GOTV Activities Essential to Campaigns
Re: Tumulty, Karen, et al., Fighting for every last vote: In such a tight race, the game is about turning out your supporters. CNN.com, 10/11/2004
GOTV activities are essential to winning a campaign. Simply asking voters for their support, volunteer time and distribution of materials can make or break a campaign - as we have learned in the above article about Kerry's campaign.
The Kerry campaign did not make the attempts to include volunteers in their daily GOTV activities. The Bush campaign did make attempts and won the election because of it. When it comes down to a close election every vote counts. That means every volunteer who can help GOTV activities are almost more important then the candidate.
Personal one-on-one volunteer GOTV activities, such as neighborhood walks may be the last piece of strategy on a campaign plan, but the most important. I would highly recommend each campaign to coordinate a GOTV activity and please, please utilize volunteers to their fullest potential. Adequate volunteer sign-ups are key on web sites and at campaign headquarters along with strategies to keep volunteers active in GOTV activities.
1 Comments:
I agree with you that the article was interesting, but really, you could count the ways the Kerry campaign was strategically off track. I've always been told (of course, I'm not running national campaigns) that you should use GOTV efforts only in those counties where you need to turn out your base.
It doesn't make sense to concentrate voters in a heavily Republican neighborhood offering to drive people to the polls! That's where your prior six months of organizing, phone banking, and canvassing come in. Those names are already on a list.
GOTV efforts are full throttle when you're getting mid-morning numbers back from the polls and you need to distribute canvassers (Ummm, Kerry Campaign, are you listening!!!).
Do you agree, or not so much? My view is HEAVILY tainted by my limited experience, which was only at the state legislature level.
Great post fellow Cali kid!!
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