Rough clay or day clay?
Trump could shoot them in the middle of Fifth Avenue and they’d vote for him with their dying breaths.
“My kids need you! You’re a Christian! You’re honest! Look at his family! All good kids!”
David Neiwert nails it:
Susie too:
Okay, neither of these eligible voters are salvageable. They’re too far gone. But there are others “on the fence” surely embarrassed by these displays of lunacy.
Paul Rosenberg interviewed Rachel Bitecofer about her new book, “Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game.” Bitecofer seems to be covering ground seeded in the past by George Lakoff, Drew Westen, and Anat Shenker-Osorio about appealing more to emotion than intellect. Republicans now campaign on negative partisanship, she says, while many Democrats cannot let go of their “old strategy” of campaigning on policy: “find things people like, tell them you’re going to give them that — and then appeal on your character, your biography, your qualifications for office.”
Republicans dumped that approach long ago. Democrats, she says:
… have been unable or unwilling “to accept that the American voter is, at best, rough clay,” and to work with it accordingly.
Or as Shenker-Osorio put it, “Democrats rely on polling to take the temperature; Republicans use polling to change it.” Republicans work at moving the needle while Democrats chase it.
Bitecofer:
I don’t have to know a damn thing about a voter — I don’t know if it’s a man, it’s a woman, I don’t know if they live in the South, the North, is old or young, is college-educated or not, doesn’t matter. The only thing I need to know, to be right nine out of 10 times about who they’re going to vote for, is do they have a party preference? And that includes leaners. We see that election after election. The voters walking into the ballot box, they don’t need to know anything else about the candidate other than that party heuristic, that D or that R on the ballot.
Sell the brand, she insists, and offers ways to do that more effectively that you can read at Salon.
Rosenberg observes about the typical non-political geek:
People don’t follow politics because they don’t care, and I show you guys in survey data: Not only do they not care, they’re kind of proud about not caring. We have to meet the clay, the rough clay, where it is. If we’re dealing with an electorate that knows nothing, then we have to make sure it at least learns one thing: The modern Republican Party is a fascist cult that’s coming to steal your health, your wealth, your freedom and your safety.
I’m all for punching. Americans love a fighter with heart and grit. What’s missing here is, as Shenker-Osorio advises, “we must be for a thing.” We cannot only sell what’s wrong about the other guys. “Paint the beautiful tomorrow.” Say what you’re for. Help people see it. Messaging is not only about punching. It’s about changing the temperature.
Me, I was a consulting engineer. I fixed mechanical problems. Where I agree with Bitecofer is that in this time of high partisanship people vote their party. Independents don’t have one, at least on paper. Democrats have built a Death-Star database that Darth Vader would caution they not be too proud of. It’s good at turning out Democrats, but gets fuzzy where it comes to independents. Increasingly, nominal independents control the direction of elections, but Democrats aren’t as good as turning out the left-leaners. I do keep trying to get them to reevaluate their targeting tactics, but it belongs to that “old strategy” they are reluctant to change.
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