cost so much, and the information is so broad-based, that there's little
sense in going a direct mail route, *unless* the issue is very local.
2. "Grass-Roots" campaigns are nice to talk about, but paid media is better.
"Grass-roots" campaigns (my specialty) are not terribly
expensive, but they are _very_ difficult to put together in a way that
makes them at all useful. Each candidate will claim a "grass-roots"
effort, but it's mostly nonsense. The winners know what works, and
what works is paid media, not necessarily electronic BTW.
Sometimes there are reactive "grass-roots" efforts that spring
up out of public reaction to other forces -- e.g. HRP's campaign last
time. Let me remind everyone -- he lost. Everyone said "Nice going."
and then _immediately_ put their pollsters, focus group leaders and
theme/message consultants to work to figure out (a) why he made such
a good showing, and (b) how to keep it from happening again. (I've
read the polls.) And so, it's not likely to.
Out here in Oregon, where HRP got something over 20% in 1992,
the American Party (the HRP campaign's successor organization) ended
up with about 1500 _registered_ voters statewide. So, even they didn't
take the time to do the groundwork to capitalize on their good showing --
which, BTW, gave them "major party" status in Oregon. It won't last long.
3. It's not _ever_ about "issues."
It's about winning -- pure and simple. Everything else is simply
nonsese, and political professionals look at "issues" only as part of
an overall "theme/message" element strategy -- nothing else. Issues are
a means to an end -- not the end.
This will, of course, be denied. It is, however, the fact.
4. The _only_ important group is the "undecideds."
They hold the margin of victory. In our "plurality" (NOT majority,
and don't ever confuse the two. The concept "majority" is only a special
subset of the larger concept "plurality.) system, the mathematics of
political marketing bring out a fundamental truth. Let me provide an
example:
Suppose in a given district (any size), party registrations broke down
roughly as follows:
R: 40%
D: 40%
Ind:20%
Let's also suppose that R's and D's voted straight-line party tickets
all the time.
In that case, no candidate would ever campaign to either the R's or D's,
because the campaign would _know_ to a certainty how those people would
vote. The statistical tendency of persons to vote that way can be
determined precisely simply by running an analysis of past voting
patterns that are now easily accessible electronically.
Lessons: (1) Except for bowing in their direction on rare occasions, don't
waste money talking to either your own people or the opposition's. It
won't make any difference in the outcome.
(2) Spend 80-90% of your money on the "independents" (or whatever
you wish to call them). Poll the daylights out of them, find out what they
want to hear, and then tell them.
Funny thing about the "independents." As a group, they are
simgularly unmotivated -- they register as independents because, in
part, they don't want to be bothered by "partisan politics" -- they
think -- they really do -- that _they_ somehow, are above all these
mean-spirited, "partisan" things that give "politics" such a bad
name.
Fools -- the lot of them.
They abandon the field (they don't get to vote in closed
primaries) and leave the basic choice of who will run (thereby who
will be elected) to others. They really think that a modern, well-funded
campaign can't figure _them_ out.
It can. They're wrong.
5. Parties -- both R's and D's -- want to maintain their elected majority.
First priority: Re-elect incumbents running again.
Second priority: Elect "open seat" candidates to fill a
seat being vacated by a member of your party.
Third priotity: Capture a seat vacated by a member of the
other party.
Fourth priority: Elect a challenger to a seat held by an
incumbent of the other party.
If, by August, a party sees that its majority (in the polling)
is being pretty well assured by a combination of first and second priority
candidates, it will not only cut off its support to third and fourth
priority candidates, but (and this is hard to believe, but true) it will
actively begin to work *against* those candidates interests. It does this
at the state and national level, by passing word around the sources of
funds that a particular campaign should receive no support.
The money for the campaign dries up. It goes to other "safer"
candidates already assured of election in Priority 1 & 2 campaigns. After
all, if there is a comfortable majority assured, there's no sense in
wasting money.
The Priority 3 & 4 candidates, BTW, never know this happens. Things
just sort of hit a wall of marshmallow. Phone calls don't get returned;
promised checks never arrive, appearances get cancelled because of
"pressing business,; it just sort of fizzles out.
6. Incumbents don't help challengers of their own party.
Why make trouble with someone with whom you'll have to work
when the election is over by supporting his/her opponent? Too much
downside -- don't do it. Donate money -- you're expected to do that, but
be really careful about anything else.
(Unless, of course, the polls predict an upset. That rarely happens.)
7. If you work the campaign, don't expect a job afterwards.
Campaigning is one thing. Running an office for an elected official
is another. They are not the same skills. You might get a "gopher" job
for a while, but a highly partisan campaign worker isn't a very good public
contact person with an electorate 40%+ of whom probably voted the other
say. You might get a job, but the tendency is to last for less than a
year.
(I never took a job -- never asked for one. Wouldn't have taken
one if it was offered.)
And, BTW, "candidates" change when they win elections. Strong
stands on issues become less strong over time. The candidate moves toward
the center on fundamentally everything. That's not surprising -- you'd
expect them to do that.
There's a great deal more to tell, and lots of anecdotes on how
things in campaigns really work, but, by and large, those are some broad
outlines of the "political" process as currently practiced.
Oh yes, one more thing: Don't be offended at _any_ political
advertisement you see/hear this fall. Simply because you are a subscriber
to this group, I can say this for certain: They weren't meant for you, but
for somebody else.
The American public gets exactly the kind of campaign it wants.
How do we know that? Because, in the polling and the focus
groups, it _asks_ for it. And when the voters ask, campaigns deliver.
CATHY MC CARTHY, ONTARIO, CANADA-
Local elections in the U.S.A. seem to involve what Ed has referred to as
"democracy in action" more say than state-level, or presidential
elections.
This Fall, in Ontario Canada, all municipalities and local level
governments will be holding their elections. The term of office is two
years. Unofficial campaigning began in January, and the incumbents have
of course embarked on visible community repair projects all summer.
In Ontario, and in Canada for that matter, however, there is a nasty
tradition of re-electing encumbents notwithstanding overt manifestations
of corruption. We do not have some of the statutes of limitation that
you impose on Presidents etc... Politicians therefore have a tendency to
remain in power forever, unless they really make enemies or screw up big
time, like Brian Mulroney for example (and he was elected for two terms!)
The longest 'reigning' Prime Minister was William Lyon Mackenzie King,
and he stayed in power for 26 years! This was despite the fact that he
was a well known nut case. He ruled through seance with his mother, with
dead British Monarchs, and with his great grandfather who had been one of
Canada's only revolutionaries. He adored his dog Pat, whom he also
consulted on matters of state, and made decisions of national importance
based on the position of the hands of the clock, when the vote was taken
in Parliament. These things were well known during his lifetime and yet
he was elected term after term.
My point is there is a tendency to reelect politicians, especially local
politicians unless they have been convicted of murder (and that hasn't
stopped at least one Alberta poitician!
As a result, town-hall meetings, candidate debates etc... are yawned off
as unpleasant duties and hare very poorly attended, by both voters and
candidates.
Local politicians don't even campaign door-to-door.
How do I try to hold these people accountable under these circumstances?
When I try to organize my neighbourhood, they tell me that I am beating
by head against a brick wall. Most of my neighbours don't even vote!
(Voter turnout is on average 15%)
Any suggestions? The elections are in November.
KAREN KUBBY, IOWA
Local campaigns are of the most interest to me. It's where people have
the most direct form of accountability and where you can have the most
influence. I've run in a non-partisan local race. Everyone knows I'm a
democratic socialist, a card carrying kind. People thought they were
voting for me IN SPITE of the "S" word, but really, it was the way I'd
been living out my socialist values that they found attractive.
Attractive enough for them to cast a vote for me.
Two qualities are critical to me in any public official. How big are
their (figurative) ears? Can they really listen versus being silent
while formulating a response in their head? And, secondally, how were
they involved in their community before becoming a candidate? Did they
do some nitty gritty volunteerism, or only the flashy public roles?
These are indicators to me of how a candidate will function for the
public good once in office.
How do you decide who to vote for? Work for? Give money to?
ED SCHWARTZ, PHILADELPHIA
Miles and Karen gave a great advice to Bob Sanford on organizing IMHO..
Moreover, the posts on electoral politics in the US and Canada together
paint a clear picture of the democratic dilemma that faces us.
Don Homuth's description of what matters to candidates (winning) and how
they reach the voters (TV and other mass media) rings true to Pennsylvania
as well. City Council, state legislative, and more limited offices that
don't get covered in the press are run as grassroots campaigns; everything
else fits Don's descriptions. In fact, one of the newspapers now has a
special story each week to cover the ads that the major candidates are
running--since these have become the campaign, for the most part.
So where does that leave people who want to organize communities and
to hold government accountable to them?
Like Karen, they become more involved in purely local politics where they
feel they can have a greater impact.
Or like Cathy McCarthy, they can't even get neighbors to focus on local
politics because they're so disgusted they don't vote.
Kind of a crisis of civic values, eh? (Little nod to Canadian friend there).
But to return to the States...remember that brouhaha about the Crime Bill we
just had over the past two weeks? Or my appeal to contact your
Congresspeople about the Community Development Act since
billions of dollars
in support for affordable housing and community development are wrapped up
in it? Or the discussion of welfare reform? These obviously are
extraordinarily important to our communities...but they happen in
Washington..And there's virtually no serious, systemic movement to hold
people in Washington accountable some set of positions around them.
The clearest answer I can give to Cathy McCarthy about her problem in
dealing with an unresponsive local government is to say that people first
get "politicized" in trying to accomplish something for their community
"within the system"--and then discover that the politicians don't respond.
If Bob Sanford's kids in Maine start mobilizing behind efforts to expand
youth services, and at some point they want the help of government--and
government won't respond--then those kids will start registering to vote the
next day...Rage is a primary motivator to political action.
So the step that I've started to take here in drawing the connection between
national programs like the Crime Bill, the Community Development Act, and
the Family Assistance Act to local problems like crime, homelesseness, and
welfare is to suggest that grassroots movements can be built around the use
of these federal programs to achieve local ends. In Philadelphia, it was
anger at the Rizzo administration's plans for the use of Community
Development Block Grant to demolish 10,000 houses in poor
neighborhoods that
sparked a neighborhoods' movement that evenutally brought him down. A
federal program; a local situation.
As a strategic matter, moreover, the lesson of the 60's is that small
groups need to do things that get the media to win the attention of
politicians for whom the media is the only reality. Whenever a reporter
calls me to ask why some activist took over a building instead o "working
within the system" to achieve his or her goals, my answer always is so that
that reporter would notice. So if politicians trust only the media to
reach "us," we need to project to the media as well.
BUT..there's still the question of meeting. "Strong democracy"
means that we
meet. With each other. With candidates. And since candidates don't think
meetings mean as much as TV--Don's point--how do we create meetings which
will matter? Answering this question successfully is likely the single most
important challenge facing democracy itself.
NEWS MEDIA AND CAMPAIGNS
PUTNAM BARBER, SEATTLE
I have some direct experience with the insides of political campaigns
(though not as much as Don's) and have one thought to add to his
observations (the part I'm responding to is quoted at the end, for
context), plus a question for our group.
The thought:
It isn't just that "the voters" "ask" for campaigns to be run this way.
There is big money to be made, and +very+ gratifying power to be enjoyed,
through a successful career as a political campaign operator. In a way
that reminds me of the similar sort of comments that are made about
corporate raiders, the people who do this build their successes by
trashing the institutions that make their work possible. And they have a
better excuse (sad to say), because winning truly is a lot better than
losing in politics, especially if you're a hired gun who needs notches in
your gun-barrel when you go looking for your next assignment.
But it isn't just about careers and fees. The power-struggles of campaign
organizations are the stuff of legends and controlling how large sums of
money will be spent is a lot more fun as a way of exercising power than
all the delicate, attentive energy that needs to be spent in
community-building and volunteer motivation when those large sums of money
aren't available (or have been, as occasionally happens, eschewed). Grass
roots campaigns are hard to organize, as Don points out, and one of the
reasons is that they can't be bought in the same way that media time and
direct mail can be.
The stew is made thicker and richer by the media-people and their
interest in celebrity-winners and easy stories: polls, which cost money,
are easy to report on; fund-raising successes are easy to gossip about
and are useful indexes of eventual results in the voting booths; and
campaign operatives polish their resumes by a subtle but vital process of
getting themselves mentioned in the right way (usually in connection with
successes of these sorts) by politically "knowing" media commentators.
Since the media-folk know, in the same way that Don knows, that issues
don't matter, their attention to them is perfunctory, sensationalist, and
impressionistic. Here again, the pattern is that success in the field
depends on trashing the institutions that make it valuable and meaningful.
The question (it's really Ed Schwartz' question brought into this
context):
So what are we going to do about it?
1. Don't join the enemy. Issues matter to me. I pay attention to what
the candidates say and do and vote for people who seem likely to bring
the sorts of values I care about into the offices they seek. I talk
about the election in those terms, even when mocked with the sort of
cynicism the facts Don describes (and I amplify) deserve.
2. Create forums where the candidates have to behave themselves and
demand their appearance there. Design the occasions so that thoughtful
and candid responses are more rather than less likely. Make the
candidates answer prepared questions from your group, for example, and
allow follow-up questions from a knowledgeable local person. +Don't+
pander to the media's desire for "shoot-out" style debating where one
candidate gets to try to embarrass and fluster another with an unexpected
cheap shot.
3. Support +publicly+ financed campaigns with real limits on what
campaigns can spend. Even the current crop of politicians blush at the
time they spend and the blood they have to sell while raising money now
(and these are the guys who made it in the current system). Other sorts
of people would come forward, and succeed, if the chance was better that
one might win without raising tens or hundreds of dollars per vote.
4. Support public media that put the candidates before the voters in
organized, controlled formats. Our voters pamphlets (in Washington
state) are a powerful antidote to the nonsense on television, and often
the only information available in any form on candidates in the more
local (and to my mind, more crucial) part of the ballot. There's no
reason why there shouldn't be more instances of this kind of
communication, in other media -- except that the political campaign
operatives don't have any interest in promoting them, the public has been
hoodwinked into thinking politics is evil, and the (relatively) small
amounts of money involved are easy to attack.
5. Put your money and your time where your heart is and stick to it. I
+never+ respond to fund-raising appeals from candidates I can't vote for
(they are the most mendacious of all, IMHO). I invite candidates to my
house (even when I don't support them) and bring in friends and neighbors
for chat. If they start to sell out in ways that bother me, I take their
yard sign down (from my yard ... not elsewhere!), stop saying nice things
about them, even write letters (to them) saying what's wrong.
6. Challenge for yourself the importance of litmus-test issues --
especially those that are constructed as traps that limit intelligent
action and responsible government. (Remember Geo Bush and "no new
taxes" -- it was a dumb promise. The fact that he made it was a strong
reason for voting against him. Not because "tax and spend" is a good
idea, but because the promise was a trap, designed to catch the other
guy. But it caught him too. It worried me that he wasn't smart enough,
or principled enough, to see that coming and drop the idea before it
escaped from his lips.) Ask candidates what they are going to +do+ about
known problems and how they expect they might react to anticipated ones.
Listen to the answers. Is this someone you trust with your money,
your future, and the leadership of your community?
6. Kill your television. Don't open direct-mail envelopes. When the
doorbell rings, answer and make the candidate (or surrogate) talk to
you. Go to candidates' forums and coffee hours. Put brains into your
own politics. You may find a politician who has one too. I know I have.
DON HOMUTH, OREGON, ON NEWS MEDIA
Putnam Barber opens another interesting can of worms when he discusses
the functioning of the news media during campaigns. As a former
member of the Fourth Estate (News Director and anchor of a CBS affiliate
in a state capitol _before_ I became a State Senator), I can offer some
observations about my former colleagues as well:
1. It's not the media _per se_ -- it's the personnel that are important.
Most folks see only the media -- they don't see the actual people.
In point of fact, the training for news media personnel is abysmal. In
college "journalism" courses, they take one writing course eight times,
and it's a journalism major. You will, for the most part, find few who
graduate having taken courses in economics, public finance, administrative
controls, law, etc.
They are then thrown into a maelstrom of "reporting" in which,
for the most part, they are not encouraged to get the story out with any
sort of critical analysis. Journalistic standards of proof require only
this: Two confirming sources. At that point, whatever happens may
reasonably be reported as "fact," whether it is or not. See, inter alia,
the "performance" of the former drug czar Bennet at the Bush/Clinton
"debates" last election. Bennet first prepped Bush for the event, then
appeared on national TV as a commentator to discuss how his candidate did.
Bizarre.
I retain some sort of sympathy for reporters. They don't know
what the story is. Their bosses don't particularly want them to report
the real story anyway. Their editors will cut it back, even when more
length is required. And the public doesn't understand how things really
work, and when you tell them, they just get mad. Why bother, anyway.
2. TV "news" is a headline service. Nothing more; nothing less.
So why should anyone expect it to be anything other than what it
really is? I confess, I don't know. In a given 30-minute local TV
newscast, the entire news hole is _maybe_ 6-8 minutes -- on a good day.
And on TV, something with good "visual values" -- color, action, flames,
lots of bodies moving around, emotion, natural disaster, anything shot
from a helicopter, etc. -- will get on the air, pushing a "talking head"
news conference away, regardless of quality or importance of content.
Why are such things on the air? Because viewers _like_ them,
that's why. The research absolutely confirms it. And since commercial
TV is in the job of selling air time for commercials (and don't ever
lose track of what the real game is here), they will provide what the
viewers want to see. It is the way it is.
Candidates and campaigns will go to great length to research
and polish "sound bites" -- 20-second snippets, generally looking/sounding
like a slogan, which are engineered (in the strict sense of the term) to
convey emotion, rather than information. These are then polished carefully
so their delivery comes off with as much passion as possible and inserted
into public pronouncements.
In case the news media professionals might miss such things, there
is a campaign aide standing close by to point out when the cameras and
tape recorders should be running. A good day for these folks is if their
sound bite hits the news.
3. Editorial stance _does_ matter.
The point of view of a publisher is important. Editors know that
and so do reporters. The claim will be made that such matters do not
enter into coverage decisions. They do.
The usual vehicle is in the selection of what will be covered.
It's hard to criticize the coverage of something that isn't covered, since
the only response needs to sound like , "Well, we have a touch schedule,
limited staff, and only so many hours in a day, so we had to make some
tough choices on what to cover." It's take it or leave it, and there's
not a campaign that doesn't have to swallow hard sometime and simply
leave it.
4. The news media are a business -- not a public journal.
It's important to get real here.
Fully half the readership of any given newspaper is not likely
to vote _at all_ in any given election. To those folks, any campaign
coverage at all is simply irrelevant. The media folks don't react only
to those who are registered to vote; they react to everyone who reads
and/or watches.
That means that the competition for such information is at least
even between those who want it and those who don't.
I suspect more than half of the folks who watch TV regularly
don't vote either, but those folks switch over from news shows to "Wheel
of Fortune" anyway -- except maybe for the sports/weather segments.
(OK, I have no documentation to base that on, but this is my rant, and
I'll make this one sweeping generalization in the full knowledge that
I may get flamed for it. So be it, but it's what I believe.)
5. News releases don't cut it.
Campaigns think they do. They're wrong.
Most news releases go into a file, to be pulled out whenever a
story is to be written. Then, and mostly then, they will provide an
informational context within which the story is written. But as for
creating "news," not often.
Journalists know that news releases are self-serving, and few
would simply reprint any part of them without doing something else.
6. The news media have their own plan for news coverage.
Well before an election, most major news media folks will sit
down and plan what they will do within a given campaign. They will
schedule their major pieces -- e.g. candidate profiles will be run 7-10
days prior to the election date, issue analysis pieces will be run (date),
etc.
Attempts to get coverage of anything else will quite often run
into a simple roadblock. It sounds like this:
"Well, we're running (story) on (date) and another (story) on (date).
we think that's more than adequate coverage for something like a primary
election."
And that will simply end it. More news releases, conferences,
photo ops, etc. will simply not break through the wall. Candidates will
go nuts and blame their press reps for not doing their job correctly.
Press reps will wonder why their (former) colleagues are treating them
so badly. The public will never know, one way or another.
This is an interactive system. News media navel-gazers will often
tut-tut to themselves and their readers about how so much of campaigns
is contrived these days, and shake their heads because campaigns cost
so much money.
The reason why campaigns seem contrived, however, is to gain the
attention of the often-jaded, underpaid, overworked, underinformed news
media personnel themselves. And interestingly, most of the criticism
about campaign spending comes from the newspaper folks who
are upset that
the money being spent is going to T.V. -- but not to them. The T.V.
folks hardly ever complain. And there's a new kid on the block --
targeted direct mail. It really works well, and costs from $0.50 to
$0.75/person/mailing, but it sure does work!
I've never seen TV folks, or newspaper folks offer to cut their
prices for campaign advertising, even as they sometimes criticize the
spending. (It was always my favorite answer to a criticizing question
about campaign costs -- "Will YOU offer this campaign a discount? If you
will, we'll sure take it." Never EVER got a response -- only a nervous
laugh from the crowd.)
I agree with Phil on what should happen. I just don't think it
will. Remember: The simple fact that you are on this list and attend
to the information means that campaigns don't play to you. You simply
aren't that big a player in the overall scheme of things.
Yet.
KAREN KUBBY, IOWA
I disagree with Don when it comes to the importance of issues when the
campaign is on the local level, especially in communities under 100,000
population. Issues, in combination with some of the winning strategies he
outlined, are what brought about a significant change to the character of
the city council on which I sit. This had made a difference in terms of
how we approach issues, if trees are cut, how the public can participate
in local government, etc. Karen
DON HOMUTH, OREGON
Karen's point about the significance of issues in a local campaign is
correct from within that specific frame of reference. At the local level,
issues _can_ be important because they are usually right out there where
people can see, touch and smell them. To that extent, they are under-
standable in a very fundamental way.
Let me suggest, however, that the issues alone are *not* the key piece of
the puzzle. If there were not an _ex ante_ understanding by the members
of the local community about the nature of the issues, there would simply
be no issues to discuss. No one would know how.
Let me also suggest that some members of the community got together and
discussed those issues and agreed to take some sort of joint action to
promulgate their resolution. They agreed that a candidate should be
selected and backed, then they put their money and their time toward
promoting this particular candidate in concert with a particular stand
on resolving the issue in their own community.
Well and good. The key elements here are (1) understanding by a
significant group of people about the nature of the issue; (2) *explicit*
joint agreement on the nature of the resolution desired; (3) acceptance
of a specific candidate to front the issue/resolution combination before
the public; (4) joint funding and action taken in support of the candidacy.
After the election, one also assumes (1) ongoing contact with the newly
elected official; (2) *explicit* standards of accountability for actions
to be taken; (3) monitoring of performance by members of the community
who supported the candidacy.
There's a recipe here, but the sine qua non of its being successfully
worked through goes back way early to "understanding." (The key to this,
you see, is probably not to be found in the specific candidates, but in
the people who nominate and back them.)
>This had made a difference in terms of
>how we approach issues, if trees are cut, how the public can participate
>in local government, etc. Karen
Given the ex ante and ex post activities and involvement of local
community members, I'd be most surprised if it didn't. Good for you!
POLLS AND POLLING TECHNIQUES
DON HOMUTH, OREGON
When the news media report polls, the results are usually only "X is
leading/trailing Y by X% to Y%." Candidtes then react according to
carefully scripted replies, columnists and commentators gravely discuss
the significance of it all, and campaign folks just kind of chuckle.
There's less here than meets the eye -- a _lot_ less.
This kind of polling is called "head to head" by the professionals. As
a snapshot of what's going on at a particular point in time, it has some
mild interest. It's even useful for raising money, depending on the
circumstances of the poll. And it's usually all the public sees.
The *really* interesting parts of the poll are found elsewhere -- in a
massive document the public, and certainly the news media, _never_ sees.
These two parts can be described as the "demographics" and the "cross-tabs"
(the latter meaning cross-tabulations). These pieces tell the campaign
not "what" is happening, but far more importantly "how" to run the
campaign -- what to talk about, how to talk about it, with whom to talk,
what media to use -- in essence, how to tell "the people" what they want
to hear.
Believe me, it's absolutely valid stuff. The statistical techniques have
advanced amazingly through the years, and the advent of powerful
computers on the scene has made the fine art of number-crunching come
within the reach of even modestly-funded campaigns.
DEMOGRAPHICS:
1. Who is registered? (You don't waste money talking to unregistered
folks. No one cares what they think, and they're not important.)
2. Breakdown of registered voters:
Age cohorts
Gender
Education
Employment
Party affiliation
Geographic location
Religious affiliation or tendency
(Anything else you might think is important enough to ask about)
3. What issues are important?
4. Strength of preference/opinion
Very Supportive
Supportive
Sort of Supportive
Undecided
Sort of Against
Against
Very Much Against
5. What information would change your mind?
6. Where would this information need to come from?
There's more, but this is enough for now to get the basic ideas.
CROSS-TABS:
Now, given this information from a poll (assuming a suitable sample size,
appropriately chosen to be a proper stratified random sample of the
population within a given area and the +/- error factor that will always
be there, regardless of sample size), a campaign can ask some very
insightful questions:
What issues Are important to Republican professional women over 40 who are
on the fence in support of Candidate X? What person should approach them
with that information?
How important are environmental questions to men 25-35 employed in a
trade?
Are there issues of importance to the religious right that we don't know
about?
(Given your information, what other question would you like to ask?)
It comes down to this: A campaign can carefully hone its techniques so
that it can craft a message element that appeals only to a specific group
of registered voters who have shown that they can be moved by the information
if it is presented in an appropriate medium by someone whom they believe to
be trustworthy.
What do they want to hear? How can we tell them?
But this is only one kind of poll -- often called a "benchmark" poll.
The second kind of poll is usually described as a "tracking/trending"
poll. These polls don't ask what messages will move people. Rather
they ask whether the messages being promulgated in the world actually
_are_ moving folks -- an altogether sophisticated and certainly useful
question. It allows campaigns to decide whether to do more of what they're
doing now, or to do something else instead. It can determine whether the
message element has been effective within its intended target audience.
Obviously, when the desired change has occurred, it's time to do something
else. These polls are often used toward the last month or so of a
campaign. They track all candidates in a race and note relative movement
on a day-to-day basis.
These are the polls that determine whether a campaign should "go
negative" against an opposition. (The negative messages have been
developed much earlier and left in a can awaiting such a possibility.)
POLLING VALIDITY:
In an off-line discussion with another person in this group, I was asked
the reasonable, but quite altogether naive question, "Why do you think
that polls are accurate at all? They'd have to ask _everybody_ in order
to know what all the people are thinking."
I won't even try, in this discussion, to get into statistical mathematics.
The most honest recommendation I can make in that regard is,"Take a class."
It's even harder, though, to try to answer the question to someone whose
only exposure to polling techniques is the "head to head" results reported
by news media. How does one explain the pervasiveness and thoroughness
of modern polling techniques to someone who quite literally can't even
conceive of the methodology, let alone its application?
I suspect that many posters to this group are relatively more sophisticated
than the average voter. That's what I mean when I say that the campaign
stuff you see wasn't meant for you. The simple fact that you're on this
group means you're educated enough, sophisticated enough and computer-
literate enough to be among the "marginals" in the polling demographics.
The main point is this: Polling, as I have described it, _absolutely_
drives _every_ part of modern political campaigning (at anything above
the very local level -- and sometimes even then). It's part of candidate
selection, fund raising, theme/message development, issue selection,
media selection and techniques -- even sometimes campaign personnel
selection (depending on the specific role of the positions involved).
Polling works. Americans _like_ to tell pollsters how they feel about
things, and so they do. With that information, a polling report to a
campaign (usually comprising a massive book of several hundred pages
at least) can lay out essentially all aspects of a campaign. Campaigns
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