fandomhigh | Political Campaigning (Tuesday, February 21, 4th period)

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political campaigning

Political Campaigning (Tuesday, February 21, 4th period)

Josh smiled as the campaigning class came in. "Hope you all enjoyed your three-day weekend," he said. "Alanna, how many days until the election?" He waited for her answer before continuing. "Today we talk about polling."

He turned to the board. "Polling provides two major things that campaigns can't live without," he said, beginning to write. "It provides a political profile of the state, and an opportunity to see if your message is resonating with the people you want it to.

"When I say political profile, I mean it gives you more of a feeling about your voters than the numbers I gave you from the the voter files. You need to look at three distinct dimensions: a demographic profiling of the voters; an issues profiling of the state; and a profile of what the voters think about the current incumbent." He grinned. "You have to know who you're talking to before you can figure out if anyone's listening. Things like party identification, their education level, income, religion, occupation, age--who votes, who votes for you, and if possible, why. You also need to get hard numbers backing up your feeling on what issues would be important, and who thinks so. And make sure those numbers are the same people you want to be talking to. If you discover that the falling prices of beef is a huge issue, but no one who cares about it would be voting for you anyway, well, that's not an issue you have to really worry about."

He looked down at his notes. "Then you need to ask yourself when to poll. These sorts of things don't come cheap. The political parties will be doing polling, and various interest groups, and newspapers and CNN, but your internal polls will always be asking slightly different questions. If you ask yourself the question, 'would I be willing or able to do anything differently depending on the results of this survey?' and don't come up with a decent answer, don't spend the money."

He smiled. "Then comes the writing of the questions. I know that people are constantly talking about how you can twist numbers to make them say whatever you want, but in the case of internal polling, you don't want the numbers to tell you what you want to hear. You need the numbers to tell you the truth. So when you're writing questions, make sure you allow for people to say that they don't know, and give them a range of responses to choose from. When you're pulling a sample, especially in places like Montana where people living on reservations might not have phones, make sure to take that into account. Pulling names out of a phone book isn't that effective--voter lists tend to be better, as is random digit dialing, but both of those can get expensive.

"Polling doesn't have to be all phonebanking and thousands of people wearing stupid headphones. Your door-to-door work should also be asking the same kinds of questions: who are these people, what do they care about, what would it take to have them vote for your guy? Ask as many people as possible the same questions until you either get a definite no and can mark them off your list for potential voters or get a definite yes and you don't have to bother them until the weekend before election day."

He sat down. "Typically, you'd do a huge, intensive, incredibly expensive poll during the early stages of the campaign, then begin with tracking polls once a month if you can afford it starting in about June, and then down and dirty week-by-week polls beginning in late September or early October."

He looked around. "Questions?"

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"No," Callisto replied. "And I've spent the last period trying to get the blasted stuff off."

"Wanna borrow my coat?" Angel offered. "At least cover your arms?"

Considering what exactly was on said arms. "That would be...Thanks."

Like a gentleman, Angel handed his coat over.

Good thing he had on a long sleeved shirt.

Of course given what was written on his hands that might be a moot point.

"Welcome."

"You're sweet, you know that right?" Callisto smiled as she put the coat on.

And fastened it closed.

And pulled the sleeves over her hands, which she then shoved in the pockets.

"Wanna hit the showers again after class?"

"Yeah. That would be, yeah."

"You scrub my back, I'll scrub yours," Angel grinned.

Callisto grinned back. "Deal."

"Your place?"

"Yeah, don't want to risk Crichton seeing too much of this."

Angel might've headdesked. "Yeah, probably not. Plus with Aeryn gone it's kinda rubbing it in his face. Not literally."

"I hope not literally, I don't think we're quite at that stage of the relationship yet."

"I don't think it's ever going to get to the point of literally with John," Angel said. "Not that he isn't nice, but I just don't look at him that way."

"Uh-huh." Callisto agreed. "He's kinda like the irritating younger brother I never had."

"He's not so bad," Angel said. "Took me in when I got souled after all. Just, you know. I don't think of him that way."

"Plus Aeryn would come back for the sole purpose of kicking our asses."

"Huh," Angel looked thoughtful. "Put it that way and it might be a good thing. 'cause then he'd have her back."

"Yes, but we would be dead, so major flaw in that plan."

"This is true. I've got a big problem with you being dead." Angel nodded sagely. "Me? I'm used to it."

"Yes, but we're talking dead dead here, as in dust. I have issues with boyfriends who are dusted."

Angel grinned at her. "Yeah? You wouldn't like that?"

"Nope, not at all," Callisto shook her head. "So you better keep yourself from getting that way."

"I'll avoid toothpicks," Angel promised.

"Good," Callisto said. "I'd hate to have to take drastic measures."

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