day. It did bring back memories of when I was an enthusiastic but
stupid supporter of ... gosh, what was his name?... ah, yes, Mondale.
Heh. Anyway. After thinking about it some, I wonder about the whole
idea of GOTV for a 'third' party. Is it really a good idea?
Some general discussion of GOTV is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_out_the_vote
Note this section:
"In contexts of the efforts of candidates, party activities and ballot
measure campaigns, "get-out-the-vote" (or GOTV) is an adjective
indicating having the effect of increasing the number of the
campaign's supporters who will vote in the immediately approaching
election. ... GOTV generally is distinguished from preliminary
activities necessary to carrying it out. That is, GOTV includes
telephoning known supporters on the day of the election (or
occasionally in the last few days before it to remind them to vote,
and providing rides to the polls to known supporters), but the process
of identifying those supporters is generally described as a separate
part of the campaign, voter identification ("ID-ing") -- the major
focus of canvassing."
My concern with Ballotbase and all GOTV efforts for the LP is that it
strikes me as a bit 'cargo cult-ish' - if GOTV works for R/D, why not
for us? But the thing is.... most people are either registered as R
or D!!! Not L!! So while *calling people* (in a targeted fashion)
*might* be good for Libertarian *campaigning*, I think it's largely
wasted in terms of GOTV. GOTV makes most sense when you've got a big
chunk of the electorate registered in your party, or already on your
side. If I get a GOTV call from someone I've never heard of in a
political party I don't know very well or at all, it -might- remind me
to vote, but probably not for that particular person.
I suppose the LP's Ballotbase numbers -are- targeted in some way.
Perhaps they are registered Ls, or at least registered 'independent'
or 'unaffiliated'. Maybe more sophisticated targeting has been done. I
need to check into that. Anyone here plugged in enough to know? I do
know that GOTV to a well-targeted list is a LOT of fun - it's sort of
the icing on the election effort for activists - only surpassed by
standing in the rain at the polls handing out sample ballots (I only
partly jest; that kind of stuff can become addictive). But calling a
steady stream of people who are -not- likely to be on your side, or to
not even -know- about your side... that can be demoralizing.
Stephen Gordon posted about ballotbase during last year's election:
http://www.lp.org/yourturn/archives/000474.shtml
"BallotBase works! In our first test case, we tripled the number of
Libertarian votes in the district. In a different race, we had a State
House candidate in the Vermont primaries who won by one vote. It's
clear that BallotBase calls were the deciding factor in that race."
And that seems to indicate to me that some sort of targeting is
happening. I'm really curious now to know what level of targeting.
