GOP Grunt

Could you use Foursquare for get-out-the-vote activities?

2010-07-02T13:32:00.002-04:00

Location based marketing tools/games like Foursquare are continuing to make inroads in consumer's minds. Will they be part of the next Presidential campaign's "get-out-the-vote" strategy too?

Jordan Raynor has a great post on TechRepublican on how his firm is helping one of Florida county's Board of Elections turn every polling site into a Foursquare location. That got me thinking about how a campaign or advocacy organization could use this technology to proactively turn out more voters. How could you integrate this with early and absentee voting?

First of all everyone should go here and sign the petition to get Foursquare to create a "I Voted" badge. Now hopefully they will embrace this effort to open their service to a whole new market of political application.

Next we should accept that some sort of Foursquare badge is not going to replace your whole voter turnout strategy. It should be looked at as a add-on to get targeted younger (25-35), tech savvy professionals who are probably some of the very same people who have horrible records of voter turnout.

What if a campaign was able to use fb and Twitter to identify all their supporters who used Foursquare? Then encourage them to cross-post their Foursquare checkin to all their social media platforms with a message like "I just voted early for Marco Rubio. How? Go here ...." the here might be a link to a campaign site that explains state and local law on how and when a voter can vote early or thru the mail.
What if the Walorski for Congress campaign had a Foursquare location for a early vote rally outside a courthouse or city office where supporters could checkin and let all their friends know they are voting early and how to do it?
What if a Congressman Aaron Schock skipped the photo op of voting on election day and voted early so his fans could say they voted on the same day as him and maybe post photos of them with him outside the polling site?
~~What if Organizing for America offered a free carton of cigarettes to the Mayor of each precinct to reward people for voting as many times as possible?~~ Ok, maybe that one is not a good idea.
What if the Heck for Congress campaign offered free VIP tickets to the next fund raiser to whoever was Mayor of their GOTV phone bank?
What if Gov. Mitch Daniel's campaign for President used Foursquare checkins to monitor who has already turned out and voted for him at Iowa Caucus locations?

I think the possibilities are incredible once creative, tech minded campaign folks start thinking about how this technology can make their job easier.

How would you use it?

5 things you are too chicken to do with your campaign mail Part 2 White Space

2010-06-29T10:04:00.009-04:00

The dictionary describes white space as "the unprinted area of a piece of printing, as of a poster or newspaper page, or of a portion of a piece of printing, as of an advertisement; blank space."

Commercial ads get this and use it effectively quite often.

Political ads and mail on the other hand seem to think that if there is more space you should just add more policy and issue bullet points. Because everyone is interested in your 27 point plan to reshape local government right? Not so much...

My point is instead of trying to make your next piece a "issue summary" why not pick one issue and use high impact visuals and compelling, but concise, copy to deliver a message that leaves an impression on a voter.

Do not believe that continuing to decrease your font size is the best way to squeeze in more text. Resist the urge to turn your mailing into a white paper on policy. Use your mail to push an interested reader to you web site. Your campaign site is that place where you can have the 27 point plan with 15 part appendix.

Last but not least please please please skip the stars, elephants and eagles that so many political candidates seem to think are mandatory. If your mailing says "Smith for Senate" then voters don't need a gratuitously huge flag and a elephant shooting stars from it's trunk...they get it, you are running for office.

Good luck and feel free to post your examples of really bad/good mail pieces to our facebook page for Fans of Political Mail .

5 things you are too chicken to do with your political voter contact mail Part 1

2010-06-17T14:37:00.007-04:00

To clarify here I mean “voter contact mail” NOT fund raising mail. The kind that says your opponent has horns and kicks puppies or says that you are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

1. UNSUBSCRIBE – We put it on almost all of our electronic communications so why not put an email address or SMS code on your mail offering voters the option to “not receive any additional mail from the campaign”? Why do it? A hypothesis of mine is that - any and all efforts to engage voters and encourage feedback is a good thing - so why not try it in your mail. Let’s say that 5% of a mailing universe of 50,000 households responds (wildly high number that I doubt would happen) then you would have to remove 2,500 households from your voter contact universe and save, ball park $1,000 in your next mailing. Over the course of five more mailings you could save $5k…or more.

So are you losing the ability to talk to 2,500 households? Realistically, if they are willing to go thru the effort to do that they are either hard core supporters or hard core haters. Either of which probably don’t need any more mail from you. I am sure there will be a few in there who are just angry independents and may be undecided but, again, if they are willing to go thru the trouble of emailing or texting you then they really don’t want to get any more mail from you.

Let’s take a closer look at the hard core supporters who respond (say 1,000 households of the original 2,500) why not offer them the additional choice of unsubscribe AND get a yard sign or unsubscribe and volunteer. Maybe you could take them off the voter contact universe and add them to a fund raising list. See Malcolm Gladwell’s notes on Mavens.

As with anything else the devil is always in the details. If you wanted to try this you would need to make sure you had some sort of follow up mechanism in place (insert intern joke here) to clean your list and respond to those interested in getting more involved in the campaign. This, of course, is where most campaigns will suffer an epic fail and not do the follow up.

Naturally, most of my clients are not chickens so when we have data on this I will share it.

Faulkner Strategies is Hiring

2010-05-28T11:07:00.001-04:00

Faulkner Strategies is looking for a Graphic Designer/Web Coder to work out of our Granger Indiana office. Must be able to create all graphic elements plus code the websites. Come and join our fun and creative team of professionals. Email Larry@Faulknerstrategies.com if interested for more details.

Faulkner Strategies Congratulates Winning Clients From the Indiana Primary

2010-05-11T10:27:00.008-04:00

Faulkner Strategies would like to congratulate our clients on a successful primary campaign:

Congressman Mark Souder, IN 3

Jackie Walorski for Congress, IN 2

Todd Rokita for Congress, IN 4

Larry Bucshon for Congress, IN 8

Todd Young for Congress, IN 9

Indiana Chamber of Commerce

State Representative Tom Dermody

State Representative Dan Leonard

Dick Pfeil for State Representative

Jim Banks for State Senate

Rebecca Kubacki for State Representative

Heath VanNatter for State Representative

Francis Ellert for State Representative

Rhonda Rhoads for State Representative

Cindy Kirchoffer for State Representative

“All of our clients worked really hard and I am extremely proud of their success. I want to thank all of them for choosing Faulkner Strategies to be a part of their winning team,” stated Angela Faulkner, President of Faulkner Strategies.

Faulkner Strategies is a Republican mail firm that specializes in delivering targeted and personalized communications for campaigns throughout the country. They work one-on-one with each candidate to develop a strategic plan that fits the individual candidate’s needs and positions them for victory.

###

Three Reasons to Use Location Based Services

2010-04-14T16:56:00.005-04:00

No Matter Where You Go, There You Are.

In the past couple years one of the biggest new trends in technology and social media is the integration of Geo-Social Networking and Location-based applications. Even though location-based technology has been around for a long time, it seems like every week a new player is joining into the game of location-based applications.

Some of the first sites to use this type of technology were simple geo-tagging applications like Google Maps, YouTube, and photo sharing sites like Flickr. These sites allowed people to group together things based on a shared location or community. Sites such as these paved the way for location based social networking communities such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, and numerous others.

With more and more websites, networks, and applications using these location based services. As a consumer you may be wondering, why should I be using these services?

Here are three reasons why you need to be using these services:

1. Network and relationship building

Foursquare, Gowalla, and Yelp all allow people to “check in” to locations and businesses. If a business or location is not there already, users are able to create a profile for one. By using this feature it lets other people see what you are doing and where you are located. This “check in” process creates a stream of content that contains all of your daily travels. Other people can then follow this stream and engage with you on items that relate to them. The more information you know about someone the more you get to know them. You can also follow other people’s travels to see where they are going and where they have been. If your friends are using this service as well, you can know where all of them are located in a city without ever making a single phone call.

As a business owner you can learn a lot of valuable insights about your customers by monitoring your brand presence across these mediums. You can identify your biggest supporters and people who are upset with your company. You can then engage with these people and make sure they continue to be supporters of your brand, or do all you can to correct the situation. As the old saying goes if you give somebody great service they will tell one person, but if you give somebody bad service they will tell ten people.

2. Learn more about a location

Now that you have met some people in the area and know of a few local businesses, you can rely on the community to get some information on them. These sites allow you to create reviews, tips, advice, recommendations, comparisons, and even “To Do Lists” within a location. If you visit a restaurant and it has the best chicken dish in the world, instead of keeping it to yourself, now you can share it with the world by posting it on one of these sites. The more you learn about a location or business the smarter you become as a consumer.

Reviews always mean more when you have a relationship with the person they are coming from. User generated content is the best source of this as it is more often than not unbiased and from real customers. However, this doesn’t mean it can’t come from the business. If you work to develop strong relationships with your customers they will trust you when you market them with information that is worthwhile and relative to them.

Even the History Channel is getting involved with location based services. They are launching a campaign with Foursquare that gives users a historic bit of information when they check in to certain locations. It is a good example of how these types of services can enrich a person’s overall experience within a location.

3. Promote your business by engaging with your customers

As a business owner you should look for incentives to bring people to your location. Gowalla and Foursquare both have competitive elements to them that track and reward users for visiting local businesses. You should take advantage of this marketing medium that is already developed for you and use it to motivate people to come to your business.

Whoever has the most “check ins” to a certain location becomes the Mayor of that location on Foursquare. You can offer a reward program to whoever is the current mayor of your location or whoever “checks in” over a certain threshold as a loyalty program.

When you notice people are checking into your location via Facebook and Twitter this gives you another chance to engage with the customer. You can offer these customers tips, advice, specials, information or promotions. This gives you an additional way to interact with them and ensure they had excellent experience at your location.

The more “check ins”, reviews, shouts, and mentions you have throughout your social networks the better it is for your search engine optimization. Google Maps and Bing Maps use Foursquare venues when people use the local search option. All of the tips, shouts, and reviews you gather are used as citations which search engines use in their rank algorithm which work to help increase your rank. This makes your business easier to find on search engines, which brings more customers to your door. So take advantage of these sites and use them to promote the activities of your business. Show the world how your location is different from all of the others.

For more information on ways to promote your business on Foursquare read the post “5 Ways to Use Foursquare for Business” by Kyle Lacy.

And remember, if you never go out, then you can’t go home.

Dyngus Day at Faulkner Strategies

2010-04-01T14:00:00.017-04:00

Even though it has officially been spring for eleven days, these are the first few days in Northern Indiana that it truly feels like spring time. Days are getting longer, the sun is shining brighter, temperatures are finally getting up into the 70’s and most importantly, election season is right on the other side of a long weekend.

Monday, April 5^th brings to us Dyngus Day, which is a holiday heavily celebrated in South Bend, Indiana that kicks off the coming political season. Dyngus Day occurs the Monday following Easter Sunday and is celebrated in largely Polish and Christian based cultures.

Here at Faulkner Strategies we are going to be holding our own celebration by hosting our 2^nd Annual Dyngus Day Breakfast complete with all you can eat pancakes, delicious toppings, and traditional Polish sausage. We will also be having a special guest in attendance, Congressional Candidate Jackie Walorski, will be joining us for breakfast. Plates will only be $20 a person and all proceeds will benefit Mrs. Walorski’s campaign. Follow us throughout the day using the #Dyngus hashtag. Feel free to bring any friends and family to the event. We would love to see you here!

Monday is a very big day around the area as it also marks the first day of early voting in Indiana, and the deadline to register or update your voter registration for the upcoming May 4^th, primary election.

Indiana residents are eligible to vote in the primary if they

· Will be at least 18 years of age at the next General Election on November 2, 2010,

· Are a citizen of the United States and a resident of Indiana,

· Are not currently in prison after being convicted of a crime, and

· Will have lived in the precinct where they plan to vote for at least 30 days prior to the election.

Take the time to make sure you are updated and registered for the upcoming election season.

How to get a job in politics.

2009-08-31T09:01:00.001-04:00

I was in College Park MD this weekend teaching a campaign school for American Majority . It was a decent size class with some potential candidates for various offices. One of the students during a break asked me "How do I get to do what you do?" It is not an uncommon question and I always have to chuckle a bit when I get it.

In 1996 my first campaign "job" was yard sign guy. That's right, I was the guy with the rusty '85 Chevy S-10 who drove around with no air conditioning with a neighborhood map, list of locations and 50 signs in the back. I had just gotten out of the Marines and was working a retail job. Angela and I did not have any kids yet so we had lots of time. We had just moved to South Bend Indiana and had no clue where anything was. So with no GPS I learned about every neighborhood in Northern Indiana while putting up yard signs for a doomed congressional campaign. The primary came in May and my guy got trounced by State Senator Joe Zakas. In the small world that is professional politics, ironically, the guy who managed the Zakas for Congress campaign who won the primary but later lost the general election was none other than Steve Schmidt who would become more famous in 2008 running McCain's campaign for President.

Despite the loss in the primary I was even more eager to continue full time volunteering for a campaign. My next gig was campaign "coordinator" for a state senate campaign. What is a coordinator? Well, it was whatever the candidate needed. I walked a LOT of doors, got chased by a few dogs, organized press conferences, recruited volunteers and put up even more yard signs. Again, election day came and I was disappointed to see my candidate lose. It was only later I figured out how some districts are real long shots based on gerrymandering.

So I was 0-2…but people kept asking me to get more and more involved on campaigns? Was I lucky? Obviously not, as I still had not been associated with a winning campaign. People still wanted my help because I did whatever was asked of me, did not complain and did every job assigned as if that job was "make or break" for the candidate. I was young and inexperienced enough to believe that everyone approached campaign volunteer work this way.

So how do you get a job in politics? Hard work on whatever job is given to you is the best answer. Now, I am not going to try and tell you that knowing the "right" people is not important. Networking is crucial to success in jobs in politics. The good news is even if you are a guy who never went to college, never was a CR, doesn't know anyone in DC and lived in a "fly-over" state you can still out-work other people with more advantages to end up with a great series of jobs and eventually a consultant.

Do you have a "Rabbi" or "sugar-Daddy"? There are a million different ways to describe this relationship. Is there a senior person in politics (elected official, consultant, chief-of-staff, etc) who knows you and likes you? It is a little known fact that most consultants seek out junior people to develop and place on campaigns. Do we always do it out of the goodness of our hearts? Most of the time, personally, I just like to see the right people get plugged into a job that fits them on a campaign. Now, if they end up in a position where they need some mail then, of course, my hope is that they call me.

How do you limit your potential and ensure being passed over for jobs on political campaigns? That is, actually, pretty easy. Follow these simple steps:

Insist on being involved in a "senior" position right away.
Only work hard on the "important stuff".
Blab to the press or other people about internal campaign stuff.
Do something illegal.
Lie.
Complain to the candidate or anyone else that you are not being given important stuff to do.

Good luck on your job search. If you are looking currently I would HIGHLY recommend a profile on LinkedIn.com and let me know if I can help.

Chris Faulkner

Why the GOP needs a (free) Twitter

2009-07-27T14:25:00.003-04:00

Twitter really is addicting.

In my pre-Faulkner Strategies days, I wandered the sidewalks of my college campus, pointing my finger and laughing at those social media elitists “tweeting” away on their crackberries. Silly kids, Twitter is for old people, I thought.

So wrong.

A coworker forced me to make a Twitter account 3 hours into my first day of work. I grimaced, sucked it up, and made an account. Since that day, I’ve traveled far and wide in the Twitterland universe, hacking hashtags and conversing with complete strangers. But alas, my journey of Twitter happiness may come to an abrupt end soon.

At a recent media summit at the Sun Valley resort, Twitter rumors ran wild. Although the summit was closed to the media (ironic), it was leaked that the media gurus discussed the possibility of Twitter charging their users for the service.

Bad idea.

The fee to use Twitter probably wouldn’t be real high. But we’d see a decrease in the number of young Twitter users. Which could mean bad things for the Twitter world. And , I believe, bad things for the Republican Party.

Obama captivated the majority of young voters in 2008. He was everywhere: on TV, in college newspapers, and even on college campuses. His presence on the Internet helped young people relate to him. The Republican Party hasn’t done much to appeal to the young voting population – until now.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter allows users to follow celebrities and high-profile politicians. And, not surprisingly, young people are eager to do so. According to a recent survey by Pace University, 54 percent of young Twitter users follow famous individuals.

So what does this have to do with the Republican Party?

According to a February Washington Times article, the Republicans seem to “finally get it” when it comes to using new media. At the time of publishing, 49 of 219 Repubs in Congress were Tweeting, compared with 27 of 317 Democrats. Other high-profile Republicans, such as Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Newt Gingrich are also daily users. The GOP presence on Twitter provides the Party with something it hasn’t had thus far: a direct link to the young population. Their 140-character spin-free messages quickly reach readers, and provide them with an inside look at the politicians’ thoughts. The use of this innovative technology is priceless for Republicans, who young people often view as “old” and “out-of-touch” with the times.

If Twitter remains a free tool (for the sake of my attention span in lecture, let’s hope it does), Republicans have the potential to increase their popularity among young voters. Since utilizing Twitter is the most youthful thing the GOP has done since Sarah Palin had a baby, this is a big deal.

The Early Years: Making the Most out of Campaign Events

2009-07-02T12:49:00.002-04:00

My boss (Chris Faulkner) isn’t always a chatty person in the office. But this week, I got the pleasure of listening to him talk for 15 full minutes on his latest podcast, “The Early Years: Making the Most out of Campaign Events”. By listening to it, I learned more in 15 minutes than I did in an entire semester’s worth of “Elections 2008”. Then again, I didn’t expect to learn much when I realized my professor was incapable of moving past his slides plastered with Sarah Palin photographs. Sick old man.

But seriously – take a few minutes out of your day and listen in.

Chris offers a step-by-step way to improve the “usual” campaign event strategy. He talks about the importance of what can be taken away from an event. Sure, coming in and firing up the crowd is important, he says, but that fire will cool off soon after the event ends. To be successful, a candidate must have a system in place at the event to churn up support afterward. Nothing butta’ than that. (Laugh.) To do that, utilizing volunteers effectively is necessary.

Campaigns shouldn’t just blindly herd a group of volunteers. Rather, assigning specific responsibilities will produce better results, he says. For example, Chris talks about creating a “bumper sticker team” (not to be confused with Bloomington liberals). The team will be at events, armed with campaign bumper stickers, Windex, and paper towels. As people exit (and when enthusiasm is high), the volunteers can ask the drivers if they’d be okay with having a bumper sticker on the back of their vehicles. This way, the bumper stickers actually end up on cars and not small children’s t-shirts. And, as we all know, car travel is much faster (and therefore effective) than kid travel. Unless your child is a Transformer.

The bumper sticker team is just one of Chris’s suggestions. Listen to the rest of the podcast to learn how to gain contact information from prospective voters and volunteers and how to engage event attendees with some simple photography.

To hear more of Chris’s suggestions, you can download his podcast on iTunes (search for Chris Faulkner) or by going to AmericanMajority.org.

Cubs' PR is Pretty Ridiculous

2009-07-02T10:51:00.005-04:00

When you’re in baseball, you can get away with saying a lot more than the average person.

Last month, Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella singlehandedly demonstrated the need for better PR management in the sporting industry.

Rather than trying to accurately convey the idiotic statements by Lou, I’ll let his “words of wisdom” do the job:

(6/27) "Look, I'm 66 years old. I feel like 68." (Lou is actually 65.)

(6/26) "Look, I have smoked dope one time in my life. And it didn't do a damn thing for me, and I never tried it again. I'm fortunate because of that. A lot of people do. You can even buy it in California from a pharmacy.”

(6/17) "What do I need to show fire for? I'm not a dragon."

(6/17) “I wouldn’t know a steroid from a reefer.”

I’m all for letting the old man speak for himself. It’s important to show fans an honest image of their team’s head honcho. But someone needs to lay down some ground rules before Piniella admits that he has no idea what he’s doing (because, as the Cubs’ record shows, he doesn’t.)

As he should be, Lou continually tries to take the fall for his team’s mistakes off the field. Geovany Soto admitted to using marijuana, so Lou admits it, too. Sammy Sosa gets outed for steroid usage (duh?), and Lou tries to cover it up with his own lack of street smarts.

But apparently no one’s told the longtime manager that his team is terrible, and that he needs to be taking some of the blame for their pathetic performance on the field. Rarely does Lou admit he did something wrong (which I guess is difficult to do, considering he doesn’t actually do ANYTHING).

Lou’s own pride is part of the problem. But the Cubs’ public relations staff needs to remind Lou that his first priority is what happens on the field. And also that the term “reefer” went out a long time ago. Until that happens, Lou will continue to serve as an example for the entire sporting industry (or, arguably, the world) of what not to say to the media. Let his words be a reminder of the importance of good public relations management for all industries.

For more examples of bad PR, check out Carrie Muskat’s articles on cubs.com. Instead of answering fan’s questions directly, she makes jokes and tells riddles. It’s good stuff.

Sidewalk Campaigns

2009-06-17T08:19:00.005-04:00

“9/11 was a HOAX.”

“Barack Obama kills babies.”

“McCain SUCKS!”

These are just a few of the messages I subconsciously noticed last fall as I walked the sidewalks of Indiana University. Our student body, like many across the country, has a fascination with “chalking”. This rather childish marketing technique involves hoarding together as many students as you can, bribing them with Chipotle, and herding them around campus to spread their message via sidewalk chalk.

Political groups especially seem to love the chalking experience. IU’s College Democrats organization even includes chalking in the description of their public relations efforts. The hippies are apparently so confident in Obama’s socialist health care plan that they’re willing to jump the gun on back arthritis. Sadly, my accidental water bottle spill over one pink-and-yellow “HOPE” chalking didn’t seem to have an impact on the Dem’s work; Obama is almost bigger than Bobby Knight down there.

One must wonder whether the chalking technique is an effective one. Unless you’re Barack himself and walk with your nose in the air, at least some of the messages naturally seep into the brain. Whether that’s a good thing or not, I don’t know. I wonder how many easily-influenced (and perhaps stupid) students started questioning the events of 9/11 after walking to class.

Chalking is cheap, easy, and could be fun (after a bar crawl, maybe). But when everyone’s doing it, the clutter becomes a problem. At times last year, our sidewalks were literally packed with pastel-colored slogans and meeting times. It was a little like the internet, without a bookmarking system in place. Scary.

Let’s hope this type of communication stays on campuses. Twitter seems to serve as a better outlet for people to share ideas or market products. Plus, if chalking ever did get hot, it wouldn’t rain enough to keep overzealous Kool-aid drinkers off the streets.

Facebook Trumps Unemployment

2009-06-15T08:59:00.012-04:00

After witnessing my 51-year-old father curse out Facebook when it failed to find all of his old girlfriends, I doubt the social media fascination will ever fully extend to all generations. However, Facebook is tremendously useful for a lot of things when you’re young.

Rather than dealing with the awful business of conversation, Facebook stalking allows you to follow every second of your friends’ lives. When you’re in need of an insult, memorizing and reciting (mockingly) another’s profile quotes in front of a large group of people seems to do the trick. And, most importantly, keeping up on sorority gossip is made simple with the provided message function (which comes without a spell check function – perfect for maintaining the ultrahigh Greek ego.)

But one 23-year-old managed to tap into a new (and actually useful) way to use the social media outlet. Yonnick Hammond, used Facebook to trump unemployment and land a job in politics. He made a Facebook ad, which was shown alongside profile pages on the site.

“When I had thought of the ad, I was over three months into unemployment,” says the former RNC staffer and legislative assistant to Rep. Henry Brown Jr. (R-S.C.). “When I applied for jobs, my resume and portfolio would get buried under literally hundreds of other resumes.

Hammond knew he had to do something creative to make himself stand out from the young and eager masses waiting in line for jobs on the Hill. After learning how to create effective online ads through a friend’s consulting shop, Yonnick put his skills to the test.

“I figured if I can receive ads urging me to ‘meet hot young singles’ in my area, I can use an ad to sell myself to employers.”

Yonnick says he was overwhelmed by the reaction to the ad. By looking at Facebook reports, he learned that 166 people clicked on the ad within four days of its creation. Others messaged him through Facebook with encouragement or praise for his innovative use of technology.

“I found that both younger and older people were very receptive,” he says.
However, Yonnick targeted the ad for people in their mid-to-late twenties. He said he felt that audience would be most likely to hire him because they’ve already established themselves professionally. The pin-pointing was obviously successful; Yonnick is now working for the Republican Party of Virginia as their Absentee Ballot Director.

Despite his struggles, Yonnick doesn’t believe young Republicans looking for work should stay away from DC. However, he does think recent college grads should be prepared to take a different route to their preferred job.

“The best advice I can tell anyone who is trying to find a job is to roll up your sleeves and be willing to work, even if it’s not your ideal job.”

Keep it simple, stupid.

2009-06-08T11:54:00.003-04:00

Super Bowl commercials have become increasingly lame over the last few years. This year’s game featured only one commercial I found worth my time.

The entire second I dedicated to the Miller High Life commercial was the best second of the entire night (I hate the Steelers).

I had heard about the ad on the radio, and stayed glued to my screen to make sure I didn’t miss it. Sure enough, the trademark Miller High Life guy (Windell Middlebrooks) eventually popped up on the screen, and yelled, “High Life!” The ad really was just one second. If I had blinked, I may have missed it. But the uniqueness of the advertisement and the simplicity of it stuck with me long after I had finished trash-talking Big Ben.

If you pay attention to the advertisements and marketing pieces you notice, you’ll find a common trend: simplicity sells. Making eye-catching promotions requires attention to the eye’s capabilities. Long, drawn-out commercials often get muted. Visually complex billboards get blurred out or overlooked. And wordy writing gets ignored. (I could go off on a rant about exclamation points and the uselessness of them, but I’ll save that for another day.)

Does this mean all TV commercials should be reduced to a mere second in length? Probably not. But it does mean the marketing community needs to refrain from overcomplicating messages.

This is especially true in the direct mail business. Most people will assume your mail piece is just another piece of junk mail. A simple message that’s easy to find will help your readers pay attention. A mail piece that’s visually cluttered will tend to be automatically avoided. No one has time to search for the message. Take a look at Faulkner Strategies’ portfolio to see some examples of visually simple yet effective mail.

Here’s some examples of visually-simplified marketing that works – and visually-complicated marketing that doesn’t:

Bad: 2009 Toyota Prius commercial: This ad reflects what I picture when I listen to my mother reminisce about her experiences in the 60’s (mixed with some Across the Universe clips.) There’s way too much going on visually to focus on the car. However, the childlike unrealism of this ad helps explain why all Priuses are plastered with Obama bumper stickers.

Good: Google.com. Compared to Yahoo.com, it’s much more visually clean. Don’t let your 3rd grade art teacher’s lessons confuse you: white space is necessary. The simplicity of this search engine giant makes it more mobile accessible, too.

Awesome: The fact that The Office is my favorite show doesn’t bias my positive critique of its marketing. The very essence of the show is simplicity: there’s no absurd settings (except maybe Dwight’s beet farm), the plots are rather ordinary, and the characters themselves are, well, simple-minded.

NBC has capitalized on this simplicity with an equally simple marketing scheme. The TV commercials are full of short sound bites. The fan gear is usually black-and-white. And the photos used to promote the show are almost as plain as Pam’s wardrobe. But it all works.

Don’t let visual possibilities overwhelm your marketing message. Yes, Photoshop does allow you to tie-dye every aspect of a print design in a different shade of blue. No, you should not do this (unless you’re attempting to bring back Eiffel 65’s 1998 hit, “I’m Blue”. If so, carry on. That song still rocks.)

Multisensory marketing: cool or creepy?

2009-05-29T08:34:00.001-04:00

Despite the oodles of creativity marketers try to force out of their brains, advertising has a common trend. Around 80% of brand advertising is done through visual or audio means. Appealing to only two senses obviously puts the average advertiser at a disadvantage. But it’s difficult for most brands to even attempt to come up with a way to appeal to the other senses.

Difficult, but not impossible. Businesses have attempted multisensory marketing approaches. Some are successful (or at least cool), while others are… well… just plain weird.

I’m compiled a list of a few multisensory marketing strategies – the cool, the stupid, and the creepy.

Cool: Earlier this month, a company called Grasshopper developed a clever rebranding plan by taking its new name literally. The virtual switchboard and voice mail provider sent out packages of chocolate covered grasshoppers to their chosen top 5,000 influential marketers. The lumpy packages had an attached tag with a link to a video explaining the marketing campaign. This idea quickly turned into a viral marketing success, as it was all over Twitter and Facebook in a matter of days. (The only thing more disgusting than eating grasshoppers is the OCD Twitter habit the top 5,000 marketers share.)

Read more about this campaign here.

Creepy: Brotherhood Bank, based in Kansas City, Kansas, states on their website that “handshakes, smiles, and warm greetings are liberally distributed at all our facilities.” And they mean it. Workers must shake the hand of all customers entering the building. However, Marketing Director Steve Hale says, most of the better-known customers get a warm hug from their banker. He proudly claims the bank is “built on touch”.

That’s just weird. Who goes to the bank to get hugged? And since when are bankers considered even remotely nice people? I’m pretty sure Deal or No Deal forever crushed that dream. Hypochondria aside, even Howie would never touch the banker.

Stupid: Last year, Lee Myung-bak, President of South Korea, decided to use a department store trick and in his campaign strategy. A perfume called “Great Korea” was developed especially for his run for president. The scent was supposed to represent feelings of hope, victory, and passion. The perfume was secretly sprayed at public gatherings, and was then sprayed again at the polling booths to trigger the voters’ memory.

The political world should refrain from stealing ideas from Abercrombie and Fitch. If we’re not careful, soon we’ll be displaying wall-sized photos of half-naked politicians at rallies.

And though I find it difficult to believe the tactic was actually successful, it does help me rationalize Obama’s victory. I’m assuming his perfume was of a similar make, and inspired feelings of hope, change, and stupidity.

Delta really wants me to keep flying Southwest...

2009-05-22T09:43:00.002-04:00

I don't really want to be a hater but I am left with few options. I was on a Delta flight about a month ago and left my iPod in the pocket on the seat in front of me. Ok, completely my fault and I take full blame. As I am in baggage claim I realize my mistake and ask a Delta agent to help. She is somewhat friendly and proceeds to go back on the plane to look for it. No luck, it is gone.

So while waiting for my bags I call Delta to report it as missing in the hopes someone turns it in. When I get home I go online and report it as well. I then get on Twitter, find @deltaairlines and tweet them several times.

A week goes by with no response...on any communications medium.

So I call and email again.

Three weeks go by, then I get this...

Dear Mr. Faulkner,

Thank you for contacting us through delta.com. We are sorry for the delay in responding to your message. (hey, if you are going to be on Twitter then BE available on Twitter. See @southwestair on how it is done right)

Unchecked articles that are turned in to Delta are held in our Lost & Found office for a period of time, awaiting owner identification. At the end of that time, they are salvaged and we are unable to retrieve them. Therefore, we would no longer have your property in our possession. (so you take almost a month to get back to me to tell me how to reclaim but THEN tell me it is too late to claim????)

Thank you for writing. We appreciate your selection of Delta and look forward to serving you whenever your plans call for air travel. (no sweat, I will fly Delta again when I absolutely positively have no choice)
Sincerely,

Aaryn ------ (I blocked the last name as I don't want to smear an individual who just happens to work for an airline with crappy customer service)
Claims Manager
Central Baggage Service

To whom it may concern at Delta - I look forward to driving an hour and a half to a different airport just so I can fly Southwest. I am going to be doing at least 40 more round trips this year so I will let you do the math on that and figure out what good customer service really costs.

Sincerely,

Chris Faulkner

The NRSC markets dirty

2009-05-20T08:34:00.003-04:00

The NRSC is up to something that is a little strange in Washington these days…

They paid off their debt. “Every last nickel” of it, they say. Though the committee inherited $4.9 million at the beginning of the year, they’ve overcome their financial burden. The NRSC believes they’ll be the first of the Hill committees to erase their debt. At the end of March, the DSCC had $10.86 million, the DCCC had $8 million..

Though these results may simply be a reflection of the NRSC’s pledge to financial responsibility, I think there’s something more happening here.

The NRSC knows how to play – and market - dirty. Their appeal to donators is just bloody better than the other Hill committees (literally).

Upon visiting the NRSC site, a pop-up advertisement instantly appears, blocking out the content on the site itself and blocking out any trace of optimistic, go-team-go thoughts you may have held. The impending block of black, highly reminiscent of an America’s Most Wanted poster, features a grayscale picture of Arlen Specter. In blood-colored text, the pop-up reads, “Support the NRSC and Stand up Against Former Republican Arlen Specter”. A contribute button is below, taking visitors to a page where they can donate to the NRSC.

With a clever marketing scheme and some relatively simple graphic design techniques, the NRSC has successfully made Specter appear as evil as Voldermort. Seven books later, a lot of Americans are itching for some Harry Potter-like glory… no wonder the NRSC got out of debt.

The other committees should jump on board. The DCCC has resorted to raffling off their Party’s greatest prize: Obama. Contributors who donate automatically get a chance at winning a pass to a June gathering, where Democrats from all over the country will get together to celebrate Obama’s first 100 days.

The site also claims Speaker Pelosi will be attending the event. Judging by the raffle’s minimum required donation ($5), I’m guessing the DCCC is expecting Pelosi to “forget” about this, too.

Social Media Throwdown

2009-05-19T08:07:00.005-04:00

A form of media has finally evolved that’s able to keep up with the pace of business: social media. Though quite a few forms have popped up in the last year or so, Twitter and Facebook continue to be the most popular.

To many Americans, these two sites are uttered in the same breath. For some, it’s one or the other. Quite a few college students who helped birth the Facebook giant view Twitter as a threat to their precious networking site. “Tweeting”, on campus, is often viewed upon as an infectious disease; no more harmful than the swine flu, but every bit as annoying.

Though America’s student body has yet to fully grasp onto Twitter like they did to Facebook, the business world is taking a different approach. Facebook is utilized, but it’s not as popular as Twitter. Why? It’s not as effective for online marketing purposes. Here’s why:

• Facebook is full of information. Most users have extensive profile information on their sites, ranging from hometown to Favorite TV shows. The personalization possibilities appeal to the non-business users. But the parts of the Facebook profile that would be most useful for businesses– statuses, groups, and work descriptions – are small pieces of the puzzle, hidden in a mess of personal (and sometimes, just plain useless) information.

Twitter, on the other hand, is solely about current statuses. (For those of you unfamiliar with the site, it’s basically made up of the “updates” you can post on Facebook). Businesses can post tweets all day about their products, their staff, etc. – without boring readers with the unnecessary. Twitter even limits tweet length to 140 characters, forcing the user to use a straightforward approach.

• Twitter’s straightforward approach makes it better for direct communication between businesses and individuals. Users are more likely to respond to your tweets with feedback or answers to your questions because there’s no indirect communication forms to distract them. Facebook users will often get caught up in photo albums or other wall postings and forget the initial reason they visited your page.

• The newsfeed that Facebook users check for new content is limited to their base of “friends”. Until a business has either accepted a friend request or added a friend themselves, another user cannot view their status updates. The process to add all potential customers is lengthy, and besides, most users aren’t willing to search for any and all people who may be interested in their products.

• Twitter offers a better approach to networking possibilities. Though your main newsfeed is made up of users you “follow” (done with a click of a button), “hashtags” allow your Tweets to be viewed by anyone, regardless of whether you’re following him or her. Interestingly, the hashtag trend wasn’t started by Twitter (some crafty users figured it out). By learning some simple abbreviations, and fitting them into your tweet, you can post your status onto feeds of other users who use the same hashtag. Therefore, you can effectively target your message to people with similar interests.

For example, the hashtag #tcot (top conservatives on Twitter) unites conservative bloggers who wish to interact with other conservatives using the site.

Though you don’t need to follow your fellow hashtaggers, using the feature ends up narrowing down the Twitter population to those users you’d most want to interact with, anyway.

• Twitter’s more mobile friendly. Facebook phone applications tend to be slow. On Twitter, all you really have to do is update your status, which is as simple as a text message. Those with Blackberries (and even those without – the Verizon application is pretty handy) can Tweet quickly.

Put some thought into your social media decisions. Both sites offer useful features, but both have the potential to waste time if not used correctly. And if you’re a college-minded individual who’s vowed to stay away from the Twitter universe, rethink your decision. It’s not that bad.

Governor Daniels of Indiana Smacks Down Baby Boomers

2009-05-13T02:03:00.001-04:00

Governor Daniels of Indiana is not an easy guy to figure out. He confuses members of the press and political people of both parties. Why you ask? Because he is a leader.

In these times of GOP doldrums when we do see someone who bucks the conventional wisdom and easy path, it is so uncommon it usually confounds us.

Case in point: The Butler University commencement speech of 2009. A nice safe, warm and fuzzy send off for the graduating class right? Wrong, more like a 2x4 to the collective face of baby boomers who, quite frankly, deserve it. Read some excerpts from this incredible speech below.

"As a 10-year-old, new to Indiana, Butler basketball was about the only entertainment our family was able, or at least willing, to purchase for me. On countless frigid evenings, someone's dad would drop us off in the Fieldhouse parking lot, and someone else's dad would pick us up, after watching the Bulldogs either beat or scare the pants off some big-name larger school. I might stumble over my own college's fight song, but I still know yours by heart."

Hey, it is Indiana so of course it is going to open with basketball. He went to Princeton so who can blame him for loving Butler athletics.

Even though the whole notion of a "generation" must be discounted as the loosest of concepts, within limits it is possible to spot the defining characteristics of an age and the human beings who create it. Along with most of your faculty and parents, I belong to the most discussed, debated and analyzed generation of all time, the so-called Baby Boomers. By the accepted definition, the youngest of us is now forty-five, so the record is pretty much on the books, and the time for verdicts can begin. Which leads me to congratulate you in advance. As a generation, you are off to an excellent start. You have taken the first savvy step on the road to distinction, which is to follow a weak act. I wish I could claim otherwise, but we Baby Boomers are likely to be remembered by history for our numbers, and little else, at least little else that is admirable.

Ouch.

All our lives, it's been all about us. We were the "Me Generation." We wore t-shirts that said "If it feels good, do it." The year of my high school commencement, a hit song featured the immortal lyric "Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today." As a group, we have been self-centered, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and all too often just plain selfish. Our current Baby Boomer President has written two eloquent, erudite books, both about..himself. As a generation, we did tend to live for today. We have spent more and saved less than any previous Americans. Year after year, regardless which party we picked to lead the country, we ran up deficits that have multiplied the debt you and your children will be paying off your entire working lives. Far more burdensome to you mathematically, we voted ourselves increasing levels of Social Security pensions and Medicare health care benefits, but never summoned the political maturity to put those programs on anything resembling a sound actuarial footing.

At this point the squirming in seats of the parents section must have been almost audible.

Our irresponsibility went well beyond the financial realm. Our parents formed families and kept them intact even through difficulty "for the sake of the kids." To us, parental happiness came first; we often divorced at the first unpleasantness, and increasingly just gave birth to children without the nuisance of marriage. "Commitment" cramps one's style, don't you know. Total bummer.

Let no uncomfortable topic go untouched.

As time runs out on our leadership years, it's clear there is no chance that anyone will ever refer to us, as histories now do our parents, as "The Greatest Generation." There is no disgrace in this; very few generations are thought of as "great." And history is not linear. Many generations fail miserably at the challenges they confront, and their societies take steps backwards as a consequence. Consider Japan before World War II, or Americans in the decades before the Civil War. And yet in both those instances and many others, the people who followed did great things, not only redeemed all the failings but built better, fairer societies than their nations had seen before. In fact, true greatness can only be revealed by large challenges, by tough circumstances. And your opportunities for greatness will be large.

Your generation can be great…especially compared to your parents.

And please, just to revise another current practice, be judgmental. Whatever they claim, people always are, anyway - consider the healthy stigmatization of racist comments or sexist attitudes or cigarette smoking. It's just a matter of which behaviors enough of us agree to judge as unacceptable. As free people, we agree to tolerate any conduct that does no harm to others, but we should not be coerced into condoning it. Selfishness and irresponsibility in business, personal finances, or in family life, are deserving of your disapproval. Go ahead and stigmatize them. Too much such behavior will hurt our nation and the future for you and the families you will create. Honesty about shortcomings is not handwringing. Again, this is a blessed land, in every way. Amidst the worst recession in a long time, we still are wealthier than any society in history. We are safer, from injury, disease, and each other than any humans that ever lived. Best of all, we are free. The problems you now inherit are not those of 1776, or 1861, or 1929, or 1941. But they are large enough, and left unattended, they will devour the wealth and, ultimately, the freedom and safety we cherish, at least in our thankful moments. So you have a chance to be a great Butler class, part of a great generation.

Take that political correctness.

In a brief, intelligent yet straight forward head shot the Governor has done what almost no one in Government, media or certainly academia has had the stones to do…lay guilt where it belongs.

A lot of my friends keep asking me if this guy is going to run for President and I just say "he is doing too good a job as Governor for us to spare him." But of course doing your current job really really well is a great way to get promoted.

You can read the entire speech here.

Chris Faulkner

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

2009-04-28T21:57:00.003-04:00

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?

Changes at Faulkner Strategies

2009-04-27T20:32:00.001-04:00

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.

Some thoughts on a quality GOTV operation

2009-04-04T23:26:00.003-04:00

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

Inside Scoop on NY 20

2009-04-01T03:28:00.001-04:00

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. 13^th. 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 …

I am not a Ron Paul hater…really

2009-03-25T11:16:00.002-04:00

I was teaching a candidate school recently in Minnesota and wandered into some dangerous territory. Our firm is often hired to do political education and one of our bigger clients is American Majority We teach several sessions that focus on Communications, Campaign Plans, Fundraising, Social Media and Grassroots Organizing (all ppts are available to download and steal here SlideShare )

The last session of the day focuses on Grassroots Organizing Online and Offline. One of the themes I present is how most grassroots movements are viral and require a "host". I then go on to say that Ron Paul was too weak of a "host" to carry his "movement". Full disclosure – I was a mail vendor for Fred Thompson's campaign (that is a whole other discussion) and I did not support Ron Paul. Having said that, I was constantly intrigued by his supporters and his "movement". I work in the business of political campaigns and like to think I am a student of how they work on a logistics and business end. So for the purposes of this post lets skip by issues and just talk nuts and bolts.

First I have to take a dig at my strident Libertarian friends who loved Dr. Paul – learn a lesson from him

Run as a Libertarian for Congress and lose
Run as a Republican for Congress and win
Run as a Republican for President and get to take the stage, be in the debates and air your issues

(**CORRECTION** thanks to my observant friend Steve from Minnesota I stand corrected. Dr. Paul was Republican Member of Congress from 1976 to '85. He then ran for President in 1988 as a Libertarian. He then returned to Congress in 1996 as a Republican. I was wrong and I repent. However I think it would be fair to say that he ran for Congress in 1996 as Republican because he knew he would not win if he ran as a Libertarian.)

Pretty safe to say no one is accusing Dr. Paul of "selling out" even though he ran as a Republican. I can already feel the hate that point is going to draw…

Moving on, Dr. Paul raised over $34 million dollars of which over 99% came from individual small donors. This is a supremely impressive feat for a guy who, candidly, has below average public speaking ability, no message discipline, fairly inexperienced campaign organization and barely eked into double digits in most public polling. So his campaign was obviously not as much about the "product" of the candidate. He benefited from a couple powerful motivators;

A disgruntled and angry free-market fiscal conservative base
A weak field of Republican options for President
A core Libertarian group that was already online

$34 million, unfortunately, is still not enough to get serious traction in a modern Presidential Primary. That is compounded by the fact that his campaign spent almost 50% of their cash on "Administrative" expenses. That is just unacceptable. Barely a third of the dollars spent went towards actual voter contact. Ok, now all my grassroots friends can holler and say "of course that is what an evil money grubbing political consultant would say!" But folks let's get real, modern campaigns are not small mom and pop businesses any more…especially ones for President. They can start that way but at some point you have to bring in experienced folks to run the ship…having said that the grassroots are still vital and important to success, but they have to have experienced leadership.

Looking back at Howard Dean circa 2003…the guy almost became the democratic nominee and was much more viable than Paul. Both had strong grassroots movements but Dean had some adults in charge at HQ. Ultimately, I think both Dean and Paul were not strong enough vessels for their movements. So what happened to many of those early Deaniacs? They became the base of Barack Obama's underdog campaign in early 2007. So why was Barack successful where Dean was not?

Obama is a FAR superior candidate "product" than Howard Dean
Obama's team of very experienced political folks had a whole list of lessons learned from the Dean Campaign
The online left-roots had only grown larger and stronger since 2003

In short I would propose that Barack Obama would NEVER have gotten off the ground had it not been for Howard Dean.

So if you were a Ron Paulie in 2007 what should you be preparing for? Look for the well spoken Liberty candidate. Can you imagine if Dr. Paul had the TV appeal or speaking skills of a Mike Pence or Jeff Flake? There will be a Republican candidate running in 2012 (in all seriousness they have probably already started) that will carry many of Dr. Paul's limited government issues, learned from his mistakes and have a more experienced team around them. Don't know who that "Candidate X" is yet but if you find them let me know.

Candidate X is looking for your passion, your love of liberty and yes your dollars too. That candidate will finally be worth the absolutely incredible effort that so many Paul supporters poured into the 2008 primary.

Be looking for that candidate because they are probably already looking for you.

How SXSW Is Different Than Your “Usual” Conference

2009-03-19T09:25:00.001-04:00

First of all many of you are wondering what is SXSW and why do I keep talking about it. It stands for South by Southwest. Started in 1987 as an independent music festival that now has 3 stages that include film, music and interactive. I just came for the interactive. I am not sophisticated enough to enjoy indie film or music.

Is it a tech geek thing? Kinda sorta. It has a lot of different aspects and I came as someone who is just curious. You can check out the schedule of sessions here http://sxsw2009.sched.org/

From my layman's perspective, and in an attempt to be funny and way oversimplify this week, here are some observations in the difference between SXSW and a regular "Trade Show"

More tattoos…less comb overs.
More jeans…less khakis.
More Macs…less PCs.
More iPhones…less Blackberrys.
More Battlestar Galactica…less College hoops.
More guys who code…less guys who sell.
More brains…less schmaltzy sales pitches.
More piercings…less polo shirts.
More green tea…less Starbucks.

More later…

Chris Faulkner

Consumer Engagement :: The Marketing Arm

2009-03-09T10:53:00.001-04:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Consumer Engagement :: The Marketing Arm

View more presentations from tmadallas. (tags: sales consumer)

Blacks, whites hear Obama differently - Nia-Malika Henderson - POLITICO.com

2009-03-03T09:42:00.000-05:00

Targeting can be done by mail, phones, media and even public speaking.

Blacks, whites hear Obama differently - Nia-Malika Henderson - POLITICO.com: "Dog-whistle politics was hardly invented by Obama. One of its most deft practitioners lately was President George W. Bush. He regularly borrowed the language of evangelical Christianity and the anti-abortion movement to signal he was simpatico with their beliefs, even as he often avoided obvious displays of support that might turn off middle-of-the-road voters.

“The code words matter, how you dress matters, how you speak matters; it’s all subliminal messaging, and all politicians use it,” said Michael Fauntroy, an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University, who specializes in race and American politics. “Ronald Reagan used to talk about making America the shining city on a hill, which is about America as divinely inspired, and it has a deep vein in the evangelical conservative movement. It goes on all the time, and there are so many circumstances when only the target people get the message.”"

This is a fascinating look at how words can mean different things to different people and how effective campaigns use this to make a message stick.

INDIANA FIRM WINS AWARD FROM NATIONAL MAGAZINE

2009-02-06T08:26:00.001-05:00

(Granger, IN) – Faulkner Strategies was presented a Reed Award by Campaigns & Election Politics Magazine for its innovative direct mail design during the 2008 election cycle. The Midwest based communications firm took top honors for category of Direct Mail for a Republican State Legislative Candidate.

The piece features Indiana State Representative candidate Dan Leonard who needed to make his mail stand out during an election cycle inundated with national and statewide candidates stuffing mailboxes as never before in Indiana. The mail piece was designed to emphasize Leonard’s “outsider status. The message targeted to voters was that a small action performed by them (voting for Dan Leonard) would lead to a big change, i.e. an outsider like Dan being elected. By utilizing fun and creative graphic design with easily read blurbs, the voter was guided through seemingly unimportant moments in history that turned out to make a significant impact on their today.

Faulkner Strategies was retained by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, who was targeting the Leonard race in the 2008 Republican primary. Dan Leonard handily beat two others in the primary, with his vote total coming out to 4249 while the other two received 1675 and 1343. “Faulkner Strategies is the best political mail vendor in the Midwest and is a growing Indiana company with a talented staff. IBRG has hired Faulkner Strategies on several races in the last few elections to handle direct mail for our endorsed candidates in competitive races and is a company we have an excellent relationship with,” said Michael Davis, Vice President of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.

Jordan S. Lieberman, President of Political World Communications, LLC and publisher of Politics magazine, said, “The competition for this award was intense, and included some of the most successful political professionals in the world."
Founder & President of Faulkner Strategies said, "By winning this award, I think we’ve proven that fun and upbeat messaging in a campaign can make a difference. Our team worked hard to tell a story about the difference one man can make in a community and the voters responded positively to it.”

The Reed Awards recognizes excellence in campaign management, political consulting and creative content. The awards are named after Campaigns & Elections founder Stanley Foster Reed, and embody his mission to strive for excellence in political campaigning.

The Campaigns & Elections' Politics magazine Reed Awards are highly coveted by the nation's top political consultants. This year's Reed Awards were judged by political luminaries from across the political spectrum, including: Morton Blackwell, Tucker Carlson, Tom Davis, Monica Dixon, Ben Dworkin, Vic Fazio, Martin Frost, Julie Germany, Shane Greer, Ken Khachigian, Mike Hennessy, Ron Klain, Mike Krempasky, Kevin Madden, Mark, McKinnon, Dick Morris, Terry Nelson, Christie Pelosi, Amy Pritchard, Larry Sabato, Ron Silver, Jamal Simmons, Michael Steele, George Stephanopolous, Robert Traynham, Joe Trippi, Suzanne Turner, Vaughn Ververs, Amy Walter, Christine Todd Whitman, and Reid Wilson.

Faulkner Strategies is an Indiana based targeted communications firm that focuses on delivering personalized and impactful messages to consumers and voters. For more information visit http://www.faulknerstrategies.com/.

GOP Bright Spot For 2008 Was Indiana

2008-12-04T22:34:00.002-05:00

In 2008 one of the nation’s longest GOP streaks for President was broken. Barack Obama was the first Democrat since LBJ in 1964 to win Indiana. So with Obama’s wave of change sweeping over our state the GOP must have taken a beating and lost the Governor’s race right?

Nope, not even close. Mitch Daniels won reelection by 18 points.

How big was the win for Governor Daniels? By the numbers it went like this:

With 1,563,873 votes Governor Daniels received more votes than any other Hoosier candidate for office…ever.

Daniels received 24% of the Democrat vote.
Daniels received 20% of the African American vote.
Daniels won the Independent vote by 18 points.
Daniels won EVERY age group including young voters (51%-42%).

A Republican Governor won reelection in a purple state in 2008 not by playing it safe but by being a leader.

How did he do it?

Daniels talked about “change” in 2003 before “change” was cool. When first elected, he inherited a dysfunctional state government, hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. Since taking office, he has had only balanced budgets, the biggest tax cut in state history, telecom reform, ethics reform, and millions of dollars have been paid back to schools and local governments. Indiana is now the only state in the nation to have a fully-funded ten-year transportation plan with no debt or tax increase.
Hoosiers made a connection with the governor’s steadfast leadership and work ethic. Voters recognized his constant focus on attracting a record number of new and diversified jobs, dramatically reducing homeowner’s property taxes, and the state’s immediate, organized and effective response to the severe weather/record floods in the summer of 2008.
Daniels was supported by a formidable coalition of both typical and atypical interest groups. Because of his approach, he received backing by union building trades as well as the Chamber of Commerce, the Manufacturer’s Association and the NFIB. The FOP and prominent veteran leaders were seen on TV ads pledging their support in their own non-partisan words. The International Association of Fire Fighters supported Daniels and Obama. African American leaders passed out Governor Daniels suggestion boxes to urban barbershops and hair salons. Fluent in Spanish, Daniels earned the support of traditionally Democrat Latino voters.
Job creation and tough line on fiscal responsibility. The Midwest is a sea of red ink as every state faces serious budget deficits…every state except one. Indiana.
Daniels kept it real. He has remained in touch and accessible to average Hoosiers through constant statewide travel. His view is always from the taxpayer’s perspective and that showed on Election Day. Voters came to appreciate his preference to travel the state on his Harley Davidson motorcycle and his insistence to stay overnight in Hoosier homes, not in hotels.

Governor Daniels is term limited and will exit office in 2012…hmmm what could he do in 2012?

Lessons from the trenches of 2008.

2008-11-30T23:05:00.001-05:00

2008’s electoral results are getting clearer as we close in on a final result in MN and GA. As President-elect Obama sorts out his administration and we all eat turkey sandwiches there are some great lessons to be learned from GOP campaigns of 2008.

In the coming weeks I will interview consultants, campaign staff and candidates to look at the tactics and where they made a difference. Before I start the interviews I want to hear from you on what questions you want answered.

Some of the questions I am considering asking are:

What campaign on the GOP side showed real innovation in fundraising?
What campaign on the GOP side had the most effective use of New Media?
What candidate on the GOP side best leveraged earned media to get traction?
What campaign on the GOP side showed the greatest comeback?
What campaign on the GOP side showed the best mobilization of grassroots supporters?
What campaign on the GOP side had the most effective GOTV organization?
What GOP media consultant showed the most appreciation for web video and integrated it into their mix?
What GOP pollster was the most accurate?
What GOP mail vendor had the most creative and effective designs? (yes, I am biased)
What GOP campaign showed the best ability to integrate it’s website into its’ over all campaign operation?
What GOP candidate has the biggest ideas for the future of our party (even if they lost)?
What GOP campaign showed the best use of its email list?
What GOP campaign was really good at the small stuff? (yard signs, bumper stickers, t-shirts, etc)

I also have a sizeable list of people to interview, if you have some you would like to see, let me know.

Email your suggested questions and interviewees to chris@faulknerstrategies.com

Why Conservatives Should Be Using Twitter And 200 "People" You Should Be Following | All American Blogger

2008-11-24T16:33:00.001-05:00

Why Conservatives Should Be Using Twitter And 200 "People" You Should Be Following All American Blogger

Great post on how useful it can be and how to use Twitter.

Also, a complete shameless plug for myself.

I am not moving to France...

2008-11-06T21:49:00.000-05:00

Election Day has come and gone and my Political Party’s nominee for President has lost. I am disappointed but not disheartened. I am looking forward to the debate within the Republican Party to find our true core again.

A couple of things first, congratulations to President-elect Obama and his supporters. In 2000 and 2004 I was dismayed by the lack of respect and abundance of contempt that President Bush (and those of us that supported him) received from those that lost. Regardless of the deep and substantive differences I have with President-elect Obama it would be a mistake to not recognize how historic his election is. He is the first African-American President and represents the completion of another chapter in America’s troubled history on racial equality. His campaign shattered traditional models of volunteer mobilization, fundraising and technology use. All of which are good things for American democracy. I am sure that in the coming months I will have strong words for him in difference of policy but there will be plenty of time for that.

Next, leave Senator McCain alone. Enough of the arm chair quarterbacks and back seat drivers meaningless whining. In most polling I saw, we could not even get 30% of Americans to admit they were Republicans so it is no surprise that we could not get a majority of them to vote that way.

Time and time again I hear voters tell campaigns to “not tell them why the other guy is wrong, tell us what your guy will do!” Maybe we as Republicans should consider that question a bit before we start getting a worked up and wild-eyed. In 1996 we screamed and yelled about how unethical and corrupt President Clinton was. You can ask President Dole how well that worked.

Who are we and why should voters give us a chance again?

Are we fiscal conservatives or fans of big government solutions? Are we social conservatives, moderates or something in-between? Do we believe in free market solutions or tariff managed trade? Do we believe in being “safe” all the time or are we ok with balance of less security for more liberty? Do we believe in “exporting” the gift of democracy or letting others figure it out for themselves? Do we think that there is still some room in our country for people who were not born here but believe in the idea of America as much as we do? Are we helping the “poor” by not making them pay taxes?

I used to think I could articulate the “Republican” position on these pretty well but lately I am not so sure.

Even before McCain conceded I had emails and text messages from friends and journalists asking if Governor Palin would be our standard bearer for 2012. Whoa, let’s hold our horses a bit. We need to know where we are going before we pick a leader. The good news is we have some time on our hands to figure that out now that Democrats control both houses of Congress and the White House.

I have been proud to be a Republican in the past and am sure I will be in the future. Our party has a great history of shaping our nation’s policy and providing the great leaders to do it.

1/3 of US voters could vote BEFORE Nov. 4

2008-09-22T22:21:00.000-04:00

My Way News - A third of electorate could vote before Nov. 4: "Early voting has been on the increase in recent years: In 2004, 22 percent of voters cast an early presidential ballot; in 2000, 16 percent voted early.
It's a trend that is fundamentally changing the home stretch of American political campaigns. October surprises? They'd better come in September if campaigns want to influence every vote. Get out the vote operations? They're already under way in some states."

Wow, even the media gets that early and absentee voting is the future of GOTV.

GOP "boogeyman" used to scare poor voters

2008-09-11T09:20:00.001-04:00

Michigan Messenger » Lose your house, lose your vote: "Vote suppression: Not an isolated effort
Carabelli is not the only Republican Party official to suggest the targeting of foreclosed voters. In Ohio, Doug Preisse, director of elections in Franklin County (around the city of Columbus) and the chair of the local GOP, told The Columbus Dispatch that he has not ruled out challenging voters before the election due to foreclosure-related address issues.

Hebert, the voting-rights lawyer, sees a connection between Priesse’s remarks and Carabelli’s plans.
“At a minimum what you are seeing is a fairly comprehensive effort by the Republican Party, a systematic broad-based effort to put up obstacles for people to vote,” he said. “Nobody is contending that these people are not legally registered to vote.

“When you are comprehensively challenging people to vote,” Hebert went on, “your goals are two-fold: One is you are trying to knock people out from casting ballots; the other is to create a slowdown that will discourage others,” who see a long line and realize they can’t afford to stay and wait.
Challenging all voters registered to foreclosed homes could disrupt some polling places, especially in the Detroit metropolitan area. According to the real estate Web site RealtyTrac, one in every 176 households in Wayne County, metropolitan Detroit, received a foreclosure filing during the month of July.

In Macomb County, the figure was one household in every 285, meaning that 1,834 homeowners received the bad news in just one month. The Macomb County foreclosure rate puts it in the top three percent of all U.S. counties in the number of distressed homeowners."

I have seen some biased and ridiculous articles in my time but this is just plain dumb. I am not speaking on behalf of the GOP or any of our state parties here.

It not suppression you moron, it is making sure that only eligible voters get to vote. Every year the Republican Party has reams of documented evidence that illegal ballots are cast from abandoned homes and or vacant lots.

Maybe a better question is why a city run completely by Democrats has such a high foreclosure rate? Maybe someone might want to ask why these, so called, community groups have to turn to incendiary tactics like some bogus story of voter intimidation? ACORN has a comment??? Give me a break, how many ACORN organizers have been charged with voter fraud this year? 5, 10, 20?

How many documented cases of GOP voter suppression are there? The silence is deafening...

But how many times do we have to prove that organizations like ACORN are taking advantage of disadvantaged voters before the press gets a clue?

Also, The Michigan Messenger is not a legitimate "news" source. It is run by the Center for Independent Media which is run by an Obama donor...go figure.

Be afraid of the campaign that does NOT brag about its ground game.

2008-09-10T08:28:00.000-04:00

Obama Banks on the Ground Game - TIME: "The Obama campaign has placed an emphasis on expanding the electoral map. They say they will have staff in all 50 states, even if those states are not even remotely in play. In Texas, where McCain leads Obama by 11 percentage points, they already have 15 paid staff, which they insist is an investment for the future. 'We certainly don't think it's a waste of money to be there,' Hildebrand says, 'There's a potential House seat we could pick up there and there's a real shot at winning back the State Senate this fall. With redistricting coming up it's very important as to who controls the legislative body there.'

Obama may believe in investing in a mandate to govern — helping to expand Democrats in Congress and in local and municipal races — but that won't matter a whole lot if he fails to win the presidency. 'This 50-state strategy, I hope it's real,' says Bill Steiner, the RNC's director of strategy. 'But I actually think what it's for is to cover up some of their weakness in targeted states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio. States that Democrats can't afford to lose. This is about quality versus quantity.'

Not surprisingly the Obama campaign takes issue with that assessment. Over Labor Day weekend, while waiting for Obama to finish an event, David Axelrod, the nominee's top strategist, noted their strategy is broader than McCain's, and therefore requires a lot more leg work, but has more potential pay off. 'We're going into November 4 with many different scenarios to get to 270 electoral votes,' he says, squinting at airplanes buzzing overhead, part of Cleveland's annual air show. 'I think their path is very, very narrow, as is their thinking.'"

They sure seem pretty confident. Thats ok. It will make it funnier when they lose.

At the RNC behind a dark curtain you can hear the sinister laugh of Michael Beach. He is hunched over reams of information from many states that says we will be just fine.

Dungeons&Dragons and Pop-up Campers

2008-08-15T08:24:00.005-04:00

I am not “normal” for a lot of reasons. One of my many quirks is people watching. I just can’t help it. When I see people I wonder about their voting and consumer habits. This is going to be a long post so bear with me.

A couple of weekends ago my family went camping in one of the many great state parks scattered across Indiana and Michigan. I could not help but noticing a couple of things…

These folks are not poor. Where are the tents? Everyone (but us of course) seems to have pop-up campers, pull behinds and 5th wheels. Does anyone even worry when it rains anymore?
Smoking. Holy cow, I know it is illegal in so many places that smokers feel like freedom fighters in the jungle. I would estimate at least half or more of the adults I observed were smokers.
NASCAR fans. I would say you were more likely to see a flag with a race car number on it than the stars and stripes attached to most of the campers.
Tattoos everywhere. Don’t want to make any stereo-types but I am just calling it as I see it.
Family activity abounds. There has been many a column, op-ed and whiny diatribe about the lack of real talking and family interaction seen in the press. Not at the campsite, fireside talks, throwing the football, fishing were all very common. No computers, Gameboys or blackberries in sight...except mine of course.

Yesterday I was in Indianapolis and was fascinated to see all the attendees to the GenCon event going on this week. What is GenCon you ask? Well, obviously, you don’t play Dungeons & Dragons, World of Warcraft, Magic the Gathering or any of the many other popular fantasy games. So what did I see? Basically, as I said earlier, stereo-types exist for a reason.
18-30 obese males. Not everyone was overweight but most of these guys have slain many dragons but not seen a gym.
Disposable income. If you are going to spend that much money on computer gaming equipment, miniature Orcs and comic books you are doing more than working part time at Best Buy.
Body odor. Ok, I know this may seem mean but if you walk around those tables you can not help but notice more than few guys who could use some of that Axe body spray (hint, hint, great target audience for the folks selling that stuff). Let’s face it, if you are spending 36 hours in front of your X Box 360 slaying the Flood you are not going to have time to shower.
Swords, leather armor, chain mail, fart joke t-shirts, kilts. This is a group of folks who are clearly not afraid to express themselves in what they wear.
What the heck is ESPN? I seriously doubt anyone in there has any idea the Olympics is on or that football season is around the corner.
Highly intelligent. Eavesdropping on some conversations and watching some of the games you can not help but realize that these guys are smart. Encyclopedic knowledge of Chaos Space Marines and World War II German armored vehicles may not look good on a resume but stupid people could not master that much info.

So why would a political campaign care about these groups? Because voter participation and partisan ID is very low amongst both groups. We spend thousands of dollars trying to corner folks at home or get them to admit their party preference on the phone with mediocre results.

Maybe we should stop trying to find them and just go meet them where they gather? Maybe we should spend less time in door-to-door canvass and more time working the booth at the arts and crafts festival or home improvement show? Maybe we should start treating events more like real campaign opportunities and less like troublesome interruptions to “real” campaign work.

I am just sayin’…you should think about it.

***Personal note****

I played my fair share of D&D back in the day and still indulge in online gaming and the SciFi Channel so I hope my fellow geeks understand my observations are not critical, just honest.

SHOCKING - Obama has more offices and staff than McCain!!!

2008-07-23T22:06:00.000-04:00

TheHill.com - Obama takes advantage in field offices: "In states where both campaigns have announced field offices that they’ve opened or plan to open, Obama has a definite advantage. In Ohio, Obama will have 18 offices open by the end of this week, while Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) has eight. In Virginia, Obama has opened 20 while McCain has opened six.

In Missouri, Obama has plans for 30 offices while McCain is aiming to have 10, the Kansas City Star reported.
While Obama has 50 staffers already in the Show Me State with plans to hire 150 altogether, McCain had only a handful with hopes of hiring 50 workers."

This is news? Are you kidding me?

In 2004 we were often outnumbered 4 and 5 to 1 in most battle ground states when you compare offices and staff. In Minnesota alone when you add ACT, MOVEON.org, Kerry Edwards and the state Democrats they had over 400 full time paid staff with over 20 offices. BC04, RNC Victory and State Party barely had 100 with only 5 offices.

My point is can anyone remember the last time a GOP POTUS Campaign had more offices or staff than a Democrat's?

Flashing Electronic Ink On Direct Mail Coming Soon

2008-07-21T21:49:00.000-04:00

E Ink responsible for Esquire's flashing magazine cover - Engadget: "Nary a month after an E Ink exec asserted that e-newspapers would be going commercial by 2009, in flies word that a forthcoming issue of Esquire will likely be the poster child for the change. According to David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief, rags have generally 'looked the same for 150 years,' but all that will change when 100,000 copies of the September issue arrive on newsstands with a flashing electronic cover. The E Ink technology used will be exclusively available to Esquire until 2009, and the blinking 'The 21st Century Begins Now' text will sadly fade after the battery runs dry in 90 days. Still, there's at least some chance the issue will wind up in the Smithsonian, and an even bigger chance magazine racks everywhere will require Kanye-approved sunglasses to even look at in just a few years."

How long before our direct mail has flashing "Get-Out-The-Vote" and neon "donate now" messages?

H/T to Engadget.

Don't think you can buy this one at Dell.

2008-07-21T21:41:00.000-04:00

Ego's Bentley laptop is gonna make you so cool, we swear - Engadget: "Ego's Bentley laptop is gonna make you so cool, we swear"

H/T to Engadget. Need a "high end luxury laptop"? How about the $20k Bentley custom leather bound laptop?

The Myth that more African American turnout will flip the south for Obama

2008-07-19T12:14:00.000-04:00

Campaign Myth 2: Thirty Percent Will Flip the South - Behind the Numbers: "Using the 2004 election as a baseline - this is the election against which final analysis will gauge Obama's ability to 'turn' states 'blue' - and exit poll estimates of the proportion and preferences of black voters, suggests black turnout would have to spike considerably higher - 50 percent or more - for Obama to win many of these states.

Taking Georgia as an example: George W. Bush beat John Kerry by 17 points in 2004, a massive margin, and better than his 12-point victory in 2000. Average GOP advantage: 425,796 votes. But add in 1996 (when Bob Dole beat Clinton by a single point) and 1992 (a narrow Clinton win), and the average drops to 216,218 votes, a much lower threshold. Using the CPS data further confounds the issue. The 2000 CPS estimate for black turnout in Georgia exceeds the total number of African American registered voters in the Georgia Secretary of State's database by more than 27,000.

Substituting the 2000-2004 average for the 1992-2004 average and using estimates of black voter turnout from the state government, shows that black turnout would have to go up by 81 percent to put Obama over the top; again assuming all else remained the same. Compared with 2004 alone, black turnout would have to about double (increase 96 percent) to give Obama the state's 15 Electoral College votes."

Very interesting read with hard facts on the ramifications of additional African American turnout.

Official: State fits Obama's game plan | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star

2008-07-19T11:59:00.000-04:00

Official: State fits Obama's game plan IndyStar.com The Indianapolis Star: "Indiana, Plouffe said, is a 'state people are surprised we are playing so hard in. We believe that Indiana is highly competitive. We think we've got a terrific organization there, and McCain is not on the air and doesn't have any organization to speak of.'
Plouffe said the decision to run TV ads in Indiana and 17 other states is 'not a head fake.'"

Really?

What if the "Indiana plan" was part of a fundraising scheme for Obama?

What if Obama and HRC had already raised 1.7 million dollars out of Indiana and wanted to raise another 5-6 million? Why not invest one to two million dollars into a great diversion like Indiana?

NOTHING will motivate donors more than a real, or at least perceived to be real, local campaign for President. I think that if you "invest" a couple million into Indiana, even though you have no shot to win, but still net 3-4 million you can spend in Ohio, Iowa, Virginia or Colorado.

Why not do it?

Good politics means sometimes you have to twist some arms...and break some legs.

2008-05-27T20:47:00.002-04:00

So I have not been paying enough attention to the GOP race for AG here in Indiana lately. I knew their was a race and that I would be backing Jon Costas for two reasons:

1. He is from northern Indiana and being a big partisan from my part of our state I have to be with my people.
2. He is a former client and I would need a pretty good reason not to back someone I have help get elected in the past.

So what about Greg Zoeller? Greg is a great guy and would make a great AG but I can only choose one.

Now on to my subject. "arm twisting" and "strong arming"? Do we have a kerfuffle?

I know lots of friends and colleagues who are backing Zoeller and some are concerned about what the Governor's endorsement means and some supposed "heavy handed" activity by his surrogates. Let's all be grown ups for a bit.

Party discipline for Republicans has always been a fickle issue. We are all about it when we are getting our own way but cry foul when it goes against us. In all seriousness Indiana Republicans have been without any real party discipline for almost 20 years. Ask anyone over the age of 45 who has been active in GOP politics and it used to be a different political world we operated in. Anyone remember Keith Bulen? I mean come on guys. We used to draw blood on each other on a pretty regular basis.

In regards to the the Governor weighing in...is anyone really surprised? He is the leader of the party. I would be the first one to admit as a former County Chairman that there were times when I wished he was more partisan and skipped all that talk about "bipartisan cooperation". I backed Mike Delph for his Senate bid in 2005 despite some somewhat mixed signals from the Governor's corner. I laid my cards down for my friend and never regretted it (a lot easier when they win). My point is that those of us that are actively involved with politics, despite what we say, often respect and admire political authority and those who use it. I genuinely believe that we want and expect strong leadership from the top of our party (I am a veteran of the Bush Cheney operation know what loyalty to the family means).

In less than a week our party will nominate one of two great guys and to go on to kick the crap out of the Democrats in the fall. So then those of us on the inside of party politics will need to go out for drink, yell a little, trade some stories and move on.

What if we actaully gave activists the yard signs, t-shirts and stickers they wanted?

2008-05-26T21:59:00.002-04:00

Yard signs, t-shirts and stickers.

There are few subjects that will invoke more anger, frustration and crazy stories from veteran campaign staff than these mundane items.

Mundane? Yes. Simple? No.

Anyone who has ever had the privilege of working on any campaign of any size is familiar with the sanity-testing exercise of keeping donors, activists and volunteers happy. Undoubtedly, these supporters of our candidate want a visual representation of their support for our candidate. It used to be we could give them a "Smith for Congress" yard sign or a "Jones for Governor" bumper sticker and call it a day. Not anymore. Welcome to a micro targeted, coalition driven, Long Tail world of campaign collateral.

C'mon Chris I thought this would be a substantive discussion on REAL campaign logistics. Trust me, it is. Just hang with me for a few minutes.

We are starting to see more segmentation of campaign collateral as our supporters ID themselves as "Veterans for Smith", "Viva la Bush!", "Sportsman for Kennedy" or even "Asian American Pacific Islanders for Bloomberg". I am not making that last one up, I have a button to prove it.

Enter the The Long Tail. Recently I finished reading the The Long Tail by Chris Anderson and was blown away by such a simple but powerful concept. People want more choice in everything they do...including their politics.

Now add Threadless. Read a great article in Inc. Magazine on the success of Threadless and how it uses its user driven community that cuts out all the advertising and marketing and just prints the shirts customers actually want. Free lance designers upload their art, community members vote on their favorites and then that same community buys them by the truck load.

So what if a big campaign that had some online store component actually asked it's online supporters (specifically the small dollar donors) what they wanted? How many "Frat boys for McCain", "Dentists for Coleman" or "Pet owners for Mitch" would want a t-shirt, bumper sticker or yard sign?

Even better than having to give it away at Campaign HQ all the time what if supporters actually pay for their own stuff. Allow them to "actively" participate in the campaign and engage on their own terms under their own label.

Now that would be a cool idea.

Republicans voting in the IN Dem Primary prefer Clinton by 8 points.

2008-05-17T21:34:00.000-04:00

From the excellent blog at the Washington Post ...

More "Sincere" Crossover - Behind the Numbers: "First, Clinton edged Obama in Indiana's open primary among self-identified Democrats, 52 to 48 percent. And removing all GOP-identifiers from the voter pool does not budge the overall result. Perhaps the focus on non-Democrats is misplaced.
But the topline numbers are so intriguing.
Republicans made up 10 percent of all Democratic voters in Indiana last night, their highest share of the electorate in any Democratic primary this year other than Mississippi. Not only did Clinton win Republicans in Indiana by eight percentage points, but about six in 10 of those who supported her in the primary said they would vote for McCain over Clinton in a hypothetical general election match-up. (Most Republicans voting for Obama said they would stick with him in the fall.)"

So who is using Twitter?

2008-05-17T21:04:00.000-04:00

Twitter Traffic Explosion: Who’s behind it all?: "The gender and age breakdowns indicate that users skew young and male. These two charts are indexed to the U.S internet average, where “100” is the average.
Twitter users are 10% more likely to be male than the average internet user. This skew is nearly identical across all three Usage groups.
Twitter skews heavily towards the college/twenty-something crowd. Twitter attracts 18-24 year-olds at nearly twice the rate of an average U.S website.
Splitting age demographics based on usage intensity shows that heavy users tend to skew older than visitors who only hit the site once a month. This could indicate that while the younger segments are more exploratory, the 25-44 year old segments have found more value in Twitter and started to ramp up usage.
Twitter may be growing like crazy but it’s yet to go mainstream. Interestingly, Twitter’s strategy of letting developers re-purpose its data may help the service reach the tipping point by making Twitter’s value more accessible. Check back next week to see how these twitter based sites (like twitterlocal and summize) are building a loyal base."

Campaigns move on out of Indiana

2008-05-08T12:12:00.000-04:00

South Bend Tribune: Campaign offices pack up: "'I'm not sure what I didn't do,' she said. 'I worked on the phones, I canvassed, I trained people how to work on the phone, I helped to manage the office, I did a lot of busy office work, and helped clean. Whatever they needed, I was here to do.'

She'll keep volunteering, too, working from her Mishawaka home to support Clinton in the states that have yet to vote, including West Virginia, Kentucky and Oregon."

I wonder if she will vote for McCain now?

Da' Region gets some national props.

2008-05-01T13:26:00.000-04:00

The District That May Decide Indiana - TIME: "The district, in the northwest part of the state, in theory should be Obama's. It's almost entirely in the Chicago media orbit (part of it is actually in the city's metro area) and it has been exposed to Obama's political career as long as any part of the country. It is disproportionately weighted to groups that support him, with 87% of the population urban and 18% of it African-American. The mayor of Gary, the largest city in the district, has endorsed Obama. And various parts of the local Democratic machine are turning it on for him. Clinton's local surrogates just complained that Gary high schools have been using tax dollars to bus voting-aged kids to the polling places for early voting field trips over the last few weeks."

Obama pushes me to vote early thru Facebook

2008-05-01T12:16:00.002-04:00

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/inevlookup?src=SEM_ev

Nice ad targeted to me as an IN resident reminding me of the process and when it ends.

Academics Question Conventional Political Wisdom

2008-04-30T22:14:00.000-04:00

Campaigns and Elections' Politics Magazine: "In the revised edition of their book, Green and Gerber make use of data spanning 9 years and find a good deal of evidence to bolster their earlier findings, namely that outreach in the form of direct mail and robocalls for GOTV purposes are relatively ineffective. The data Green and Gerber rely on stretches back to 1998 and was gathered in controlled experiments in the field with actual campaigns.
Among their conclusions: 'Direct mail is expensive, and its capacity to mobilize voters is typically rather limited.' As for robocalls, Green and Gerber say they 'might help you to stretch your resources in ways that allow you to contact the maximum number of people, but don't expect to move them very much, if at all.'"

Personally, I think there is some truth to some of their findings (especially the part about literature drops being completely useless). I don't agree with all their findings but I think as political professionals we need to not be afraid of the questions. We need to constantly assess our efforts and ask ourselves what we think works and what we can actually prove works.

Top GOTV callers given credit by Obama

2008-04-21T14:23:00.000-04:00

Nice touch by Obama to give his top callers credit by name on line. Better if they gave addresses too so we could make sure these folks do get any GOP mail or contact. They are obviously not "undecided" voters.

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In: "Top 10 Callers
1. Claudia Sutton4322 Calls
2. Tamar Lasky4145 Calls
3. Henry Krempel1392 Calls
4. Christopher Martin1211 Calls
5. Bill Wack1175 Calls
6. William & Doreen Baer921 Calls
7. Erik Christensen671 Calls
8. Thomas McGrath540 Calls
9. john smith525 Calls
10. Claudette Whyte523 Calls"

Great Candidate Training in Ohio

2008-04-21T11:24:00.000-04:00

Good session at the Ohio GOP candidate training this weekend. The setup, prep and most important food were all top notch.

Candidate Training Seminar: 2008 Candidate Training Seminar: "Candidates and campaign staff listen to a breakout session on New Media campaign tactics at the Ohio Republican Party's 2008 Candidate Training Seminar on Saturday, April 19."

Stickers may not win votes but they may motivate supporters.

2008-04-20T00:01:00.000-04:00

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."

Only the Democrats...

2008-04-18T21:38:00.000-04:00

The funny part is the RNC is further ahead and our program will work better and cost less.

Democrats are proud of knowing specific details like football schedules in competitive states? Gimme a break, Beach and the Political Department probably has a spreadsheet on weather and average rain fall already worked out. We are way ahead.

Marc Ambinder (April 18, 2008) - Atlas Project Close To Completion: "The Democrats have never done this before on a national scale – just ask any Kerry-Edwards ’04 state director whether they were handed detailed, integrated, fully updated campaign plans when they scrambled to put their coordinated campaigns together in 2004. Rosenthal will work with outside political groups like the Fund for America and America Votes; the company, he said, has built a firewall to prevent the party from learning about his side of the operation.
The project wrote atlases for 15 states – CO, VA, NH, IA, WI, MN, OH, PA, MI, MO, WV, FL, AZ, NM, and NV – they’ve stopped updating their Arizona database because they expect Sen. John McCain to win."

We must catch up.

2008-04-17T20:35:00.000-04:00

Why Dems Rule the Web - TIME: "Republicans, who once were far ahead of Democrats in whizbang TV technology, let their party fall behind the nerd curve as Howard Dean and later John Kerry revolutionized and then exploited online fund-raising in 2004. Four years later, the Democrats have widened that gap, using the Internet not only to raise cash but also to organize canvassers and plot get-out-the-vote efforts. Republicans say the Democrats' Web advantage is due to not just greater enthusiasm but also smarter strategies. 'Everything Obama does is fundamentally about a people-powered democracy and a people-powered campaign,' says Mindy Finn, a Republican consultant who ran Mitt Romney's Internet operation. 'McCain's message is different.'"

Republicans will catch up eventually...hopefully sooner rather than later.

Haha - Voter Vault is better and it is free for users.

2008-04-14T22:28:00.000-04:00

Clinton Aide’s Databank Venture Breaks Ground in Politicking - New York Times: "But, at the same time, Mr. Ickes is also wearing another hat. He is president of Catalist, a for-profit databank that has sold its voter files to the Obama and the Clinton presidential campaigns for their get-out-the-vote efforts. With his equity stake in the firm, Mr. Ickes stands to benefit financially no matter which candidate becomes the Democratic nominee.
In creating Catalist, Mr. Ickes, who was deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House, has formed a rare entity on the political scene, a for-profit limited-liability corporation that allows wealthy Democratic donors to help progressive organizations and candidates by investing in the company. And if Catalist, which has data on 230 million Americans, is successful as a business, these donors-turned-investors stand to reap financial returns from using their money to help elect Democrats."

I can hear Chad Barth and Jon Black laughing back at the Building now.

Job Opportunity With Students for Life of America Field Agent Program

2008-04-14T21:09:00.002-04:00

Job Description --You will start with a week of intense training to give you the skills you need to start and help lead pro-life groups on college campuses. Subsequently, you will travel your region for 11 weeks forming groups at college campuses by networking, motivating, and helping students host events.

SFLA will provide the training and resources you need to be successful. In addition, we will network you with other pro-life leaders from your region that will help you accomplish your goals. No other job will offer you the opportunity to travel the country to meet and work with pro-life college students while helping them develop into leaders that save the lives of the unborn.

Recent graduates or current students who are interested in taking a semester off are particularly suited for the job. Prior activism, leadership, or pro-life experience is encouraged. A car is required.

Benefits
• All travel and transportation expenses
• Cell phone and communication expenses
• Housing expenses
• Earn $375 per week
• After beginning 6 groups earn an additional $500 per group started
• Bonuses up to $1000
• Other expenses: We will reimburse up to $200 per week for items you purchase specifically for SFL functions, such as fliers, food, beverages, etc.
• Job Referrals: Networking is key to gaining a job within the pro-life movement. If you perform your duties as a Field Agent well we will help you find another job upon completion of the field program. When openings occur in our office we give preference to our Field Agents.

How to ApplyEmail your resume to jobs@studentsforlife.org.

When "Hope" meets the reality of urban politics.

2008-04-11T10:48:00.001-04:00

Barack Obama may lose support in Philadelphia over 'street money' - Los Angeles Times: "Before the 2002 state elections, a reporter watched two practitioners of the street-money arts in action: Campbell and U.S. Rep. Robert A. Brady, a ward leader and chair of Philadelphia's Democratic committee.

Brady was sitting in his campaign office with two of his political lieutenants. He reached into a desk drawer at one point and pulled out a $50 bill -- street money. Brady tore it in two and gave each man a half. Then the men made a bet: Whoever pulled in the most Democratic votes that day from his precincts would get both halves."

Because belief in a candidate and their ideas are just not enough.

If this does not display the dark underside of the Democratic party's relationship with minority voters I don't know what does.

Hold on, I am getting a call on my watch.

2008-04-09T09:52:00.000-04:00

Van Der Led's WM2 cellphone is Slayer approved - Engadget: "Van Der Led's WM2 cellphone is Slayer approved
Posted Apr 9th 2008 7:47AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables

Can it be? Why... why yes, a watch with integrated cellphone we might (might!) actually wear. The Van Der Led WM2 is a quad-band GSM watch with itty bitty 1.3-inch, 260k color touchscreen display, stereo Bluetooth, up to 240-hours of standby or 300-minutes talk, and 1GB of storage for a few of your MP3 or MP4 files. Better yet, from a distance, those uber geeky keys on the numeric pad look just like the glittering wrist studs capable of mesmerizing Death Metal, she-groupies backstage. Yours for €300 (about $471 US Rubbles) starting Monday. Actual product pressed to flesh in the gallery below."

SEIU Spends $700k...just in PA for Obama's Turnout

2008-04-08T20:26:00.000-04:00

Obama gaining on Clinton in Pennsylvania - CNN.com: "The Illinois senator has also heavily benefited from the Service Employees International Union, which according to recently filed FEC reports has spent well over $700,000 on get-out-the-vote-efforts there. Watch more of Obama campaigning in Pennsylvania »"

Remember...Union dues are to take care of members and organize workers to lift themselves out of poverty.

Yeah, right.

It is to pay back the politicians who help them grow stronger and exercise more clout.

Could the Mayor of Detroit be helping the GOP?

2008-04-04T13:38:00.000-04:00

Of course he is not doing it on purpose but Kwame may be helping us out.

"Michigan Liberal::: Could Kwame cost us a moment in history?: "And, since most everyone seems to think that winning Michigan is critical to winning the White House, it just has to be asked at what level do Kwame Kilpatrick's troubles threaten the fortunes for the guy who is the current front runner ... Barack Obama. I think maybe a successful GOTV operation need not have the mayor running the thing, but I don't know that'll be possible if the Detroit political machine is paralyzed over the mayor's scandals. But, the bit about state and national leaders not wanting to be seen with the mayor in public is very accurate."

This shows some real inside baseball of Dems on how important inner city African American voting is to their POTUS nominee.

Partisan Density Makes GOTV More Difficult For The GOP

2008-03-30T16:53:00.001-04:00

New strategies for mobilizing Latinos NDN Blog: "In a major break from traditional get-out-the-vote strategy, the party did not rely solely on contacting voters at home, but took their efforts to the workplaces of Latinos. The party did not focus only on door-to-door outreach trying, to make contact at times people might be at home- instead they went to where they work. They went to Latino businesses, such as construction sites and restaurants, and talked to employees and customers. They posted information in the mercados and supermercados. They worked with employers to get information to and make contact with the employees.
Staff and volunteers placed 1,657 posters and distributed 8,963 brochures in all types of businesses that were Latino-owned or had a large Latino customer or client base, including taco shops, tienditas, beauty salons, and swap meets."

Democrats have a huge advantage in campaigns like this based on the frequent density of their voters. I don't know that I have ever heard of a precinct that is actually, baseline, 90% Republican yet it is very common in some cities to have multiple precincts that are over 90% Democratic.

Our challenge is to seek out GOP voters no matter where they are and contact them no matter how many barriers they put up.

Don't Wait For Election Day

2008-03-30T16:32:00.000-04:00

South Bend Tribune: Ballot shortages a continuing problem: "For one, even the best-made plans have gone awry; officials in state after state have ordered more ballots, only to see turnouts exceed their most ambitious estimates.
Some states — California, for example — extended registration deadlines, in part to give would-be voters more time to sign up for the first Democratic presidential nomination race between a black man and a woman.
But some election officials say those extensions have necessitated a form of fortune telling when it comes to deciding how many ballots to order."

In Indiana we have
- 30 Days to vote absentee
- 14 Days to vote early

If you wait until election day you are making your own problems. Vote early.

P.S. Another helpful tip, if you vote early (and the campaign/party does a good job) you can avoid all those pesky Get-Out-The-Vote calls.

Why I Get Paid BEFORE Mail Goes Out

2008-03-30T16:19:00.000-04:00

Cash-strapped Clinton fails to pay bills - Kenneth P. Vogel - Politico.com: "Some of Clinton’s biggest debts are to pollster and chief strategist Mark Penn, who’s owed $2.5 million; direct mail company MSHC Partners, which is owed $807,000; phone-banking firm Spoken Hub, which is waiting for $771,000; and ad maker Mandy Grunwald, who’s owed $467,000."

To all my clients out there who wonder why I require payment for mail up front.

The 30 And Under Vote Does Not Watch The News.

2008-03-29T14:17:00.001-04:00

hat tip to Tech Republican

The Second Cup - Thursday, March 27 TechRepublican.com: "Fully two-thirds of Web users under 30 say they use social networking sites, while fewer than 20 percent of older users do. MySpace and Facebook create a sense of connection to the candidates.

Between the two sites, Mr. Obama has about one million “friends,” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, has roughly 330,000, and Senator John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, has more than 140,000. Four out of 10 young people have watched candidate speeches, interviews, commercials or debates online, according to Pew, substantially more than people 30 and older.

Fully two-thirds of Web users under 30 say they use social networking sites, while fewer than 20 percent of older users do. MySpace and Facebook create a sense of connection to the candidates. Between the two sites, Mr. Obama has about one million “friends,” Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination, has roughly 330,000, and Senator John McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, has more than 140,000.

Four out of 10 young people have watched candidate speeches, interviews, commercials or debates online, according to Pew, substantially more than people 30 and older."

If you are looking to talk to to anyone under 30 don't obsess about the evening news.

A little sneak peek for all you crackberry addicts.

2008-03-29T13:42:00.000-04:00

BlackBerry 9000 in the wild - Engadget: "Today, Engadget answers the singular question on the mind of everyone out there who's sitting at a solid oak desk in a glass office wearing a suit as they read this: what's up with the next BlackBerry? The rumored BlackBerry 8xxx / 9000 series is getting a lot clearer today, and we're happy to report that RIM's cooking up a beauty to keep its legion of devotees loyal -- and maybe even win a few converts along the way. Head on over to Engadget Mobile for pictures and video of the little beast in action!"

Build a bigger audience for your RSS feed

2008-03-26T11:43:00.000-04:00

11 Ways to Find New RSS Subscribers for Your Blog: "11 Ways to Find New RSS Subscribers for Your Blog
RSS 102 comments This past two weeks I’ve been talking about how to make your RSS feed ‘Pop’ - to stand out from the crowd a little - however covering this topic has caused a few readers to ask RSS related questions that don’t necessarily relate to improving your feed but which are worth covering.
One of the questions I’ve been asked numerous times this week is:
How do I get People to Subscribe to my RSS feed?"

Great tips on building your audience for your blog.

I probably should actually take some of this guy's advice.

$350 Million For Leftist Organizations To Take Over Our Government

2008-03-19T11:41:00.002-04:00

One of the greatest myths in politics is that Republicans spend more on campaigns than Democrats. Don't get me wrong, we have some fabulous capitalists in our party who spend a lot of money but when you add up the totals...especially on the race for President, we usually get outspent.

In 2004 if you add up the campaigns, Party Committees and 3rd party groups expenditures the GOP got outspent by more than 120 million and that is just the money we can track.

The following is from CNSN News

"A coalition of liberal organizations announced plans Tuesday to move "the most expensive mobilization in history this election season."MoveOn.org, Rock the Vote, Acorn, National Council of La Raza, Women's Voices Women Vote Action Fund, and the AFL-CIO announced plans for a $350 million initiative for the 2008 elections at the Take Back America conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the liberal Campaign for America's Future."

The part that really honks me off about this is take a look at these partners in crime...

Moveon.org - started to deflect attention from perjury and sex scandal
Rock the Vote - MTV dabbles in politics
ACORN - subsidized by YOUR tax dollars whose mission of "community engagement" is really a Hugo Chavez-like socialist organization
Council of La Raza - largest Latino rights organization in the country, not a bad thing but is Democratic controlled White House part of that mission statement?
Women's Voices Women Vote Action Fund - credit to this group that they are actually doing something akin to their actual mission statement
AFL CIO - yeah, kind of enough said there

The aim of these groups?

"Hogue said they would be highlighting Republicans' "wrong priorities" through paid advertisements and their field networks.Due to various tax statuses within the coalition, Hogue noted that "to the extent that we are legally able to coordinate, we will" on efforts targeting different demographics."

So am I surprised? Not really, but I am frustrated that these "not-for profit" organizations are nothing more than thinly veiled front organizations for the Democratic National Committee. Most of them take union dues or contributions from donors on one premise and then seem to spend it on another.

Does anyone think La Raza or ACORN goes to it's donors and says "We need to defeat Republicans at every level of government!" If they are then they are lying to the public by pretending to be "community organizations" if they are not saying that then they are lying to their donors.

Then the media will get a brain cramp and somehow not see these clowns for what they are - tax shelters for blatant partisan activity.

Ugh...it is not easy being right.

Geeking out with Micromedia

2008-03-19T00:00:00.000-04:00

I will be the first to admit I don't understand all of this but it sounds pretty cool. h/t to my man Jeremiah Owyang .

How Traditional Media Experiments with MicroMedia (Twitter, Kyte, Utterz): "How Traditional Media Experiments with MicroMedia (Twitter, Kyte, Utterz)
March 18th, 2008 Category: MicroMedia

I met Jemima Kiss (embed above), a technology journalist for the UK Guardian at the SXSW bloghaus. I asked her about her use of Micromedia, and most importantly if she’s using these tools to find breaking stories. I know a handful of reporters that are watching Twitter to see what folks are saying. Listen in to the

In the above audio embed, I also interviewed Joe Ruiz, of San Antonio’s KSAT news who is trying to figure out how Twitter can be used for his local TV Station."

Does it get more ironic than this?

2008-03-17T21:03:00.002-04:00

White Men Will Likely Swing Democratic Race -- Political Wire: "In the fierce campaign between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, 'a battle dominated by questions of race and gender, white men have emerged as perhaps the single critical swing constituency,' according to the Washington Post."

Congratulations to my WASP brothers on the Democrat side, you are relevant! You are the root of all evil, responsible for all our nations problems and way too privileged (dripping with sarcasm) but HRC and Obama still want to talk to you anyway.

Angela Faulkner is powerful and famous.

2008-03-17T20:43:00.001-04:00

South Bend Tribune: BUSINESS PEOPLE: "GRANGER -- Angela Faulkner, president of Granger based Faulkner Strategies, has been selected to sit on the board of the newly formed Indiana Women Business Owners PAC. Established in 2007, the IWBO PAC's goal is to support the economic development of women-owned businesses within the state.

The nonpartisan PAC committee will target and talk with state legislators about several initiatives, including the possible MBE/WBE designation of nonprofit organizations and affordable health care for small businesses."

Obama's team reinvents Democrat Field Operations

2008-03-11T22:19:00.001-04:00

techPresident – Power to the Edge: Obama's California Field Operation from the Future

I have slobbered on Obama's Field Operation on my blog before...and yes I will do it again.

In 2004 and 2006 the GOP utilized a system we called the Extranet, in a nutshell it sucked and seemed to have been designed by desk warriors and not Field guys. I am sure all the intentions were great but there was little if any practical application for it. In 2004 BC04 ran laps around Kerry and his allies because we used MS Excel and concrete goals and results.

Obama's team is taking it to the next level with mybarackobama.com (I admit I have an account just to check out the functionality).

"The Obama campaign is distributed and bottom-up in a way that is the clearest example of what a post-broadcast, distributed and participatory democracy is going to look like. The evolution in campaign tactics happening right now closely parallels what's happening in the military, corporations, government and other large organizations. The dropping costs and increasing reliability and flexibility of information technology is having profound effects on how these organizations make things happen."

I read Wikinomics last year and it really caused me to ask myself -- why we do some of the things we do on campaigns the way we do? Usually it always comes back to control. We love to have it. Embracing a true decentralized campaign is tough for any experienced campaigner to accept but it is necessary to evolve and win.

Some of the organic stuff that Ron Paul, Obama and Huckabee have done this year is truly ground breaking. I look forward to seeing how Campaign 08 will change and progress from 04.

Thanks to Ruffini for getting my brain moving on this. I am going to digest this article on McCain's 10 regions and blog on it later.

Dyngus Day...all the things you need to know.

2008-03-06T20:25:00.002-05:00

So the Democratic primary is coming to Indiana. HRC and Obama will come to the Hoosier state and learn all about us.

Part of our proud primary tradition is Dyngus Day.

Dynga-what?

"Dyngus Day, celebrated the day after Easter, will be March 24. Although it has its roots in Polish religious history, Dyngus Day has evolved into a political holiday locally. Solidarity Day is a more recent holiday started in the black community on the same day to celebrate black heritage and promote political activism.

One of the most noted Dyngus Day visits occurred in 1968, when presidential candidate Robert Kennedy stumped through the city (you can already hear the Obama comparisons).The primary election schedules were different then, without all of the early primaries and caucuses. Indiana was viewed as a key state in the contest for delegates.Kennedy was involved in a close race with Eugene McCarthy, and favorite son Gov. Roger D. Branigan also was on the ballot. All three visited South Bend at some point during the campaign."

It has pretty much devolved into a political sausage/beer campaignapalooza. The highlight of the day will be when we all gather at the Westside Democratic and Civic Club for lunch. You pay $7 to get in and that entitles you to a plate of kraut, hard boiled egg, fresh sausage and a cold beverage of your choice.

Then the real fun starts.

By around 12:30PM the club chairman takes the stage and welcomes everyone (including the Republicans...even though they won't let you touch the microphone). Then he introduces the candidates one by one. Inevitably at least one of the local ones will be half smashed and will slur insults at the President and Republicans in general. Good times.

Because of the tradition the media will ALL be there. Tradition? Oh yeah, it was actually a religious holiday at one time.

"Dyngus Day or Wet Monday (Polish Śmigus-dyngus, Lany Poniedziałek, Polewanka or Oblewanka) is the name for Easter Monday in Poland. In the Czech Republic it is called Velikonoční pondělí or Pomlázka. Both countries practice a peculiar custom on this day.
In Poland, traditionally, early in the morning boys awake girls by pouring a bucket of water on their head and strike them about the legs with long thin twigs or switches made from willow, birch or decorated tree branches (palmy wielkanocne); however, the earliest documented[citation needed] records of Dyngus Day in Poland are from the 15th century, almost half a millennium after Poland adopted Christianity."

If you are lucky you might still see a local Democrat chasing young girls with cold beer intent on, well something.

Lazy voters, we will cater to you...

2008-03-04T22:14:00.001-05:00

As I write this Barack Obama’s campaign is filing suit in Federal Court to hold polls open in Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties in Ohio.

Apparently it rained kind of hard in some areas of Ohio today and some people may have not made it.

I preface my rant with the fact that I think voting is vital and everyone should do it…once per election.

In Ohio you can cast a ballot up to 25 days prior to election day. On election day you have 12 hours to vote.

Every month people plan and schedule to pay their bills, attend worship services, buy groceries, pick up their kids and record their favorite TV shows. Don’t you think they could make a little time to plan on voting…even if it rains.

I personally have worked on campaigns in other places and countries where people travel for days to go vote. Countries where people wait in line under threat of violence for 6 or more hours to vote. Countries where people get killed on election day. And I am not just talking about Lake County Indiana.

It is completely stupid that we coddle some of our fellow Americans who need parental supervision and, apparently, a court order to go and play on the field of our American Democracy. It is shameful and insulting to the millions around the world who would risk their lives every day for just a taste of American democracy when we have some who were born here who don’t participate because they can not get it super sized or through a drive thru.

Obama's self organizing grassroots.

2008-03-03T13:59:00.000-05:00

Campaigns will look more and more like this in the future. Less central control and more organic and self organizing.

Groundswell (Incorporating Charlene Li's Blog): Could the Social Network Create An Obama Win?: "There's lots of talk in politics about 'energizing the base.' my.barackobama.com is the base for Barack Obama. I still feel there's a flaw in this social network of Obama supporters -- I've seen no evidence that Obama is listening to anything they say. But terms of taking a base of supporters and turning them into a force to accomplish your goals, this may be the most powerful example there is."

I am going to be sick...

2008-03-03T08:31:00.000-05:00

H/T to Ruffini.

Obama now over 1 million individual donors. Someone get me some Tums.

Patrick Ruffini :: Obama $70M?: "Remember this graphic? The one we used to power the crowdsourced spreadsheet?"

How the sausage gets made.

2008-03-02T21:40:00.000-05:00

A must read on modern campaign communications.

How the sausage gets made - John F. Harris - Politico.com: "The exchanges show the speed and ferocity with which operatives inside presidential campaigns argue even the slightest nuances of stories they believe could be damaging. They also show the hectic, on-the-fly judgments that journalists make as they try to abide by standards of fairness while pushing back against dubious spin.

Among a volley of staff members and surrogates for Obama’s campaign to call Mahtesian, the most combative was deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer.

Mahtesian, who has written about national politics for nearly two decades, said Sunday he was taken aback by Pfeiffer’s bellicose tone.

'Who are you? I've never heard of you. What's your background?' Pfeiffer demanded to know, Mahtesian recalled."

Purple states have a deep bench of grassroots

2008-02-25T21:44:00.000-05:00

Being a targeted "battle ground" state has its advantages.

Grassroots grow deep in Ohio - Jeanne Cummings - Politico.com: "As the White House organized churches and gun owners, Democrats were steeped in the tools and tactics of organization by party nominee John F. Kerry’s campaign and the independent organization America Coming Together, which was fueled by millions donated by wealthy liberals such as George Soros. The Kerry camp and ACT produced historic Democratic turnout but still not enough to best the Bush-Cheney reelection machine.

In 2006, still smarting from the presidential campaign, Democrats were ready for payback. They mobilized to win statewide and federal races, moving out of the traditionally Democratic cities and organizing in the pro-Bush rural areas and Appalachia."

Where did the POTUS Campaigns spend their money?

2008-02-22T09:45:00.000-05:00

Many Eyes: Spending

Click on the visualization to check out how much the campaigns spent on TV, mail, website, consultants, donuts, pizza and all the important things that make a campaign work.

How many people read Drudge instead of the NY Times?

2008-02-22T09:39:00.000-05:00

Many Eyes: Comparison of Daily readership of NY Times and The Drudge Report

Just in case you were wondering how pathetic the New York times is. Times circulation is on the left (no pun intended) and Drudge's traffic is on the right.

Liberals in Michigan ID key to victory - turn out more felons.

2008-02-17T21:25:00.000-05:00

Michigan Liberal: Michigan Politics Blog:: GOTV Design - If We're Serious.:

Funny liberal rant that has some nuggets of truth in it. Fairly decent description of Democrat demographic groups that would be useful for turnout. My personal favorite on prisoners is below.

You just can't make stuff like this up.

"1) Prisoners in local jails. Contrary to public belief, even convicted felons can vote in Michigan, as long as they are not currently incarcerated serving a sentence. Since half of all jail inmates are technically awaiting trial or sentencing, they are eligible to vote. The problem isn't a legal bar to obtaining absentee ballots for them, but the painstaking work needed to figure out which ones are registered to vote, and then to identify someone on the outside (likely to be a regular visitor to the prisoner) who can carry the application and get a signature on it. Another problem is the high rate of 'churn' - people are booked and released constantly, and many are only in jail for a few days or weeks. A third problem is the typical inmate's utter lack of political interest or knowledge. A fourth is their typical low level of literacy and inability to follow directions. The only 'plus' is that typical inmates - if they somehow manage to vote - are at least 80% Democratic in orientation, so there isn't much point in screening for partisan orientation. In the two months preceding the November election, at least 20,000 people will spend at least 7 days in jail in Michigan. If we could get 10% of them to vote - virtually none do so on their own - we'd be adding 2000 votes statewide."

Hola! Vota por Obama!

2008-02-15T10:51:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In Kevin Florida's Blog: Phone Bankers - Your Hard Work is Getting Notice!

Phone banking in Espanol.

Democrat GOTV software application in PA

2008-02-15T09:53:00.002-05:00

Interesting article on a Dem congressional campaign's turnout program in 2006 in suburban Philadelphia. The tactics are not revolutionary or earth shattering but it is amazing in this day and age that don't have something like this as a standard for all their campaigns.

GOPers can complain all day about Voter Vault (and many do) but it is still much better than this system.

Clinton sends her 'stopper' to Texas / It's must-win there, because she trails Obama in delegates

2008-02-15T09:43:00.000-05:00

Clinton sends her 'stopper' to Texas / It's must-win there, because she trails Obama in delegates:

Team Clinton seems to show quite the contrast to the Barack "Yes we can...do something?" Obama. He talks about Hope and a vision for tomorrow while HRC brings in hitmen.

"The bespectacled Smith is considered a take-no-prisoners political operative whose dogged studies into opponents' backgrounds earned him the reputation as one of the nation's most feared opposition researchers.
'I've seen him walk into a room and the opposition candidate will literally start mumbling,' former Democratic strategist Clint Reilly once said of him. 'They're just terrified with his presence.'
Known as the 'Doctor Death' of political opposition research, he has led winning campaigns in recent years for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Attorney General Jerry Brown."

Just when you thought Linc Chafee could not be any worse...

2008-02-14T22:37:00.000-05:00

Former GOP Senator to Endorse Obama - TIME

This is the big bag of feces we spent so much time trying to save in 2006?

So glad we worked so hard to make sure he survived his primary.

Ok so I am completely with the idea of a big tent GOP that includes moderates. But...sooner or later we need to start some sort of gut check on how big a piece of crap you have to be before we pitch you overboard. Being an incumbent should not be some sort of free pass on actually having to act like a Republican.

HRC thinks GOTV means Get On TeleVision.

2008-02-11T22:09:00.000-05:00

You Can't Reap What You Didn't Sow - Craig Crawford's Trail Mix
This one just makes me laugh. Hillary Clinton poured her cash into TV and neglected her GOTV and now she is paying the price.

Who is giving to Presidential Campaigns in your neighborhood?

2008-02-11T20:49:00.000-05:00

46614 zip code: -- Huffington Post

Everyone should have the right to know their neighbors political leanings...right? Of course, it is public info and thanks to this fun widget you can look them up by name, city or zip code. Have fun.

Thousands of voters' ballots tossed out.

2008-02-09T15:54:00.000-05:00

Politics Thousands of voters' ballots tossed out Seattle Times Newspaper

Surely this is a Republican plot. Someone call Al Sharpton!

Things like this happen all the time except when it happens in the General Election... then all voters are miraculously smart and Repbublicans are so clever we can orchestrate it.

(Rolling my eyes)

I hate how ignorant the media can be.

Grass-roots organizing gives Obama an edge - Los Angeles Times

2008-02-09T15:45:00.000-05:00

Grass-roots organizing gives Obama an edge - Los Angeles Times

Good story on how Obama's grassroots give him the edge.

"The costly effort began in the spring of 2007, in part to counter the organizational resources of unions and Democratic Party organizations that were largely committed to Obama's Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. The precinct-level operations were to employ theories of community organizing Obama practiced in Chicago before getting into electoral politics.

Last April, Obama's national field director, Cuauhtemoc "Temo" Figueroa, wrote an internal memo titled "Turning Enthusiasm into Organization," a blueprint for turning Obama's rock star popularity into a more professional and sustained operation.The purpose, Figueroa wrote, is to provide supporters with the tools to create "self-sufficient, interdependent teams that take responsibility for all aspects of a campaign within their congressional district."

Trained, empowered and then trusted their grassroots organizations. Very cool.

I would be willing to bet that one of the other strengths was NOT being an existing union or party organization. It probably gave them the freedom to try new things, ignore "traditional" methods and really innovate.

Don't walk into the light!

2008-02-07T10:16:00.000-05:00

Inspiration vs. Substance - TIME

I would like a t-shirt with Obama's picture that says "Don't walk towards the light!"

I mean seriously. Even as a Republican you catch yourself listening with that glazed look and going, wow, he just said...absolutely nothing...but it sounded great.

Obama is the fantasy canidate that the Deaniac/anti-war left has been waiting for.

2008-02-02T10:09:00.000-05:00

MoveOn.org: Democracy in Action
In 2004 Howard Dean became the vehicle for a angry and frustrated anti-war left of the Democratic party that was ready to rock the establishment vote. Ultimately, even Dean's campaign manager Joe Trippi realized that the support for Dean was not really about Dean. He was just the vessel that this crowd chose to channel their support. He was bascially not strong enough, not polished enough and just too angry to carry their banner and he famously flamed out during a speech to supporters in Iowa in 2004.

So they swallowed thier disgust, held thier nose and backed John Kerry. They consoled themselves knowing that it was never about Kerry it was about opposition to Bush. They efforts and rhetoric often rang hollow as it was more about anger and rarely about support for Kerry. So they took their beating in 2004 and hoped for a better day and a better messanger.

He arrived at thier conventoin in 2004.

The smooth and optimistic Obama is the fantasy candidate they have longed for. He is liberal enough - number 1 according to National Journal in the US Senate. He is not part of the Washington establishment Democrats they loathe and believe have held their cause back. Most importantly he opposes the war and voted against it.

The endorsement by Moveon.org is that final line item on the check list and they are now ready to roar.

Will GOTV texting swamp some cell networks on Super Tuesday?

2008-02-02T09:43:00.000-05:00

The Smart Mobbing of Super Tuesday Threat Level from Wired.com
It will be fascinating to see if any campaigns will be really this aggressive in thier GOTV to younger voters. My guess is the compressed calandar has prevented most from putting together a really compreshensive GOTV organization in most states that would involve lots of this.

Having said that, maybe some organic self-organized groups within Obama's, Huck's or even Ron Paul's supporters will be able to put together something similar.

Google Earth 3D Electoral College

2008-02-01T23:25:00.000-05:00

3D Electoral College -- Political Wire

Nothing like seeing the electoral college...from space!

Obama whacks Hillary in Health Care mail piece.

2008-02-01T23:11:00.000-05:00

The Page - by Mark Halperin - TIME
Love to see them go after each other. We all knew Hillary wanted us all to experience Nationalized Health Care. But who would have thought that Obama could be, dare I say, somewhat moderate on the issue?

Republicans for Obama?

2008-02-01T21:59:00.001-05:00

South Bend Tribune: A liberal Democrat and a gifted orator
Hard to imagine that we have voters that are this disillusioned in our party. My guess is that people who would say this are really disgruntled independent voters.

I am sure once people take a closer look beyond the glow they will find Obama to be what National Journal describes the #1 Liberal in the US Senate.

Republicans for Obama?

2008-02-01T21:59:00.000-05:00

Obama is ranked as the #1 Liberal in the Senate.

2008-01-31T20:52:00.000-05:00

The Page - by Mark Halperin - TIME

The TV and direct mail copy just write themselves. Makes you wonder what you have to do to get to the left of people like Ted Kennedy, Dick Durbin and Barbara Boxer.

Sit down first then read this...

2008-01-31T13:51:00.000-05:00

Obama's money - Ben Smith's Blog - Politico.com

Obama raised 32 million dollars in January.

Take a second and absorb that...the guy raised a million bucks a day for a month.

If you are a Republican and that does not make you throw up in your mouth a little you are not paying attention.

Fight back at http://www.february7.org/ today!

Inside Bay Area - Berkeley gives Marines the boot

2008-01-31T13:35:00.000-05:00

Inside Bay Area - Berkeley gives Marines the boot

I am beside myself with rage on this one. As a lot of you know, despite my hippie like hair now, I am a former Marine. It is one of the proudest affiliations I will ever have and am deeply proud of my service.

This story just blows my mind. These narrow minded morons are trying to eject a Marine Corps recruiting station from thier little communist haven of Berekly California. The part that really honks me off is that they single out the Corps as if they were Wal-Mart. The USMC is a part of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

I will give $100 TODAY to any Member of Congress from either party who files a bill to cut off ALL Federal funding to these idiots until they stop this unlawful and completely disrespectful activity.

Schwarzenegger to back McCain - The Associated Press - Politico.com

2008-01-30T23:01:00.000-05:00

Schwarzenegger to back McCain - The Associated Press - Politico.com
I think the Arnold would beat the crap out of Chuck Norris. If we could add a cage match between those two to the convention in the fall it would really boost ratings.

Just throwing it out there Jeff...keep it in mind.

Because sign waving wins elections!

2008-01-30T22:25:00.000-05:00

This little fun item comes from the Obama campaign. I hope these folks are running GOTV for the Democrats in the fall.

"Visibility Events in the last 2 days to Get Out The Vote, short shifts (Organizing)
We'll gather at busy locations during commute times on Monday Feb. 4th and ELECTION DAY, Tuesday, Feb. 5th, holding large Obama signs and encourage Get Out the Vote! Sign up for the following Visibility shifts:6:30am-9am11:30am-1:30pm4pm-6:30pm"