Yup. The Poll Numbers Worry Me Too. Shouldn't Be This Close. Our Strategy Sucks. [View All]

Now granted, you and I both know that this should for all intents and purposes be a landslide Dem victory; if the voters amongst us actually cared enough to learn facts, issues and cut through the bullshit. But the sad reality is that they ain't even close to caring enough. Obama/Biden should have an easy 15 point gap but they don't. Instead, some polls now show Johnny boy ahead.

That bothers me a whole hell of a lot. Why? Because it gives legitimate reason to believe that it's going to remain close, and we'll all be sitting here biting our nails for hours into the wee hours of the morning on election night, hoping that we pull out a victory. We've done that before. The results ain't been so good. I can see it happening again. We have to stop it from happening again. We MUST stop it.

So what about strategy? It sucks I said? Yeah, it probably does in ways, and I'll get to that more in a second. But first, I want to make it very clear the voters we should be targeting. We should be targeting the independent minded voters; and there are a whole heck of a lot of them these days. See, the hardcore republicans are gonna swallow down Palin easily, and will rush out to vote for their side as always. We ain't changin their minds. The firm Democrats are overwhelmingly going to vote for Obama, and he should have no problem keeping them on his side. The bitter 'we want Hillary' dems or the out of their mind green party-like my way or no way zealots that say they won't vote for Obama are gonna stay home or vote McCain anyway, and they deserve little of our attention. Some of them might end up voting Dem hopefully, but they'll do so because when push came to shove they realized how stupid and childish they're being and know the right thing to do is vote for the Dem. But they'll arrive at that on their own.

So those groups are pretty much taken care of. But this year, more than any election year I can remember, there are more independent minded voters than ever before. We HAVE to win them over. Don't forget: The votes of independents count TWICE as much as a Dem or Repub voter typically. Yes, they get 2 votes to your one. Why? Because you are either going to vote Dem, Green or not vote at all. That's a potential net gain of one vote for Obama. But an independent will either vote for the Dem or repub, they just don't know which yet. Because whichever side they end up choosing will have a net gain of TWO votes, their votes count twice as much. If you don't know what I mean, I'll explain. Obama is up 80 votes to McCain's 70. You are definitely either voting for Obama or not at all (you're a hardcore dem after all, right?). So the best outcome would be Obama now having 81 to McCain's 70. An eleven point lead from a ten. An indy goes in and will either vote for Obama or McCain. If Obama, then it's 81 to 70 again, an 11 point lead. If they choose McCain, it's now 80 to 71, or only a 9 point lead. That's a difference of 2 votes in the spread merely by choosing one over the other. Their votes count double.

Now that I've got that out of the way, what should our strategy be? It should be Keep It Simple. We are spending way too much time dissecting Palin, dissecting McCain. Way too much time preaching the issues. Way too much time trying to convince people who really don't care too much about the nuances and details of why Obama etc is better. But most independents these days don't want details. Hell, they just want whatever cookie cutter type surface talking point they can easily hear or read. These are our everyday coworkers, neighbors, friends and acquaintances. They aren't a tenth as politically informed as we are and we have to stop trying to get them to be. We need to just keep it simple.

How do we do that? Well, I think it's easy. Lowest common denominator. Least learning involved. Least effort to personally comprehend the gravity of on their part. Fuck the specific issues, fuck the details, fuck making it about Obama vs McCain, Biden vs Palin, stance on issues vs stance on issues. Most of them ain't listenin to you long enough to get your point across. Fuck all that. All WE should be focusing on in conversation with them, what WE should be spreading, what WE should be hammering home over and over, is simply DEMOCRAT vs REPUBLICAN. That's it. Keep it simple.

They've all had 8 years of this republican shit. They see where it's gotten them. They know how fucked up everything is. They know it's time for change. The only reason they're not flooding to Obama is because they so easily forget, and instead focus on the popular newspaper talking point of the day and get so easily distracted by whatever the media is shovin down their throats. That's why we need to pound it back into them repeatedly. Democrat vs republican. They don't need to think about it. They don't need to learn a thing. They've all suffered these 8 years. They'll know within themselves immediately what that comparison means. Fresh start. New blood. Turn our direction around.

We need to keep asking people: "Did you regret the last time you voted for a Democrat? Do you regret the last time you voted for a republican? It's time for a political shift."

We need to makes this not about individual politics, but about party power change. We need to get them to see that the republicans have had the reigns and we're all fucked right now cause of it. Time for a new driver. Time to give the Democrats a chance again. That's it. That's as complicated as your discussion needs to be. Keep the discussion along those lines, and I bet you'll see the glimmer of recognition in the eyes of the person you're talking to. They'll get it. They won't feel the need to be defensive about a particular issue Obama has that they don't like but do like in McCain. They won't be bogged down in details. They'll just get it.

So sorry for the long as ramble, but we need to get our asses movin. Each of us do. Each of us need to help win as many as these 2 for 1 voters over as possible. Time is running short.