[lbo-talk] health care polls

Gar Lipow the.typo.boy at gmail.com
Mon Mar 27 20:52:51 PST 2006


On 3/27/06, Nathan Newman <nathanne at nathannewman.org> wrote:
>
> It worked so well for all the dotcoms
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: joanna
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Sent: Monday, March 27, 2006 2:06 AM
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] health care polls
>
> How about a commercial during the super bowl?
>
> Joanna
>

I have to second Nathan Newman's smartass remark on this. The problem with this like a lot of left programs is that you can't reach people with soundbites. In point of fact the right does not really reach people with soundbites either; they reinforce existing carefully cultivated tropes - that have been spread via professional comedy,personal jokes,music, fiction (including news and talk shows). Countering that is doable, but even if you get some millionares on your side commericals are not going to do it. The other side can always outspend you in that realm. If leftists have advantages anywhere (and I'm not sure we do) it is in person to person organizing. Let's make an attempt at a lesson from that battle in California that so discouraged Nathan. A lot of money was spent on it and it went down to overwhelming defeat. But much of that money was put into commericals. However there were some precincts in which extensive person to person organizing was done via house parties - and the initative won in those precincts. Interesting no? Unfortunately not conclusive. Those precincts were able to do that kind of door to door organizing because the had a larger base of support. And it happens they mostly were precincts that tend to vote to the left of the California average anyway. So the question is whether precincts voted for the initiative because they had better door to door organizing, or whether they had better door to door organizing because they already supported the initiative. Sorry, if I had easy answers I swear I would share them.



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