You want people to vote for your candidate, so how can you avoid doing more harm than good?
Let's start with some of the worst tactics.
1) He's just saying that to get elected
Suppose Kerry has come out in favor of banning oranges. Oranges are bad, says Kerry.
How to convince that orange-lover in the next cubicle to vote for him anyway?
"He's just saying that to get elected, once he's in the White House, he will make sure Americans get more and bigger oranges," is just about the worst stratagem you can employ. For starters, you're saying Kerry is a liar, just another sleazebag pandering politico who will promise the world to get your vote when he has no intention of doing any of it once elected.
Is that really the message you want to send?
Another problem with this technique is that suppose the pro-Orange voter also happens to hate pears, which Kerry has said on several occasions are almost as bad as oranges.
If you are successful in convincing Mr. Orange that Kerry is just politicking, you have just lost your chance to appeal to his pear concerns. After all, if Kerry is lying about his position on oranges, how can anyone be sure he's telling the truth when the pear issue comes up?
Now, if you yourself sincerely believe that your candidate is just saying this or that to get elected, that might be something to sit quietly and think about, but that is not my topic at this moment.
2) Once he is elected, we will put his feet to the fire and make him love oranges.
This is not very convincing. If you couldn't get his feet anywhere near that fire when he was running for the job of your nominee, and if he is still not addressing your concerns now that he's gotten THIS job from you, what makes you think he will be seeking your advice if he gets the BIG job?
And again, you are casting aspersions on your candidate's integrity. Give him credit. If he has a position on something, that position is supposed to be one of the reasons you cite to get people to vote for him. You can be sure he did not take that position lightly. It is what he thinks is best, and one of the reasons HE believes he's the best man for the job.
Mr Orange doesn't care how many letters and media blasts you are going to do on the subject of oranges. He may not share your confidence that Kerry is going to listen to you. And if your goal is to convince him to vote for Kerry, you have a better shot if you try to talk about something besides oranges.
3) No politician can say oranges are good! It would be political suicide! In the primaries, Candidate Binky said maybe it didn't matter if people ate oranges sometimes and he was crucified!
This is an especially counter-productive argument if you are attempting to persuade someone who is considering voting for a third party candidate, or not voting at all. If you are correct, and the voting public is so militantly anti-Orange as all that, then you have confirmed the argument made by those who say that in the absence of sweeping and fundamental changes to the whole pie, the election itself is irrelevant, and nothing you say after that is very credible.
4) He's not Bush
Another big loser with third party people, since supporters of all the third party and write in candidates can correctly make the same assertion about THEIR candidate, and of no value at all to those who are undecided between Bush and Kerry, for obvious reasons.
5) Nader sucks. He also gives little kids poison candy and trips old people into mud puddles on purpose.
Obviously, if you are trying to convince someone who actually likes Nader to vote for Kerry instead, this one is a non-starter. That person likes Nader, as he is, in the way that you should at least appear to like Kerry, if you sincerely want to convince anybody who does not like him to vote for him anyway.
With people who agree that Nader sucks but want to vote for him because they want anybody but Dems and Repubs to get as many votes as possible, you will have a better chance convincing him to support a different third party candidate, or to write in
Leonard Peltier.
These voters are not operating under the delusion that Nader will win.
This brings us to the topic that probably should have come first.
The election is getting close. Use your resources wisely.
Anyone who is planning to vote or write in someone who is not Bush or Kerry is not a good choice for your resource allocation.
In almost 100% of the cases, you can talk to these people for 15 minutes, or less, and it will be evident that between you and they yawns an unbridgeable gap.
That gap may have to do with objections to policies, regardless of who administers their implementation, it may have to do with the relative belief level that you and that person have in the election process itself. You are not going to change that person's mind. Faith is an act of will. Don't waste your time.
So what are some positive things you can do?
Take your cue from your candidate. If you believe he is the best man to run the country, give yourself permission to believe that he is the best man to explain his own positions during the campaign.
He is not apologizing for his positions, and neither should you. Those positions got him the nomination. He is not ashamed or hesitant to defend them, why should you be?
When trying to convince someone to vote for Kerry, first determine that they are worth the effort. Focus on issues where there is a clear divide between Bush and Kerry, and no larger obstacle issue.
For example, an undecided voter who is very strongly in favor of stem cell research is a good prospect, UNLESS that person is also very strongly in favor of single payor health care (socialized medicine). Throw that one back. You'll be there all day, and the chances that this person will vote for Kerry as a result of your efforts is slim to none.
Don't overlook your best bets. If you are reading this, the chances are good that you are, to put it politely, living with some degree of news and/or politics dependence. This makes you likely to seek out others like yourself, and attempt to persuade them to vote for Kerry with your well-thought out and researched soliloquys and talking points, while over in the corner sits a voter who is as obsessed with aerial photography or scrapbooking or vintage cars as you are with politics and news.
This person's eyes may glaze over listening to you and your fellow news junkie chatter away, but if you had gone over and talked to him instead, you might find that although he almost never reads or watches news, and is barely aware of the fact that there is an election, the little unavoidable bits of the larger world that have invaded his mental space have formed his inchoate and vague but extant political opinion: He doesn't like Bush. He may not know or care which country or countries the US is bombing today, or will be doing this time next year but he doesn't like the way Bush talks, he doesn't like the way Bush smirks, he doesn't like the swagger, he doesn't like the laugh because he hates Beavis and Butthead, but this man is one with which your "He's not Bush" argument will resonate.
Keep looking around the room, and you will probably see several other good bets. They may not be as news averse as this guy, they may be leaning towards Bush because they agree with US policies, and they may have some concerns that Kerry would turn the whole apple-cart upside down.
Now that may sound absurd to YOU, but depending on which media you watch, what is shown on these peoples' TV screens may include a lot more said ABOUT your candidate than what he actually says. How many times have you watched Kerry make a speech, and say he will get the job done in Iraq and be tougher on terror than Bush, and immediately afterward, they bring on some clown who proceeds to "analyze" the speech as if Kerry had said he would evacuate all troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, release all the detainees in Gitmo and elsewhere, send the entire Bush administration to the Hague and cut off military aid to Israel while issuing an executive order mandating socialized medicine?
That is what your good undecided prospect watches every day.
These are the people to whom you can point out what Kerry himself says.
Note: I do not support any of the candidates. The link to the Leonard Peltier site is included for the benefit of people who may not know who he is, and is not an attempt to persuade anyone to cast their vote any differently than their conscience dictates.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
