I’d offer the same advice to Mr. Spann that I’ve given to other Republican volunteers: in the future, the GOP cannot rely solely on unpaid activists to handle the GOTV effort. The Dims never left places like Ohio, Virginia and other swing states in 2008. They left professional staff in place; that gave them four years to identify known/likely Democratic voters and develop a plan for getting them to the polls, during early voting or on election day.
Like it or not, the Democrats knew where their votes were months in advance, and targeted them very effectively. By comparison, we were playing catch-up throughout the campaign. ORCA was just the last in a string of disasters that left us at a serious disadvantage.
The big “take-aways” from this year’s election:
- The ultimate metric for GOTV is voters delivered to the polls, not contacts made by volunteers
- Go negative from the git-go on your Democratic opponent and never let up.
- Run more candidates like Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton and fewer like George Allen and Todd Akin
- Run to (and not away from) conservatism
- Hold the nominating convention in June, not August or September; that brings more ad money into play much, much earlier.
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All excellent points...I agree with each one. Since we are the so called party of the rich we should have the best software and be able to pay people to gotv.
Imagine what (R)'s could have done with an equal amount of Federal Stimulus money.
Hey, a ground game like that costs money. Question is, how much stimulus money do the corrupt unions have left from 2008 for underwriting this GOTV stuff in 2014 and 2016?
FReegards!
