Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Should you be angry at the “Republican Party” about backing Specter before he bailed on us?

The short answer is no. The "why not" is a little more complex. There will be some who will now be angry at Sen. Cornyn and the National Republican Senatorial Committee for backing him in the first place. Really? Keep in mind the RNC, NRSC and the NRCC are NOT issue driven organizations. They are member driven organizations with only ONE goal…majority status, that's it, no other reason for being.

Before I get too academic in my defense of these organizations let me say that Linc Chafee is a scumbag and it made me sick to my core that we defended that waste of space in the 2006 GOP Primary. Ok, had to get that off my chest. I mean at least Specter had the decency to get out before the election and give us time to get our own campaign in place.

Now back to the Party. Just a bit of clarification for those not familiar with the committees in DC and how they work. These definitions are my own and in NO way represent any official mission of the committees…this is my "unofficial" take on what they really are all about-

  • Republican National Committee – take the White House back and keep it…that is it…end of story.
  • National Republican Senatorial Committee – defend current Republican Senators, win open seats and then knock off Democrat incumbents. Those are listed in order of priority.
  • National Republican Congressional Committee – defend current Republican Members of Congress, win open seats and knock off Democrat incumbents. Those are listed in order of priority.

So any of you want the committee to be ideologically pure you should cool your jets. They are not think tanks, they are membership retention organizations. If you are mad at the NRSC for backing Specter in the first place call you own Senator and yell at him/her.

Is the RNC not conservative enough for you? Then check your state party. State Party too liberal for you? Work your county party.

Tis’ the season of our collective Republican discontent and the party apparatus is a convenient punching bag. Here is the real lurking danger…Years ago Democrats were angry that their National Party because it was not “Progressive” enough so their unions, lawyers and environmental groups hammered it to splinters. Now they are a collective lurching group of special interests.

Is that what we really want for Republicans?

Monday, April 27, 2009

Changes at Faulkner Strategies

At the end of April, Annie Palisi, a key player here at Faulkner Strategies, will be heading to Iraq. Annie will be taking a "leave of absence" from Faulkner Strategies for approximately one year to go to Iraq and help work with a democracy program.  This past winter, Annie spent some time in there, training and supporting democracy missions. She will be returning to continue much needed work.

Annie will be missed very much, but we are all very proud of her. We wish her safe travels and best of luck with all her work in Iraq. Our gratitude goes out to men and women, like Annie, who have decided to try and help build a stable society in the Middle East.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Some thoughts on a quality GOTV operation

I had some quality time walking door-to-door recently in NY20 to think about how most Republican campaigns approach GOTV. "Most" is a broad statement and I realize many of you work campaigns in areas where some of the theories I will discuss are not relevant. It is also important to consider the myriad of variables that affect a GOTV operation in preparation and execution.

So, just for the sake of conversation, we were talking about a general election where turnout was expected to be between 50-55%. You could take the approach that in a district where you had a partisan registration advantage it would be all about base R turnout (assuming your candidate is winning most of the R's). Let's say had already done your homework and had identified about 15% of the independents as favorable (presumably by a combination of volunteer and paid efforts). Let us also make another assumption that your candidate has a reasonable amount of local volunteers, Generation Joshua kids and maybe a few out-of-state partisans to execute your GOTV plan.

Lets say you had a 5 day GOTV plan laid out (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Election day). What to consider next-

  • You would sort precincts into walkable and non-walkable for your door-to-door.
  • Locations for phone banks. Keep in mind that the best place for phone banks is WHERE the volunteers are and probably not WHERE the press is. This would explain why some of the best GOTV phone bank centers are not at the Campaign HQ.
  • Lists. Have you been using voter vault or something else? Make sure you have easy access and can print new lists and conduct new sorts based on a changing political situation.
  • Campaign literature, paper, pens, clipboards, etc. When and where will you print these thousands of sheets of paper for calls and doors? FLS has great walkbook product I like that prints the list on card stock paper with a corresponding map. Of course if you have the volunteer resources you can just do it yourself with some card stock paper and 3 ring binders. Regardless if you pay for it or do it yourself I would strongly suggest a reusable book system that allows a volunteer to make notes and improve the list as they go. Make all literature is precinct specific reminding people of the street address of their actual polling location with hours of operation. This is the MOST important piece of info most people need on election day.
  • Food, stickers, t-shirts, etc. Have enough to keep your volunteers motivated but not so much that it is more than 15% of your total GOTV budget.

Then would take your list of R's and favorable Independents and put them into 3 groups, A's, B's and C's.

  • A's will be our rockstars who vote in EVERY election no matter what.
  • B's are our Presidential voters who often skip primaries and off year elections.
  • C's are our new registrants and least likely voters.

Assuming we have enough lines and volunteers we will start with C universe on Friday. When complete we will then call the B's and C's. When that is done we will call the A's B's and C's. So our weakest voters will get 3 touches and our strongest one.

For door-to-door let's assume that we can get people to drink the Kool-Aid and do multiple shifts over the 5 days. Ideally we would pair local volunteers with out-of town ones to prevent mistakes and getting lost. Then on Friday when they began going door-to-door they will be keeping the same list document over the course of each day.

  • So if Bob the local volunteer is paired up with Heather the out-of-town volunteer on Friday they walk their precinct keeping notes on who they talked to, who needs an extra push (maybe even a call from the candidate) and who has already voted early or absentee. They also touch base at the phonebank to see who called their precinct and compare notes.
  • On Saturday Bob coaches football and has to cut his grass so Heather from out of town is paired with someone else but she now has the list and first hand experience with the precinct.
  • Sunday Bob is back with Heather as they continue looking to contact people they missed on Friday and Saturday. They are now gliding thru the precinct efficiently skipping the hostiles and touch base again with the undecideds.
  • Monday Bob has to work but Heather is still on the trail and working with a new volunteer hitting houses and firming up C list voters. Heather is now on a first name basis with some of the voters in their precinct and she has a great list that is full of notes and updates.
  • Tuesday Bob is back with Heather with their list in the neighborhood by mid morning. Meanwhile Connie (another local volunteer has been at the polling site for their precinct since it opened. She has kept a list of all who have voted and during lulls she texts their voter ID number to Heather. As Heather and Bob walk the precinct they strike names of those that have voted to improve the efficiency of their list. They are ratcheting up turnout and increasing the GOP margin by a couple of points.

At this point of course I have only covered the traditional methods. I would assume that emails, texts, Facebook events etc are going on concurrently with this operation. The important thing to remember is that

Most GOTV operations I have seen have failed not because of lack of volunteers or lack of cash but lack of thorough planning. All of the things I have covered are not rocket science or overly complex they just require planning and follow thru.

On Tuesday this week as I headed to grab a coke on a break between precincts I happened to drive by the community center where the precinct was voting. I saw a man walking in that I had woken up from his nap. While talking to him at his door I clearly got the impression that voting was not a priority today. To see him walking into those doors to vote made all my work worth it. When Jim Tedisco is sworn into Congress later this month it will REALLY be worth it.

How would you approach your "ideal" GOTV plan?

@chrisfaulkner

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Inside Scoop on NY 20

I am beat.

I walked precincts all day for Jim Tedisco and when the polls closed I thought I could head to the party…but then things went awry. In the next 13 days political communications will play as important a role as the legal fight and I want you to know the facts.

  • The election is NOT over. There are still over 4,000 absentee ballots that have not been returned which totaled with the 6,000 already received would be almost 10,000 absentee ballots that have NOT been counted. These ballots will continue to be accepted until April. 13th. ANY premature counting of votes will, basically, be counting BEFORE the voting is over…and that is just wrong.
  • Jim Tedisco is currently trailing Scott Murphy by 59 votes according to machine tallies. NOTICE I did not say ballots. NY 20 uses old school level machines to vote so there is NO "ballot" to count. Votes are tabulated on the machine as people pull levers. Most of these machines are probably older than me.
  • The results you saw tonight were nothing more than the UNofficial notes of whichever random poll worker transcribed results from the machine to the form that they report to the Board of Elections. It is fair to say that these numbers are often riddled with mistakes as people mix up numbers and read the wrong tallies.


 

With memories of Washington State 2004 and Minnesota 2008 looming in my mind here are some things to consider.


 

  • Jim Tedisco will win the absentee vote.
  • The only way Scott Murphy can win is too challenge and disqualify absentee and military ballots that will, most likely, be votes for Jim Tedisco.
  • Scott Murphy is so anti-military he tried to stop Harvard from having a ROTC program on campus while he was a student there and prevent military personnel from teaching classes. Knowing that, it is hard to imagine military members voting for him.


 

It's 3:23 AM so forgive the horrible grammar and even worse sentence structure.


 

Chris Faulkner


 

P.S. Somehow I knew wearing my "Coleman Recount Team" polar fleece today was a bad idea …