strategy brainstorm: premise: Assume the voters are NOT static

[Lerkfish]

this is an outgrowth of my last thread, where some very interesting arguments came forward, but which did not really function as a brainstorming thread, as I hoped it would.

So, I'd like to start another, with a comment and a premise:

COMMENT: Republicans do not view the voters as a carved in stone block. They aggressively seek to sway swing voters and even non-republican voters. They are saavy in how they do this and are to a large part successful. The bad part is they use lies, and I don't think we should learn anything from THAT! However, what they use that we can also, is persistent access to the public, with repetition and persuasive rhetoric that resonates with the voters in some way. As an example, they made voters think Bush was a down-to-earth-by-gum-gentleman-farmer-from-texas, and people bought it. Of course it was a lie, BUT THEY SUCCEEDED in making a concept go from their agenda into the collective subconscious.
Now pay attention to this last part: their methods and intent are mostly abhorrent, but the one thing I wish we would adopt is this: in their view, polls and demographics ARE NOT SET IN STONE as far as indicating how people will vote.
We have a tendency to look at the demographics and feel: well, the conservative voters will NEVER vote for our candidates. IMHO, even if that proves true, in and of itself, that attitude is automatically self-defeating. Do the republicans think they can't get liberals to vote for them? Do they set up boundaries on who they target?
NO. They instead look at the demographics as a TOOL to develop their strategies IN ORDER TO overcome a demographic disadvantage.

I'm reminded of when in college art class and noticed a fellow artist never drew a person's hands. They always arranged to have the hands be behind their back, or holding something, etc. I asked why they did that. "because I'm not comfortable drawing hands". But this person wanted a career in art! I told them "don't you think you better get busy learning how to be comfortable drawing them?"

In the same way, I think we need to stop acting like some voters are completely unreachable. I think we need to start learning how to be comforable bringing those hands forward in the picture. I think we need to start learning how to use demographics as an instructional tool to let us know the challenge we have ahead, INSTEAD of looking at demographics as brick wall we can never breach.

To do this, we need to brainstorm, and I hope that's what this threads ends up being.

PREMISE: Break your previous mindsets. ASSUME, for the sake of brainstorming, that the voter demographics are NOT rigid or set in stone. ASSUME they are fluid and CAN be changed. BRAINSTORM on ways to change them.

As an example: How can we CONVINCE conservative voters that current policies will indeed effect them negatively AND how can we redirect them to understanding how progressive policies will better BENEFIT them?

[HereSince1628]

1. It's not just about presenting and educating about a message

To successfully inform a voter the voter must be in a proper affective state to pay attention to the message.

Students in classrooms are considered to be in such a state.
Congregations during a church sermon are in such a state.
Persons watching the news, or reading the newspapers may be in such a state.

The R's are interested in controlling the media, influencing the curricula of schools, colleges and universities, and they want to use churches as a venue for their messages.

The progressive message must reach potentially attentive audiences,too.

[Lerkfish]

2. Agreed, now what are the best ways to do that?

One thing I've noticed is that we don't have as great an access to main stream media.
(I know, duh!)

what are ways to get around that?

For one thing, I don't think we do as good a job of holding MULTIPLE press conferences on issues we're promoting. When the Republicans do that, they get EVERYONE on board to repeat the same or similar message, congressmen, pundits, etc. We shouldn't do it the same way, by paying them off or coercing them to toe the line, but what would be wrong with having more than one press conference on an issue, finding different ways to bring it up, but with memorable, consistent, repetitious rhetoric?

In other words, republicans do a full court press, and we just stand back trying to one guy make a three pointer from outside the paint. That's cool when it works, but I think we need to start aggressively packing the paint with more players.

[HereSince1628]

4. Credible voices have to reach attentive audiences...

You and I can post here until the cows come home and for the most part we are only "preaching to the choir."

For the state/nationally recognized credible voices--
Big events that capture peoples attention must be exploited.

As you say, the party must create some of those big events in the form of press conferences.

We need to be supporting think tanks and progressive thinkers that produce reports that can be placed into the media

On a smaller personal scale, each of us can help by writing to the media asking for programming that includes those sorts of reports.


I think on that level progressive talk radio is still small but is making good headway.

[doodadem]

3. Repugs are doing alot of that work for us now

Red states/voters are about to get a very rude awakening with what is going to happen to them on this bankruptcy bill (top 10 bankruptcy states--all red), Medicaid "reform", and the general war on the poor. Politics are about to get very personal for these people. The number of Repugs who are rich is actually very small. The vast majority are in the trenches, regular folks.
We need to rub their noses in it. A very simple message that a grade schooler can understand--the Repugs are the cause of all your misery. We need to harp on that theme in print, on radio, and most definitely on every TV program we can possibly get on.
Take my little brother for instance. He is a simple guy, blue collar worker, and votes Repug for reasons of Gays, Guns, and God. He started to get an inkling of what's wrong with the current picture when my parents began having severe health problems last year. It's going to get even more personal, for instance, if he sees the Repugs have no intention of getting out of Iraq, and there is a very real danger of his teen age daughter being drafted. Right now, he still believes whatever he is spoon fed by the Repugs.
And we need to give people like this a viable choice they can vote for--NOT Hillary Clinton. Never happen. She is never going to get the regular guy, blue collar vote. We need another Bill Clinton--a guy who can say, I came from very poor beginnings, I feel your pain. I CAN SOLVE YOUR PROBLEMS.

[DemocracyInaction]

5. May I say some things that are not popular....but, unfortunately, true??

The republicans have tapped into main arteries flowing through this nation's bloodstream. We are out tapping into small capillaries and wondering why we don't hit the jugular.

Point blank: I see things on this board that rightfully make people angry BUT they don't make 95% of the rest of America even remotely concerned. That 95% does not care about things like Medicaid---to them it's another one of those "welfare" things and "those people get so much handed to them already" (how often have you heard talk like that?). They don't care about bankruptcy legislation (not yet) because it doesn't effect them and effects only a small portion of the population. They don't care about torte reform (yet) because it doesn't effect them and the list goes on and on.

The repubs hit on things like: gay marriage---totally unimportant but like racial hatred, it courses through the veins of scores of our lovely Christian public. They hit on taxes---EVERYBODY hates taxes and the repubs know the public is too ignorant to figure out what is going to happen when the services they expect would be gutted by tax reduction. And, of course, terrorism and GI Joes/war always are a crowd pleaser. The only misstep so far is that they messed with Social Security because they didn't realize (and should have) of how deep that runs through the society.

Bottom line: We better damn well think of one or two SIMPLE (keep it simple) lines of attack/messages that scare the bejesus out of that 95% of the people. And one other sad but true observation---so many of those people whom we fight for no longer vote. The ghettos used to burn in this country and their people pour to the polls. Today, the poor sit out elections and are silent.