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the election wasn't stolen, it's not the referee's fault, I'm so sick of hearing lame excuses when we lose.
We lost yesterday for a variety of reasons, all of them OUR fault (OUR meaning the Democratic Party as a whole):
1) Voters do NOT like weakness and an inability to get things done. Obama was better off as I pointed out earlier to treat the Senate as hostile since the Blue Dogs there are really Republicans and to go for broke - SINGLE PAYER, financial re-regulation, breaking up the monopolies, a REAL public works FDR style jobs program, prosecution of BushCo, actually ending torture and shutting down Guantanamo, ending the war in Iraq, ending our pro-slavery trade policy which ships American jobs to countries with slave labor, and making education at all levels universally free.
Even if he lost on all of these, if he went for broke instead of compromising, the voters would have respected him as "strong" and would have realized who the real impediments to changer are: Republicans and Blue Dogs.
2) DON'T ABANDON YOUR PRINCIPLES AND YOUR BASE. Your base will be necessary to turn out other voters and as a source of fundraising. If you alienate your base by compromising your principles (which Obama did far too often in the last election) you will make it almost impossible to run a campaign that has any chance of winning. Your base will sit home, not volunteer, not donate and not vote.
3) Crappy candidates - no candidate who wants to win should be screwing around on vacation instead of shaking babies and kissing hands, making appearances and dialing for dollars. The candidate should know what the message is - right now:
"It's the JOBS STUPID!"
and the candidate shouldn't make stupid gaffes..which brings me to my next topic:
4) Don't screw up and offend sports fans!
Sports may be shallow and superficial, as Jerry Seinfeld once said, that guy who is playing on your team gets traded to another team and next year you're booing him.. I guess we're rooting for the jerseys.. or another thing he said was "no THEY won.. YOU watched.." But Jerry was making a very important point that politicians need to pay attention to:
A lot of people have no lives so they live vicariously through their sports teams.
I'll be the first to admit I watch my Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in basketball and football and I follow the Braves in baseball and I'll watch the Olympics but generally I don't care a lot about most forms of professional sports.. the NBA, the NFL, the NHL, NASCAR, etc.
I am the EXCEPTION though and I'm smart enough to realize it.
Most people have far more affection for, interest in, knowledge of, and loyalty to their sports team(s) than they do their politicians.
Anyone running for office in a town with a pro sports team or a well known college team or running for state wide office or national office would be well advised to LEARN ABOUT SPORTS TEAMS IN THEIR AREA and know not to confuse them, particularly when it comes to rivals for which there is ususally bitter hatred such as Yankees-Red Sox, or Dallas-Redskins, or Lakers-Celtics, etc., etc.
If you make a gaffe like this it is often worse to most voters than Gerry Ford saying Poland wasn't behind the Iron Curtain in 1976. They will hold it against you.
If you don't know and appreciate their team, they will think you are elitist, snobbish, effete, an egghead, etc. This is especially true for male voters vs. a female candidate.
In short show up at games, meet players, make friends with the sports fans.
The more general message is to be POPULIST, NOT ELITIST.
5) Crappy campaign organizations that exist mostly in cyberspace if at all.
Real campaigns don't rely on the internet to spread the word. Regardless of what you might think, the primary media for distribution of information in our culture is TELEVISION, followed closely by RADIO and MOTION PICTURES. If you want to get a mass message out, you need to use a PRIMARY media.
The internet is really only good for speaking to the young, the technologically focused, and the true believer who is already on your side. It's real value is in raising money.
Real campaigns actually WORK PRECINCTS DOOR TO DOOR from LISTS.
Real campaigns identify supporters early on and get them signed up for an absentee ballot.
Real campaigns TARGET voters based on likelihood of voting and persuadability and don't simply target their own party. They define a universe of targeted voters from their persuadable and likely voters in their own party and amongst independents.
Real campaigns ONLY talk to ID'D voters during GOTV - the sure sign of a loser is a campaign which is trying to turn out its own party base instead of working from a list of ID'D FAVORABLE VOTERS at GOTV time.
Real campaigns get their ID'D voters to vote ABSENTEE ahead of time so that they can bank those votes BEFORE election day and eliminate them from the GOTV effort ON election day. They don't leave it until election day only to find that there is a blizzard or a rain storm that drives down turnout.
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