of PACs, politics, and parties

[laurenhat]

Strangely, given my dislike of mingling with crowds of strangers, my loathing of making phone calls to strangers, my irritation at most phone calls that I receive from people I don't know, and my general disinclination to host things, I am thinking of hosting a MoveOn.org party on 3/2 to gather Obama supporters together and phone people in Texas to

Comments

[therealjae]

I understand what you're saying about how all people should vote, but getting out the vote for their own supporters is a typical technique of successful politics. In fact, this is a technique that my own party uses really efficiently and expertly, and it's a lot of why we win when we win. So yes, everybody should vote, but sometimes you have to leave it up to the other guys to get their supporters out. You know?

In other words, I think you should do it. :-)

-J

[laurenhat]

Okay, this was clarifying and helpful. Thanks!

[cos]

Do you know if this is persuasion or get out the vote? Persuasion is calling people who might support Obama and giving them something of the campaign message, and finding out if they do support him. Get out the vote is calling known supporters and reminding them to vote. Since this is two days before election day it could be either or a blend, but I think it's likely GOTV

[laurenhat]

I think it's more GOTV and informing people about how the weird Texas system works. But they don't have the proposed calling scripts up yet, so I'm not totally sure. Thanks for the thoughts.

[lightning_rose]

The last time someone called me for a political cause, I informed them that even though I originally agreed with their position I was going to vote against it because I loathe telemarketing in any way, shape, or form. The silence on the line for the few seconds before the apology was deafening.

[cos]

That's a classic "biting off your nose to spite your face" kind of action, though. It is absolutely not going to make campaigns stop calling people, because loads of solid research shows that the number of people who actually change their votes away as a result are dwarfed by the much much higher number of votes gained. On the other hand, by deciding to vote against your own interests, you're hurting yourself, not someone else (though you probably made the volunteer who called you feel bad in a personal way, which probably also hurt). You gain nothing; you lose the power of your vote. Bad deal for everyone involved.

[lightning_rose]

Did I say how I actually voted, or how the vote turned out?

[fennel]

I think using the word "inform" (in "I informed them that even though I originally agreed...") suggests that you were saying something true.

Like this:

A: "Walking home today, I went up to this guy on the street and informed him that this hair was on fire."

B: "Wow, how did that happen?"

A: "Oh, it wasn't really on fire. I just informed him that it was."

Doesn't work for me.

[crankyliberal]

Well, I am trying to be more involved in the AZ Dem party for mostly social life purposes, so I can't make a frvilous argument :)

My issue with Moveon is that they apparently aren't as grass rootsy as it would seem- they had a calling campaign and the local Dems here were mad that they were calling Pennsylvania while people from New Mexico were calling people in AZ. It made their job a lot harder and less fun and effective.

But hey, you're just having a party and they probably won't bring people from AZ to your party (although they should because I'll come)

[cos]

MoveOn is a mostly top-down organization with strong grassroots elements, that aims to make it easy for a large dispersed set of interested people who don't have a lot of time, to take effective action to further their political goals with discrete chunks of time & energy & money as they have it available, without having to make long term commitments. It doesn't always mesh well with all other efforts happening in parallel, but on balance it's very very effective, and it mobilizes many people who otherwise probably wouldn't do anything, and/or wouldn't know how to organize with others to be effective (or wouldn't have the time to do so).

[laurenhat]

Yay, you should come! That would be awesome. ;)

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about MoveOn; they're fairly top down. But I still like a lot of their causes. And I guess they're pretty effective. That AZ-PA and NM-AZ crossover sounds totally wacky and not counterintuitive, though.

[maebeth]

My sweetie did calling for Move On and for the democrats. Now he's an extrovert extraordinaire, but I'll say that it did look like a fun social time and the work was organized in such a way that it was easy for the callers to know what to say.

The CON for me would be doing the organizing: do you need phone lines and a place? Computers for the callers? etc.

The PLUS is that my sweetie would be likely to come, and would probably volunteer to help if you wanted it. And I might come too, even if Obama IS a democrat.

[laurenhat]

Fortunately, the callers all bring their cell phones; all I need to do is print out a few guidelines for everyone. I also will be hooking up my computer to some speakers so that we can all hear a message being broadcast from the central offices. But I don't have to provide anything else.

I'd be happy to have either or both of you come join! Email me (my livejournal username at gmail) if you want more information. :)