fandomhigh | Political Campaigning (Thursday, January 19, 4th period)

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political campaigning

Political Campaigning (Thursday, January 19, 4th period)

Josh put down the spreadsheets of electoral information about Montana when the first political campaigning student came into the classroom.

When everyone had taken a seat, he stood up. "First off," his fingers tracked down the class list, "Jessica, tell us how many days we have until the election." He looked around at the rest of the students. "Today, we talk about campaign strategy. At its most basic, the campaign strategy is the political equation that will get your candidate the majority of votes cast in the election: 50 percent plus one vote."

He wrote "50% + 1" on the board and smacked it. "This seems ridiculously obvious, but it's a hard lesson to remember. You only need 50 percent plus one vote. You're not out to convince everyone. You're out to get your people to the polls and as many undecideds and soft voters of the other guy to get to 50 percent plus one. Any votes past that is gravy. You just need enough to win. An election, if you think about it, is the ultimate pass-fail grading system." He smiled. "The strategy gets you to win. Or as Lee Atwater put it, 'if you insure the other candidate can't possibly get elected, you should do okay.'"

He looked down at his notes. "Few other things to remember: the strategy can't be static. If the political climate changes, you have to change with it. Think the Congressional races in 2002--if you didn't say something about terrorism or the military you looked hopelessly out of touch at best, and bordering on criminally negligent at worse." He made a face. "I've seen some of the political ads that were rolled out for that election. It wasn't pretty.

"Anyway. You also need to remember there are two campaigns--or in this case, until after the primary, three. Politics isn't solitaire--it's poker. And assume your opponent is just as smart as you are. They'll attack you where you're weak, and defend against your attacks. Never assume they're stupid, blind, or lazy.

"The entire key to a campaign is communication." Josh paused. "Sorry for the regrettable amount of alliteration in that last sentence. So. Don't forget that the entire point of this is to get voters to support your guy. Figure out who will be in your winning voting coalition, find out what they care about, and go about convincing them that you're the one that can deliver it." He smirked. "And make sure that your voting coalition is enough people to get you to that 50 percent plus one, please. There are an embarrassing number of campaigns who failed at math on this point."

He put his notes down. "Okay. Based on what you've learned about your candidates, I want you to come up with a very, very rough sketch of your campaign strategy. I'll be giving you hard numbers next week about who lives where and how they vote so you can see how close you were, but for today, start talking strategy. This'll also be your homework. I want a hard copy of your strategy--what your guy will talk about, and to who, that will get you the 50 percent plus one, due on my desk next Tuesday." He smiled. "Because as I've said, if it's not on paper, it doesn't exist."

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...

Josh needs to run out to get lunch before the council meeting, so make it quick if you have something to bring up...

...

Angel signed in.

Angel waited for his partners. He was doing his usual downcast doodling.

A stray chicken feather or two could be found on him.

Don't ask where.

Elizabeth signs in.

Elizabeth has her laptop open as she waits for the other two in her group to turn up.

Rory signed in.

Callisto signed in.

Rory scooted her desk over, chewing on her pen.

"Okay, so where do we want to start with this?"

"Kill them all, let God sort it out?"

It was possible he wasn't talking about the candidates. Possible.

"Always an appealing option," Rory said, running a hand through her hair. "But not the most political."

"Of course it is," Angel said. "Just ask Ceasar. Or, you know, not since Brutus, knife, yadda."

"Uh huh. And also? Bit outdated, really," Rory replied. She quirked a brow. "Any particular reason for this approach today?"

Angel silently shook his arm over Rory's desk.

Five feathers fell out.

Rory blinked.

"Muppet chicken attack?"

"I don't wanna talk about it. There was... rubbing."

"Oh God. What is it with you and overly affectionate animals?" Rory grimaced. "I heard about Phoebe, too."

Logan signed in.

Logan sat down next to Elizabeth. "What've we got?" he asked, nodding at her laptop.

"I'm thinking education is going to be key for Tester," she says. "He was a teacher, so he knows what he's talking about.

If we're looking at hitting a demographic, nationally only 25% of 18 to 24 year-olds vote. They represent 33% of the population but only account for 7% of the voters. I don't know how it works out in Montana, but if we can get the younger voters to care about the issues, and if we can get them to vote, then, that's a start."

"Good idea in theory, but how are we going to get young people to vote when no one else can?" Logan asked.

"Target universities and colleges?" she suggested, searching on CollegeBoard.com and pulling up the Montana (http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/servlet/advsearchservlet?buttonPressed=viewResults&navigateTo=9&viewpage=1) schools. "There's 21 colleges in Montana. Even if we just went to three or four of them, it shows that we're serious about listening to what people want and that we care and will try and do something to help them."

Parker signed in.

"Okay, so, we should emphasize the good stuff he's done for Montana, as much of the PC that he *does* have a grasp on, but concentrate on the constituency that keeps re-electing them: farming and mining interests."

Logan shook his head. "Not enough," he said. "I mean, it's a start, yeah, but if he shows up and speaks on college campuses, how many people are really going to show up or care?" He tapped his lips with his pen. "Maybe if we got local bars to offer free beer to everyone with an 'I voted' sticker?" he suggested. "And, uh, pizza, too. For the 18-21 crowd."

"Well, the start's always the best place to begin," she grinned.

Elizabeth nodded. "That could work. It's not the same, but I know that the Blood Service in the UK a while back offered free pints of ice-cream to students who donated blood.

But the issue is, would it be legally allowed, or would be be accused of trying to buy their votes? Which, technically, it would be."

"I don't know," Logan frowned. "I figure they'd get the free beer just for voting, and no one would ask how they'd voted. So we wouldn't really be buying their votes. We'd just be letting them know that the Tester campaign understands their needs."

Josh overheard their conversation. "The bars are open in Montana on election day," he said, smiling. "I checked."

Logan turned to the teacher. "So, is that legal? If we encourage bars to give free beers to people who've voted?"

"We'd probably need to consult a lawyer on the specifics," she nodded, scribbling it down on her notebook.

"You'd have to consult state law on it, which is a good reason to have at least one lawyer on a campaign staff for these sorts of questions, but I think you could get away with it if you aren't specifically banning anyone from getting beer if they didn't vote for your guy." Josh grinned. "Bribing people with booze is a long-standing political tradition in this country--which is why some states make the bars close on Election Day."

Jake signed in.

Jake nodded. "I don't think a wildly radical approach would get us anywhere anyway. We might want to have a look at his voting record, see if there's anything there we can use in regards to that. Also, what he's done as Chairman of the Communications Subcommittee."

"Clearly I'm using the wrong cologne."

Alanna signed in.

Alanna blinked. "I don't want to know. And my cat says high." She might be smirking. "Maybe something for along the lines of 'Just one of us'? Or too ... I don't know, I don't live here."

"Our biggest competition is the incumbent who was caught with his hand in the wrong pocket - sadly for him not literally since a sex scandal is something you can recover from - and who's been an ass about handling the after effect. To get our 50%+1 all we need is to make it clear in easy to understand words that Burns is a crook and Tester's not even a factor.

After talking with his group for a bit, a thought occured to Angel. He raised his hand to get Josh's attention.

"Yeah, Donna?"

Angel rolled his eyes at the nickname. "All due respect, isn't the 50%+1 a little misleading? It's not a majority of people in the state and it's not a majority of registered voters. It's the most votes out of the people who could be bothered to get off their ass and get to the polls. Moreover, there are plenty of folks who got elected who didn't earn anywhere near 50% of the vote. They just managed to earn more than the other guys."

Josh nodded. "I should have been more clear. It's completely the 50 percent plus one of the people who bother to show up. Which is why get-out-the-vote efforts very rarely focus on getting everyone out--they only want the people they know are going to be voting for their guy to show up. Freak rainstorm, asteroids falling, major accident that stops a precinct from voting? As long as it's not a precinct I care about? Not really going to lose sleep over it."

Josh ran a hand through his hair. "And that's where the trick to campaigning comes from: you'll crunch numbers until the cows come home--and they do come home in Montana, it's a thing--but until the votes are actually counted, you don't know exactly how well you've done. We'll spend time talking about how you can change the electoral make-up: finding more voters on reservations or other groups who are traditionally not that invested in voting."

He blew out a breath. "And yeah, there are times when people don't earn 50 percent--but aiming for more than half of the vote that you think is going to show up is a normally better strategy than hoping 45 percent'll get you there with the crazy people who might split off and vote Libertarian or for the guy with the beer hat."

He raised an eyebrow. "And if I hear anything that sounds like Florida or hanging chad, I'm going to be a pretty unhappy guy."

"Good point. Also, if someone brings up that corruption thing, we just hit them with the opponent's problems. No one should be throwing stones here, but we can't start that."

"In which case we should have our smear campaign ready and waiting before using it ever becomes an isssue."

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Political Campaigning (Thursday, January 19, 4th period)

Sign in (January 19)

Group discussion: Logan, Elizabeth, Jessica

Group discussion: Angel, Rory, Alanna

Group discussion: Jake, Callisto, Parker

General class interaction...

After class...

OOC

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