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There is a constant and brutal debate among political hacks about signs, stickers, t-shirts and similar "chum" that campaign volunteers seem to consume. Most are in the very passionate camp of opposition to spending a dime on any collateral material. The line of thinking has always been "it does not win votes".
I have always wanted to side a little more with the crazy volunteers.
If we have a candidate that excites a base of supporters we should make it easier for them to take our message viral and that means showing outward signs of support. Which means sometimes...yes, sometimes it makes sense to buy that stuff. Which also means you can not buy the cheapest low quality t-shirts and thinnest smallest stickers out there. We have to make the collateral material worth the passion people put into it.
Worn, With Pride: Old Stickers Mean Status in the Obama Camp - washingtonpost.com: "There are other, more prosaic reasons for holding on to those crumbly old stickers. It's not terribly easy to get your hands on an Obama sticker in the D.C. area -- not anymore, two-plus months after the Potomac primary.
'You have to go online and buy them,' says Democratic and gay activist Phil Pannell, 57, who has several coats with well-worn Obama campaign stickers on them. 'If you have a sticker you better hold on to it.' Also: 'If you see the rainbow stickers for the gay supporters, very difficult to find.'
The reality is, even though one could buy a batch of 50 Obama stickers from the campaign's online store -- and possibly experience a two- to three-week delay due to overwhelming demand, according to a Web site warning -- most people get their stickers the old-fashioned way, for free. And that means they've had to show up somewhere, say at a rally or a get-out-the-vote effort. And that means the sticker is worth way more than its face value. They had to work for it."
3 comments:
Chris - I can't help but feel that you are kind of missing the real significance of the sticker set. These stickers aren't evidence that the campaign is working. They are evidence that the Obama movement is a cult. Check out my take on this article: drewgorman.blogspot.com.
Good point. Nice blog by the way.
I agree, Chris. As I'm sure you've heard before, "Signs [or stickers, or t-shirts or whatever else] don't vote." But, they can help get your base energized. Plus, if someone's wearing a sticker for their candidate and their friend sees it, that friend may be much more likely to vote for that candidate since they know that their friend is a big supporter.
As I remember you saying in the training seminar, don't ever deprive people of the opportunity to give money to something they believe in. I would assume that, likewise, one should not deprive people of the opportunity to outwardly show their support.
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