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newyearsrevolution08
12-16-2008, 12:10 AM
I was sitting here thinking about how great it would be to locate previous city council, mayoral "platform positions" and see how many share the same positions versus the candidates who lost.

Any thoughts on how to source this information out? As in locating previous local candidates, election results and odds are their platform positions?

Would local, state or federal political parties carry this information or do you think it might be more of a wild goose chase?

VaderM5
12-16-2008, 11:02 AM
At least in Texas it would be a wild goose chase. Local elections are non-partisan in Texas. Platforms on the big city mayors are out there but besides that I wouldn't know where to start.

newyearsrevolution08
12-16-2008, 12:29 PM
At least in Texas it would be a wild goose chase. Local elections are non-partisan in Texas. Platforms on the big city mayors are out there but besides that I wouldn't know where to start.

That is my issue, my thought behind this though.

Save the platforms from "winning campaigns" and see what their commonalities and differences are and devise a local platform based on winning strategies that have already proved themselves.

Maybe this will be more of , sourcing our who the current elected officials are and then locating their campaign website and see if it still has their platform on it then save it to a file to add to.

It would be great if there was a election results website that deals with local elections on up where you can see who ran, who lost, who won and their websites.

Come on, am I asking for too much lol?

ingrid
12-16-2008, 02:16 PM
I was sitting here thinking about how great it would be to locate previous city council, mayoral "platform positions" and see how many share the same positions versus the candidates who lost.

Any thoughts on how to source this information out? As in locating previous local candidates, election results and odds are their platform positions?

Would local, state or federal political parties carry this information or do you think it might be more of a wild goose chase?

You can find out who ran using your board of elections website and what the results were. Many of the campaign websites are still up. You could also use internet archive for older ones.

newyearsrevolution08
12-16-2008, 02:27 PM
You can find out who ran using your board of elections website and what the results were. Many of the campaign websites are still up. You could also use internet archive for older ones.

I am trying to go outside of my area for more results. I am thinking of just searching for political campaign sites and then cross referencing them with the winner and go that route.

Maybe check out some of the larger cities and how those platforms performed and so on. Odds are I am just getting myself into a ton of research BUT in the end it will be worth seeing what has worked for others and what platform or marketing strategy has been in most if not all winning campaigns

ingrid
12-16-2008, 02:36 PM
I am trying to go outside of my area for more results. I am thinking of just searching for political campaign sites and then cross referencing them with the winner and go that route.

Maybe check out some of the larger cities and how those platforms performed and so on. Odds are I am just getting myself into a ton of research BUT in the end it will be worth seeing what has worked for others and what platform or marketing strategy has been in most if not all winning campaigns

I think it would matter on the location. What is true for a local election in Texas, might not hold true in Maine.

Also, there's a lot of other factors in play. In my district, the platforms didn't matter last time

newyearsrevolution08
12-16-2008, 02:40 PM
I think it would matter on the location. What is true for a local election in Texas, might not hold true in Maine.

Also, there's a lot of other factors in play. In my district, the platforms didn't matter last time

I think platforms would in the end matter if the correct message got to the general public versus the voting public.

I do agree that local issues are location specific BUT I am trying to see if they are simply off-shoots of the same strategy or platform stance and if so locate those winning platform points and use them next time.

For instance there are too many commonalities platform wise for local candidates like

- jobs
- crime
- taxes
- education

and so on.

Here in fresno, the latest candidates had next to nothing as far as a platform BUT they got to the voting public and won anyways. I think if we would have gotten to the general public while they focused on the already voting public we would have had a chance in our last local election.

Either way, I think there will be commonalities or enough of them to at least test this theory out on the next election runs. If it works, GREAT and if not, well then NEXT idea.

ingrid
12-16-2008, 03:04 PM
I think platforms would in the end matter if the correct message got to the general public versus the voting public.

I do agree with you, however there's a large section of the population that will vote based on 'silly' reasons and it's frustrating.

I was at the pre-party for the Republican convention a few weeks back. Someone was trying to suggest a friend of his (a delegate) as a possible candidate and everyone in the room was telling him that it would be a bad idea, since many Eastern Shore Republicans would NEVER vote for a republican who lives on the 'wrong' side of the bay, no matter who he was or what he stood for.

malkusm
12-17-2008, 05:33 AM
I do agree with you, however there's a large section of the population that will vote based on 'silly' reasons and it's frustrating.

I was at the pre-party for the Republican convention a few weeks back. Someone was trying to suggest a friend of his (a delegate) as a possible candidate and everyone in the room was telling him that it would be a bad idea, since many Eastern Shore Republicans would NEVER vote for a republican who lives on the 'wrong' side of the bay, no matter who he was or what he stood for.

Yeah well, speaking from experience, logic isn't the strong suit of the people of the Eastern Shore. :D

Not that I liked him at all, but Andy Harris basically proved that theory true this year.

VaderM5
12-17-2008, 08:35 AM
That is my issue, my thought behind this though.

Save the platforms from "winning campaigns" and see what their commonalities and differences are and devise a local platform based on winning strategies that have already proved themselves.

Maybe this will be more of , sourcing our who the current elected officials are and then locating their campaign website and see if it still has their platform on it then save it to a file to add to.

It would be great if there was a election results website that deals with local elections on up where you can see who ran, who lost, who won and their websites.

Come on, am I asking for too much lol?
It's an interesting project. Besides the SEC and the county elections office, I think their are any websites that deal with local elections. This is something you should probably contact local RP groups around the country and see what they can uncover in their specific area.

Also I can't recall any websites from local candidates in this last election, but maybe I wasn't paying attention.

Elwar
12-17-2008, 12:44 PM
I remember a website that kept a cached copy of several candidate web pages. I couldn't find it but it used to have my site from my 2002 US House campaign.

That'd be a good source to go through (if you can find it, I've no idea what it was called).

VaderM5
12-18-2008, 06:44 PM
Internet archiver

http://www.archive.org