While working as a poll volunteer in the 6/6/06 special election in CA-50, I witnessed one aspect of the Repub machine that eventually led them to victory in the Busby versus Bilbray race. I was kind of disturbed to realize that I witnessed only one lesser part of the machine that enabled a known slimy lobbyist with tangential connections to Cunningham's own demise to beat a liberal schoolteacher. Follow me below the fold as I attempt to dissect these machinations and hopefully try to propose (or at least plant the seeds) of some form of response.
Well, I know lots of people are going to say, "Well, CA-50 was Repub turf and we never had a chance..." I'm hear to tell you that that's BS and we simply got outworked. The Repubs beat us in two ways:
1) At the polling stations, the SD Repub Party had a poll monitor who would periodically consult the precinct voter list and call any Repubs in the neighborhood who hadn't voted and encourage them to get out and vote...we Dems had nothing similar. Yeah, I know some people are going to say "well, why didn't you volunteer to help Busby or the SD Dem Part?" The answer was, "I tried." Compared to the Repub system (which I explored online and by phone), the Dem system of encouraging support and volunteerism is a couple of cans and some string compared to a cell phone. Both emails and phonecalls inquiring about volnterrign went unreplied.
2) Apparently, the Repubs kicked our ass on absentee ballots. The race was really close at the polls, but we got crushed (by something like 10,000 absentee ballots that were pushed by Repub volunteers) in the final tally. Why don't we have a crew out there pushing absentee ballots?
What do we need to do to beat this system? Well, I'm going to throw out a few suggestions and observations and hope the power of Kos (well, not Markos, but all you Kossacks out there) to come up with some novel new approaches.
The power of the Repub guy (stereotypical pasty lawyer, in my case) who was calling all the no-shows and encouraging them was impressive to me, but I think we may be able to take this one step better. We need to approach this on a more social level than that of a telemarketer (which we are conditioned to hate). What if we did some kind of "cell-like" approach to this in the interim season? We could have a "nuclei" who is in charge of calling 10-20 know Dems (maybe even Independents?) in the neighborhood and press the flesh with them. Let's put a face to our local party, encourage dialogue and feedback, and most importantly, act like a group of like-minded folks hoping to improve our county, state, or country. We don't need a formal balloon and streamer gala, but rather some dialogue at the playground, beach, or dog park combined with serious follow through on election day. I know there exist venues like GOTV and whatnot, but I think we need something a little more intimate and locally oriented.
As for the Absentee Ballot issue, I know Busby's crew was pushing it for the preliminary election, but I didn't see them doing it for the actual run-off. I might have missed them (I do travel a fair bit), but their should have been some redundancy and some specific focus on known registered Dems in a given precinct.
How can we meet or beat the methodologies of the Repubs? I have presented some inklings of an idea, but I hoping the power of dKos can help these mature into effective actionable items that I could volunteer for. I can't sit back and watch my country's goverment slowly die any longer.....
UPDATED: I found the article I read in the LA Times yesterday talking about how the GOP has mastered the art of keying into prospective voters: The GOP knows you don't like Anchovies"