Interesting story about the Healey camp’s use of targeted marketing data to get in touch with more conservative voters and get them to the polls in November. And it seems to have worked for the Republicans in 2004.
All things being equal, it sounds like an effective strategy: connect consumer product consumption with candidate consumption. After all, we hear the stereotypes about liberals: latte-drinking, Volvo-driving, etc. Are those actually true? If you get golf magazines or drive a domestic SUV, are you more likely to vote Republican? Probably so, in the aggregate.
But Patrick’s campaign manager John Walsh — who’s been right about everything so far — poo-poohs the strategy:
Patrick’s campaign has the luxury of relying on union muscle and local Democratic candidates to get like-minded voters to the polls. It, too, has reams of voter data but is relying far more on volunteers to make impassioned face-to-face pleas to friends and neighbors, said campaign manager John Walsh. Walsh said micro-targeting can be a powerful tool, but he dubs the strategy “a lazy person’s way of going out and knocking on everyone’s door.”
If you live in a near-vacuum of social connection about politics, if you don’t talk about politics with your friends and neighbors, if all you ever hear about politics comes from whatever TV news or talk radio you can squeeze in between work and family, then this strategy might work. But Patrick’s strategy — and the strategy of any number of liberal groups from Drinking Liberally to Prog. Dems of MA — is different: Connect with people one-on-one. You know your friends and neighbors as more than some consumer database.
In the process, the Patrick/Walsh strategy reinforces liberal ideas: Looking out for your neighbors, helping out and pitching in when necessary, thinking of your own interests as being intertwined with everyone else’s. Sound familiar? The person-to-person strategy goes beyond one-way marketing — motivating behavior — to actually creating two-way relationships.
If Democratic candidates are going to succeed in the long run, then liberalism itself (progressivism, call it what you will) has to grow in influence, and be made more socially acceptable. That means liberals themselves have to lead by example in dealing with their neighbors one-on-one. That’s the trump card against any marketing database.
By contrast, the Republicans in MA are teetering on the brink, with a vulnerable candidate at the top of the ticket and no grassroots energy to speak of:
O’Brien concedes Healey’s job would be easier if there were more Republican candidates in office and running for office because they would help draw local Republicans to the polls. But a Healey loss would only sink the party further, he said.
“Organizationally, the party will be in real trouble,” he said, noting that without a Republican in a prominent leadership position in Massachusetts, everything would be harder — from fund-raising to recruiting promising young candidates to local party-building.
I agree we have to talk with people, go door-to-door, etc. And Patrick has the base to reach more people, so he doesn’t need to replicate Healey’s approch.
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But if you’re chatting up a friend who’s always complaining about taxes, you don’t start in on your political pitch talking about the environment, you start with why your candidate is better on taxes. All these data gathering techniques are just variations on that, really.
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In states that aren’t as Dem dominated as Massachusetts, these data-gathering techniques vitally need to be adopted as part of a campaign that includes grassroots, door-to-door approaches. It’s not either/or.
You’re absolutely right, it’s not either/or. And sure, Dems could use the data just as much as the GOP. However, if it was a Dem marketing database vs. the social networks of religious conservatives (for example) in a cage match, I know what I’d pick. The social networks are more valuable.
Nicely said, Charley. As a techie, I can’t argue against the way they’re going about it. But as a political person and frustrated liberal, it’s your wise words about how our side is going about it that gave me food for thought…
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Ive been thinking a lot about what makes the Deval Patrick campaign so different, even before I witnessed its success. For one thing, in his words and in the campaigns methodology, I see a reflection of a change thats been taking place around the country, an evolutionary shift in how organizing and activism takes place, especially among progressives. Its the methodology of such effective groups as GBIO (Greater Boston Interfaith Organization), who have had some success partnering with local and state officeholders and getting real results in the areas of affordable housing and living wages, for example. In fact, in one newspaper article about the candidates activities immediately before the primary, I noticed GBIO among the list of groups Deval met with. This started me thinking there was more than a coincidental similarity between the campaign and what Ive learned about these groups.
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In its most simplistic form, it involves listening to what people care about, are worried about, what causes them pain, etc., instead of telling them. And it relies heavily on the personal relationships that are built; first one on one, then in small groups, then by organizations in the case of the interfaith organizations, its typically places of worship, but also union locals, non-profits, small businesses, etc.
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It is a shift away from the traditional approach used by single-issue organizations on the left and right (animal rights, environmental issues, limited taxation, etc.): Plant a flag and see who rallies around it.
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The advantages of this approach are many:
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I believe that if this campaign succeeds — and barring a catastrophe, it will — it will have national implications, not just for the left, but on behalf of all the real values a majority of this country shares. I just hope folks outside Mass. are watching.
This sums up nicely yesterday’s article about Dean in the NYT. It was a really interesting article, and I’ve always been kind of ambivalent about Dean but the article really won me over (though that didn’t seem to be its intent)
I think that this approach is orthogonal to one-on-one poltical organizing, not a replacement for it.
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Basically, to organize for a campaign of any sort, you need to
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1. Make a list of people to contact
2. Contact them
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Right now, the Patrick campaign does (1) (the list making) and volunteers do (2) (the contact), and I assume that the way they make the list is to make contacting more effective, that is, there is a high probability that I am talking to someone who will vote, and vote with us.
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The main way political campaigns make the list of people to contact is to start with the good voters — those that we know will vote and try to persuade and identify as many of those as possible. That’s a good primary strategy, because the list is very doable — even with an all out effort, though, it’s going to be nearly impossible to contact even this small list.
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In the general, the list of election voters is much bigger, and I doubt that Healey has the capacity to do anything other than robo-call and mail them. So, if she was going to have any one-on-one contact, that list would need to be wittled down to the list of people that (1) will probably vote (2) are not yet with her (3) are persuadable (4) bonus if they are influencers or would make contacts for them.
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If they get that list, and all they do is send out a mailing, they are missing a big opportunity, but making the list as they are is probably the right first step.