Last year, a month before the predictably disastrous 2010 midterms, I posted my first diary urging us to focus more on outreach strategies and less on preaching to the choir/calling only the base, and I warned that if we didn't start implementing creative outreach strategies, we would lose big.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Nobody listened.
I even included a poll where 57% disagreed with me and thought that mobilizing the base through calls and canvassing would be enough to hold both houses.
Clearly, they were wrong.
And unfortunately, I was right.
But have the Dem campaigns learned anything from that failure?
Here in Wisconsin, apparently not.
In the lost judicial race (Prosser/Kloppenburg) and in the just lost Recall elections, all that the Dems and the Union groups could think to do was the same old predictable phonebanking and canvassing (i.e. - annoying the base over and over again while they're trying to eat dinner until they can't stand you anymore). In fact, they actively discouraged doing anything else! The poverty of imagination within the Dem campaigns is truly disheartening.
And when I begged and pleaded with the campaigns to try newer, better strategies (like the ideas in my previous diary), they blew me off. One campaign manager even insisted that "the research shows that canvassing and phonebanking are the most productive ways to increase voter turnout".
Uh, how would you know if you've never tried anything else?
And how's that "most productive" strategy working out for ya lately? As Dems rack up loss after humiliating loss?
When will we ever learn? The Republicans have. Long ago. And that's why they keep handing us our asses. The GOP has been much smarter and more strategic in their efforts these last 40 years and that's how they've managed to move this country so far to the right. Shortly after the Lewis Powell memo of 1971, the GOP realized the importance of persuasion, of getting their message out beyond the base, and changing the public's mind. And it's been working brilliantly for them. When will the Dems ever learn this lesson?
Our #1 Priority needs to be:
Reaching out beyond the base! Changing hearts and minds. With messaging tailored to both the undecided and resistant voter. And with open dialogue and debate. Thus increasing the size of our base, so that our base is bigger than their base. Then we win elections.
D'uh, right? Shouldn't this be a no-brainer?
So why are we doing everything but that???
We have the most powerful weapon on our side:
The Truth.
So why aren't we wielding it?
Why aren't we challenging and debunking right-wing propaganda (on radio, in print, online, and in person) every chance we get instead of just preaching to the choir and patting ourselves on the back for being amongst the enlightened few?
Why aren't we reaching out to independents and undecideds? Why aren't we approaching Tea Partiers and offering to meet/debate/dialogue with them in a friendly and civil manner? Instead of just shouting at them from across the street at counter-protests, which only serves to harden their resolve.
It's the very powerful, pervasive, and well-organized right-wing lie machine and the hateful polarization it causes that's destroying our country and turning the Dems' natural constituency (the working poor and middle-class) against us. We need to start thinking and fighting back a lot more creatively if we ever expect to turn the tide in any significant and long-lasting way.
I'm going to include the same poll I used a year ago. Let's see if the results are any different...