Homework for the grassroots

[Bradley in DC]

How to win elections

Simple: identify your supporters and turn them out to vote.

How: Everyone start making and keeping lists. All of the info you have needs to get noted. Barbie is pro-life, Ken supports Fred Thompson, etc. At the appropriate time, we can send Barbie a targeted pro-life message and, say, for example , if Fred Thompson should drop out, send a message to Ken then why Fred's supporters should take another look at the good doctor.

Watch the videos the official campaign produced featuring Tom Lizardo. Priceless. (see, I'm being complimentary, okay already?)

In fits and starts, the official campaign is working on something like this. That's fine. However, no national database is going to have as much local knowledge as all of us do. When the time comes, hopefully HQ's approach would be to incorporate rather than alienate. No matter what, OUR approach has to be to incorporate.

Circumstances are going to vary. We're going to need to help each other out here in ways we've not had to do before. No worries, you people continue to amaze me, we can do this.

Now, if your Meetup has "walking lists" of your precinct, excellent, you're half-way there. You may be able to get them cheaply from the state or county Board of Elections. If not, use "street lookup" online or something to make up your own to get you started. Canvass your neighborhood (precinct). Keep track of as much intel as possible. At the end of the day (this would be the day before the primary, etc., in you state), you'll appreciate it all, just trust me on this one, please.

For the techies and politicos (and wannabes) out there. Talk to each other. We have different strengths and weaknesses, but together we're unstoppable. We did this in DC with great success (fighting urge to type before HQ sabotaged it). A few of us early on met regularly, analyzed voter histories, registrations, etc. from 1996 to present, agreed on a turnout expectation and goal needed to win the DC primary.

Oh, go to the FEC site to get the donors--for ALL of the presidential candidates. You can search by zip. Add that intel to your list. DO NOT USE THAT INFO FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE: it is against the law (and rude)--and they seed the list with false names so that if you contact Ken and Barbie for money you go to jail.

Then, and I'm waiting for our techies to do this, formulate how many Paul votes are needed per precinct. This will NOT just be a simple average. Ideally, there will be someone, as this process evolves (quickly now, I hope) to take ownership of each precinct. More ideally, there will be grassroots volunteer ward chairman (township, whatever) who would be there not to "run" the precinct captains but to back them up with guidance, answers, encouragement, etc. This will help if we get intel from co-workers, church members, et al., that aren't part of your precinct.

[If you don't want to do it yourself by precinct, but just by church, family, classmates, sewing circle, fellow Amway distributors or whatever, fine, do it--but DO IT!]

Now, to bring it home, each of us will then have our numerical target in our geographical area for election day (whenever that is wherever you are). Ideally, by election day, you'll have identified your requisite target number of Paul supporters. Then turn them out to vote. I'm not going to actually urge you to bring them to the polls against their will, but you have your mission decide how best to carry it out.

Identify your supporters and turn them out to vote.

Ready, set, ...

[UtahApocalypse]

+10 !
This should be a sticky, and everyone should see this. Could even make a good e-mail and myspace bulletin. This is the recipe for WIN!

[constituent]

hell yes!

[Brainsnake]

Blimp
+1

[UtahApocalypse]

Caucus!

[bolidew]

Bump for justice.

[acainfonet]

Thanks for the sticky! - this is it folks in a nutshell!!!!/sc

[passerby]

Posted this in the Iowa forum node, but that'll probably be gone soon. This thread seems to be on a similar topic.


I think RP did well today at about 10% of the votes, despite what many think. The main reason for our the standing, despite a respectable % of votes is the unusually high turn-out for this primary, in my opinion. It diluted our core strengths of faith in the cause & spontaneous organization. Also, RP may still have a disproportionate number of delegates (if voters hung out), and Thompson and/or Hunter are likely to drop out now, so we'll improve our standing by default.

There is only so much we can do to inspire them to the cause. Some states or segments of the population are more amenable than others. We just have to do the best we can with our potential audience. Still, roughly 70% is anti-Iraq and a similar number is against big government, so I suspect we still have some way to go before we're hitting a natural ceiling.

It would seem productive now to catalog things that we can do better next time so that RP does even better in other states.

- I haven't heard much about RP's HQ providing transportation and support to caucus/voting sites. There have been reports of some candidates hitting nursery homes and busing seniors to sites, and providing baby-sitting services (presumably after voting), among others. Although I'm not sure how effective these are, they seem worthwhile to try (if this hasn't been done already).

- RP seemed weakest in the rural counties, so although it may not be the most efficient way to spend time per capita, a dedicated team(s) that drives around in these areas would probably be helpful.

- RP typically seemed to do very well in the Eastern counties. This would probably provide a rough gauge for potential results from neighboring districts in adjacent states, so HQ can target better.

Please feel free add more.

[passerby]

On January 3rd, 2008 boston02115 says:

I looked quickly at the Politico breakdown, and Paul placed second in both Pocahantas County and the larger Van Buren County, with about 23% of the vote in each. There may be others in the final analysis.

It would be interesting to hear from any Iowa meetups about what's unique about these counties, and how active members were in these locations. Van Buren appears to be more affluent than the typical Iowa county, and is on the southern state line.

Found this in another forum, but seems helpful. Once we get final Iowa tallies, it would be very helpful to get insights from those districts where we did well. Congrats to those who really pulled through there!

A small compilation of outstanding results:
Osceola - 25.9% (Northwest)
Allamakee - 21.1% (NE)
Pocahantas - 22.9% (N/central)
Jefferson - 35.5% !!! (SE) - and it's a sizable county, too
Davis - 20.5% (SE)
Van Buren - 21.8% (SE)

It wouldn't surprise me if we did well in districts adjacent to these in neighboring states (MN, WI, IL).

Just a personal opinion, but I think we should have avoided sounding too much like other GOP candidates in Iowa. We should have stuck to what we're good at and makes us stand out, namely anti-war and small government/civil liberties. GOPers have enough people to choose from on the other issues, IMHO.

Very good results overall. 10% is very strong. Think of where we were just a month ago!

[Trassin]

Since no one added this yet I will.

The campaign has given a tool to help accomplish the goal of this thread: Voters.RonPaul2008.com