I keep reading about people calling Dems in MA to vote - why ONLY Dems?

[ddeclue]

People keep talking about how all the Dems they talked to are voting Dem.

Big deal - it's not enough - we needed to have gotten a substantial part of the independents.

This race will be lost because we didn't persuade and ID independents and target them for GOTV operation tomorrow - Dems are SUPPOSED to vote Dem and yes we should be getting them out but if ALL we are doing is getting our base out, we lose.

I don't think the Coakley campaign had a competent plan based on this kind of news.

Doug De Clue
Wellstone Action Campaigns and Candidates Training Grad,
GOTV Consultant in Central FL.

[NYC_SKP]

1. It hardly matters now that there are only 25 minutes left to call anyone...

9:00 p.m. is the local cut-off time for phonebanking.

Not helpful.

Yesterday or this morning, maybe helpful.

x(

[ddeclue]

2. Actually to be useful we'd have to reset the clock to a month ago.

[NYC_SKP]

8. Though it's still helpful to call Dems, to remind them of the importance of this vote.

And, hell, to remind them when election day is, or help find a polling place.

[ddeclue]

12. NOT if they are Dem that votes Republican. They definitely exist

and tend to be older white males who just never changed their party affiliation.

[goclark]

3. I read a poster here that said he called all voters nt

[SemiCharmedQuark]

4. When I did phonebanking, you only called Dems this close to the election.

We were calling to remind them to vote.

We called independents much earlier in the campaign season.

[ddeclue]

6. NO - that's actually WRONG - you call ID'd VOTERS who are for or leaning your way.

You START with Dems and add independents during the persuasion and ID phase. During the GOTV phase you ONLY call voters you previously ID'd as being favorable to your candidate. Calling Dems is a poor substitute for calling ID'd voters and shows that a candidate didn't conduct a competent field operation.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

9. When people say "Dem", I am assuming they mean people who are voting Dem or Democrats

Our database had a list of people who were leaning Dem or who were Dems and those were the people we called this late. But we didn't waste our time calling people who were leaning Republican the night before the election.

Of course, our database was the result of months and months of work. Coakley didn't really have that advantage.

[ddeclue]

11. You're supposed to know their party affiliation already when you go to ID them.

so I don't take it that way.

[tmyers09]

5. .

The local leader said the lists were all Obama voters, and there were a handful of people with no party affiliation. Like I said though, I only had the one guy say he was voting for Brown. So I don't know how many independents answered the phone, but the ones who did were for Coakley.

[Adelante]

7. It's the last night - it's all about GOTV the base

That's why.

[ddeclue]

10. NO you don't GOTV the base you GOTV the ID'D VOTERS.

[MineralMan]

13. Depends which "base" you're talking about.

Are you talking about the Democratic base that supports Democratic candidates and always turns out in elections?

Or, perhaps are you talking about the "base" that threatens to walk off the court if the candidate doesn't promise to live up to the most extreme "progressive" line?

The word "base" means something different to everyone, it seems.

[NJCher]

15. here's why we call Dems

It's based on a principle of persuasion: bias plays a big part in how people behave. If you know a person is a registered Dem, you know they are predisposed toward your argument. They are biased toward Democratic principles. Reminding them of the stakes via a phone call is about all you'd have to do to get that vote.

In many states, and definitely in Mass, Dems are a majority. If you can just get out registered Dems, you stand a better chance of winning.

That's basically it.

As a person who has worked in the field of persuasion for many decades, I will tell you that you cannot call a Republican up on the phone and convince them to vote Democratic. Can you call an independent and persuade them? Maybe, but independents have a bias, too.

The smart thing to do would be to conduct studies on independents and see how they are leaning, then base the phone appeal to independents on the study.

I appreciate your "kick-$%#" attitude, but based on what persuasion studies tell us, the effort you're talking about should be channeled into another type of effective action.


Cher

[ddeclue]

16. Yeah except what it tells me is that you are WAY behind the curve.

You should have called them right away up front and ID'D the favorables in the Democratic Party and THEN moved on to the Indies.. if you are just calling your base now.. incompetence..

[Hippo_Tron]

18. Everyone is aware that the Coakley campaign is incompetent and started way too late

That is hardly a novel observation.

[Adelante]

20. No, you do the indies earlier when there is more time

The last night is always GOTV. It's the big push. I coordinated phone banks for 15 years and that's how it's done. Now maybe the Coakley campaign didn't run the best phone bank operation coming into the last push, I don't know, but GOTV on the last night is nothing they can be criticized for. You don't waste time at this point trying to convince -- you try to push out the vote.

[NJCher]

21. nope

What your answer tells me is that you don't understand persuasion.

I have a book for you. It's called Mental Judo. When you've read it, you might get what I'm saying.


Cher

[Mass]

14. The problem is that the campaign started only two weeks ago at best.

Not sure whether they did any calls before this week. I did not receive any. We are registered independents and received tons of calls of both sides this week, including calls from OFA and from the Coakley campaign (3 during dinner time today). So, I guess that they call independents too.

This said, we voted democratic during the primary (Capuano), so I am not sure whether they have access to this from the Capuano campaign listings or not.

[JVS]

17. You don't try to GOTV among people who are going to vote against you

[mdmc]

19. well said