How to win a campaign (hint: it's not the pols)

Mid-February of a mid-term election (everything being measured by when we elect a President) is far too early for polls to mean a lot. It’s three months until Oregonians vote in the primary; there has been no advertising; and the only events held so far, like the debate between Kitzhaber and Bradbury, have been attended by political activists. Most Oregonians are paying the barest attention; responses to polls in February do not indicate how people will vote in May: they tell the campaigns what kind of work they need to do get those votes in May.

I can save them that work. Rather than analyze polls, they only need look back a month to the campaign for Measures 66 and 67. That is how you win an election, especially in Oregon: grassroots activism. You can do all the traditional things like buy tv and radio ads (you have to do those things, given the need to chase every single vote) but more than anything, you have to have a ground game.

You have to have Oregonians convincing Oregonians to vote. By the thousands.

We won in January because the $7 million raised and spent by unions and Defend Oregon not only bought ads and mailers but paid for the resources that made the victory possible: people talking to people. One million phone calls and 300,000 doors knocked on: those are what won the election, and those are what the big money made possible. The phone system was expensive, and walking lists required a lot of office space, computer time and paper printouts (unfortunately; many of us long for smartphone walking lists). But that was money well-spent: In early January, voter turnout was frighteningly low (low turnout predicting a No victory) but over the course of the next few weeks, we convinced tens of thousands of voters to turn in their ballots — marked Yes and Yes.

The campaigns who understand the need to get “ordinary” citizens on the phones and at the doors are the campaigns that can win. Nick Kahl, John Kroger and Steve Novick did it in the May 2008 primary, the former two over-coming establishment opponents backed by “the party” and the latter almost winning an insurgent race against the Speaker of the Oregon House (who had strong national support). In November 2008, it was extensive, months-long grassroots efforts that elected Obama, Merkley, first-time Democrats like Kahl, and many others. These campaigns, on their own and with partners like the Bus Project, Stand for Children, Our Oregon, unions, OLCV and many more, got people on the phones and to the doorsteps — and won.

Campaigns dream of how the internet can lead to victory: raising big bucks, spreading campaign messages, activating support. These are nice dreams, and the internet can be a huge tool in propelling a campaign to victory. But the internet will never take the place of people talking to people, although, in time, phone calls will be replaced by computer-to-computer “calls”; but these will still be people talking to other people.

Most of us do not want our decisions to be based on tv and radio ads; that feels like brainwashing. We really don’t want the candidates convincing us, either; we want them to lay out their case so we can decide. What we appreciate most and respond most favorably to is an interaction with either someone we trust or someone who brings a message with a positive demeanor. This is why talking to family, friends and co-workers is so vital. It’s why house parties can be so effective. And it’s why ordinary citizens who want a campaign to succeed can’t depend on the candidate to make the right speech or broadcast the right ads. That person has to pick up the phone and knock on doors: that citizen, if he or she wants a victory, that citizen has to bring their own positive outlook, their own reasons for making a decision, to other citizens.

Candidates and campaigns who have any hope of winning in 2010 and beyond have to understand the new meanings of “all politics are personal” and “all politics are local”. They need to spend as much time as possible going door-to-door and attending grassroots events and house parties. They also need as many friends and supporters as possible doing exactly the same. No candidate can win solo; the more bodies they have on the phones and at the doors, smiling warmly and sharing with voters the campaign’s message (yes, I know that sounds like religious proselytizing, but guess what?), the better the chance to win.

It is now the only way to win.

This is why early polls mean so little. Campaigns know what their key messages are without polling; the polling simply helps them with wording and emphasis. But even that becomes less important as more and more supporters become part of the campaign. Grassroots activists can be asked to speak the campaign’s well-crafted words (and honestly, from experience, they ought to) but they will inevitably translate those messages into their own words. They will be awkward, mis-phrased, stumbling, incomplete — and overwhelmingly effective.

It’s not the words. It’s the person speaking them: a citizen who cares enough to show up and say, This is what I stand for. It’s how religions spread, it’s how organizations grow, and it’s how campaigns win. In the past, a heavy “media” blitz could make the difference, and those are still effective. But in January we saw that a dedicated effort by citizens is now able to overcome the old ways of doing politics. This is going to grow more and more true as discontent with old politics grow and people realize that they are the solution, and the leaders, they have been looking for.