30 May 2018 — 1651 mdt
Pestering voters is a strategy that can backfire
Back when I had a telephone, and when my door didn’t sport a “Do Not Disturb” sign, almost the only time I heard from the Democratic Party, its candidates, and progressive organizations, was just before the election. They didn’t want to persuade me of the wisdom of their platform. They just wanted to make damn sure I voted.
That’s still the Democrats’ approach, and, as Lara Putnam reported in the American Prospect, it can backfire:
But as Election Day neared, the Lamb campaign’s own GOTV surge collided with national attention. Progressive groups pushed digital voter contacting tools to distant volunteers, and these “contacts” metastasized. Since 501(c)3 nonprofit groups cannot coordinate with campaigns, the phone calls, texts, and canvassing teams run by outside groups hit the same people that the Lamb campaign itself was now re-contacting over and over.
The real message was clear, whatever the script. We’re the players, you’re the target: politics isn’t about you finding your voice, it’s about us getting your vote. People began refusing to answer the phone. Volunteers got in an apology at best before doors slammed shut. A 93-year-old woman seemed to speak for the district as she fought to maintain her manners after my Election Day knock had dragged her in her walker all the way to the door. “Please. I can’t not answer the phone, it might be the doctor. But please, can’t you all just stop?”
Democrats need to give this some thought, and to show some more respect for the voters. Increasingly, the party sees elections not as opportunities to persuade voters that the Democratic way is best, but simply as exercises in identifying Democrats and somehow getting them to the polls. That approach lends itself to avoiding issues out of fear of taking a position or making an argument that would cause a voter not to cast a ballot.
If Democrats had been winning a lot of elections lately, they could argue that their approach makes cold blooded political sense. But after the debacles that began in 2010, and with the exception of 2012, continued through 2016, there’s little evidence supporting the proposition that pestering is superior to persuading. Yes, the results of some special elections and the Virginia elections suggest the tide may be turning blue, but if it’s turning blue it’s because that’s the color of “we can’t stand trump,” not because voters prefer being pestered to being treated as rational beings who respond positively to fact and reason.