Are “attracted” voters really worth more than “chased” voters?
The thesis at the heart of all my recent posts has been that “attracted” voters are inherently more valuable to a campaign than “chased” voters. I look at recent history and see the lackluster performance of Democrats during midterm elections, and mentally discount a chased voter to some fraction of a voter while I mentally add a premium to attracted voters.
So, let’s say each voter that the DNC manages to frighten into thinking about voting is worth .95 eventual votes and every teabag that is inspired by the teabag nonsense is worth 1.05 future votes. On election day a vote is a vote, but over the course of a campaign the marginal difference between the chased and the attracted must add up. Right?
Before anyone gets their panties in a twist I will admit that the teabag Republicans run on fear and bile. I’m not saying that it is not a tool in their tool-bag. But, it is their cohesive culture that attracts their voters. They are strident and unapologetic in their beliefs and that certainty is attractive to their voters. Republicans don’t alter their message to suit different constituencies, and that puts a gloss of integrity on their lunatic ravings.
Democrats, on the other hand, are unable or unwilling to articulate any core values. As I said in recent posts, they don’t have a brand that makes sense to voters. Therefor they are left trying to cut ham-fisted deals with a range of constituencies. (Al Gore’s Pandering to Florida’s Cuban voters over Elian Gonzales comes to mind as an especially sickening case of this.)
In addition to pandering, Democrats try to frighten voters with the fact that a Republican might win. While this position has lost time and again, it is regarded as a legitimate strategy among the Dems insider consultants. I only need look at my own voting to know that my voter value is discounted heavily if this is the message I’m begin asked to support.
Of course, I’m strange. I’m Probably an outlier. So I’d love to hear from the political scientists in our midst. What is the discount rate for chased? What is the true premium on attracted? Or is this all nonsense and I should go back to trusting the Democrats in spite of their horrible record of failure.
Hey Jason –
Shoot me an email – I’d love to have a more in depth discussion of this.
Okay. But part of what I like about the now quaint and old time-y medium of blogging is that it lets you have in depth conversations out in the open where anyone with something worth adding can drop in.
“In addition to pandering, Democrats try to frighten voters with the fact that a Republican might win.”
The national D’s most likely employ this tactic because it has worked successfully in some states. It is not going to work in Delaware (hence your disenchantment with it) because we know it’s damn near impossible for a Republican to win here and, what the hell, most of the Democrats we elect might as well be Republicans.
Jason, we Democrats have a pretty decent platform, both at the national level and what I read on our DelDem web site locally. But they policy statements and do not reflect branding strategies designed to “attract”; they chase, if one can find them in the forest of party communications. Ie: the reality is the President leads our party, congresspersons have their own communications channels which often confuse and contradict. The Role of the DNC is to pull these together with coherence and relevance. They seldom do, unfortunately. It is up to the local party to deeply understand the issues that drive their loyalists and if necessary, and it usually is, devise a messaging strategy involving content and distribution which pushes the “attract” buttons for local turnout. This is especially true for mid-term cycles. This is best devised via good solid research of the base’s issue priorities; focus groups and surveys if the latter are affordable.
Happily, the DelDems have a new communications staffer. This is late in the cycle, but a good start. Since I’ve been here, l year, I observe there is no DelDem messaging. None via social media, none it would appear via its sales force through the elected party officers and state committee, no earned media messaging and none apparent through official party web site and database communications. The only messaging and communications I see/hear is through Dem officeholders and candidates and it reflects their individual priorities and is mostly uncoordinated and incoherent, not tied to an overall strategy which is the local Party’s responsibility. So, much work to do. Reliance on the DNC is futile. We must go it alone.
“…the reality is the President leads our party, congresspersons have their own communications channels which often confuse and contradict.”
The highest elected Democrat IS the leader of the Democratic Party, and my big problem with Obama is that he has been terrible in that role. (Also, Clinton’s repealed Glass-Steagall and basically turning Dems into the whores of Wall Street didn’t do the party’s brand any favors.)
So yes – this is a top down problem in many ways.
As a party hack I’ve got to say that attracted versus chased voters is sort of like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. How do we get them, whatever sort they happen to be, to the polls on election day? I know it is simplistic and basically grunt work but I can understand this. It’s what the party does. We’ve gotten much better at identifying our likely supporters and steering clear of those who support the others. And, I still believe that harassing the hell out of them to go vote is an effective tool — even if they hate it. Talking people into going to vote at 7:45 on election night is still a high for me, but I guess I’ve worked too many phone banks. It’s becoming a bigger and bigger challenge in the age of cell phones but it still works. The others are facing the same challenge and when it’s all over it boils down to who got the most votes. I wish there was a magic formula that would motivate Democrats to vote more. Excuse me if I’m a bit skeptical though.
jason
I’m actually going to ask one of our political scientists at DSU about that discount rate, because you made me curious.
However, what I’m trying to figure out here is what (in terms of process) distinguishes your position from that of the conservatives who say, “We failed to win the Presidency in 2008 and 2012 because we didn’t nominate a REAL conservative.” This has inevitably led to schism within the GOP and when the populist-rightist candidate can’t manage to overcome the moderates in control of the party apparatus, the rightists effectively go home on election day. The strategy you’re talking about has not worked for a party as a party since Newt pulled off the Contract with America election in 1994. The GOP used to be a three-legged stool with social conservatives, libertarians, and defense hawks, and that worked (electorally) pretty well until the evangelicals booted the libertarians and the stool fell over.
My point is this: the Democratic Party is (like any other political party) a mechanism whose purpose is to win elections for nominated D candidates, as many and as often as possible. Traditional success for Dems has always been as a coalition party, a “big tent.” It seems to me, as much as I agree with you about the idiotic fundraising messaging, that essentially what you are advocating is abandoning that strategy in favor of the same strategy that unified the Tea Party at the expense of destroying the national and state GOP. In other words: wouldn’t your strategy turn progressives (truly) into the Tea Party of the Left in pragmatic party terms?
On election day a vote is a vote, but over the course of a campaign the marginal difference between the chased and the attracted must add up. Right?
Not if you live in highly gerrymandered states like PA or OH. For House seats (in particular) you’d have to drive alot of D voters to the polls in order to overcome the gerrymandering and that might be where most of the scare tactics come in from. And I think the gerrymandering is one of the big reasons behind the D fall off in mid-terms at this point.
Obama has been somewhat better as a party leader in that he will at least leave behind impressive and functional Big Data management capabilities that has been good at giving Ds the edge where they don’t have to just overcome the gerrymandering. Clinton left nothing behind. But I still think that the best party leader in recent memory was Howard Dean. He was beholden to no one and could just work at competing everywhere. He started the infrastructure that the Obama folks have evolved, and he worked hard at getting Democrats to compete everyplace in spite of the headwinds. I give Dean alot of credit for the 2008 win. And much of that win was about articulating Dem values and policies, which Dems promptly went into a defensive crouch over.
cassandra I call it “Mike Castle disease.” Castle won elections but left behind no organization and no bench. Same for Bill Clinton. Obama did innovative things in 2008, not so much in 2012, but they were innovations designed to elect him and not a party. I think that may be an inherent flaw in the system at that point.
I agree with you completely that Howard Dean was the most effective party leader that the Democrats have had in my lifetime, but part of the reason that he was an effective leader is that he appeared to be more concerned with establishing the party than in winning an election personally. Likewise he was more concerned with his ideas than his own personal victories (which is not to say he wouldn’t have liked to be the nominee in 2004).
Of course gerrymandering only works (like in Delaware) where your state party is firmly in control, and that’s I guess where jason’s potential strategy works best: taking control of a state rather than taking control of the national effort. There is an argument to be made that the worst thing to happen for both Ds and Rs over the past 3 decades was that power passed to a national party elite instead of being brokered by the states.
“Democrats, on the other hand, are unable or unwilling to articulate any core values. As I said in recent posts, they don’t have a brand that makes sense to voters. Therefore they are left trying to cut ham-fisted deals with a range of constituencies.”
Yeah, but the (D) party is a coalition in the first place. While you are very progressive, many (most?) (D)s are moderates. Core values to you may not be core to other (D)s. By trying to be all things to all people, the party is often nothing to no one, so they are left with “Democrats try to frighten voters with the fact that a Republican might win,” because that is the common “enemy” around which all (D)s can rally.
Now if the (R)s ever stop being enemy, that message won’t work. Fortunately for you (D)s the (R)s seem to be completely wedded to insanity. As long as they continue their witch hunt for those not conservative enough, many elections (except gerrymandered contests) are yours to lose.
If you want to see people stay home, just become Tea Party Left. It will certainly balance out the whacks on the right, but it most people will tune out completely. I understand that progressives need to continue to try and pull the party left because of the constant pressure to be somewhere in the middle, but I also believe progressives need to recognize theirs is a never ending (and necessary) tug a war. Because if you let go of rope, the party will snap to the right. The best you can do is keep it in the middle.
“Yeah, but the (D) party is a coalition in the first place. While you are very progressive, many (most?) (D)s are moderates. Core values to you may not be core to other (D)s.”
I flatly disagree. Within the D coalition there is a broad consensus on some key items. You never hear them articulated by the DC consultants because they typically have to do with helping out the “little guy” and trying to reign in the abuses of the monied interests. Corporate apologists (obviously) don;t have much interest in promoting that as a unifying message.