Will Blue Republicans Win Ron Paul the Election?
August 13, 2011
5 Comments
Why it is important to stay focused on likely Republican voters. (take with a grain of salt)
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I think it’s more likely the anti-war, Blue Republicans do it for us. Fact is there are a lot more Democrats and Independents than there are registered Republicans.
Obama’s a nightmare, but the disenchanted and disgruntled Dems & Inds aren’t going to cross over for a Perry, Palin or Bachmann. But they will for Ron Paul.
I’ve been reading the lefty blogs and a number of them claim they won’t be voting for Obama again — and they will indeed register Republican to vote for Ron Paul rather than go Third Party. You just remind them that Kucinich thinks Ron Paul is the bomb and they get more open to this idea. If the numbers needed are indeed so small, I’m not seeing how this won’t help…?
There is no doubt that some Democrats will vote for Ron Paul. And there is no doubt that there will be those who focus on that. I’m just saying that the activism leaders don’t need to be (and shouldn’t be) focusing on this, given the political environment. I didn’t come up with this research–this concept comes from what I’ve learned from top dogs who know how campaigns are actually won.
Mainly, it’s a motivation factor. As motivated as Ron Paul supporters are, even all of our supporters (ones with yard signs) don’t all show up on election day. I saw this first hand in New Hampshire in 2007. (And this is okay and expected!) This is just statistical reality. So a leftist might like bits of Ron Paul’s ideas, but their motivation to vote for him is very, very low when you zoom out and consider the bigger picture. It is so much better to spend your precious time speaking with people who already identify with Ron Paul’s party (yes, he is a Republican) and, and this is the key, who have a predictable history of voting in a Republican primary (a very small and identifiable number of people). Now maybe you can’t accept this, and maybe I’m not 100% correct–but I’ll wager that I’m at least 88% correct. Yes, you might live in an exclusively liberal area and you might have 0 tolerance for speaking with conservatives–so we all have our roles to play. I just want to really flesh out this debate and urge that we don’t siphon off energy from the supporters towards unproven methods. I also want to challenge all of us to get out of our comfort zones (that would be the internet and facebook)!
I like to frame the question this way “if you had one additional hour of time to devote to campaigning, where would you spend that hour and what would you do?”
If you chose to spend that one hour canvassing or making phone calls, targeted approach, your best bet is to call or visit likely Republican voters. In my experience, calling Democrats, or even anti-war identified Democrats is fruitless.
However, if you are spending this hour in a public venue such as a fair or farmers market, you may want to come prepared with some literature for Democrats. This is especially true if you live in a liberal community. This makes sense because your audience is fairly unknown in this situation and you need to be prepared to provide information about issues that people care about. This is not necessarily wasted time as you may be having conversations with these individuals anyways, and being prepared with literature will increase the likelihood of swaying a voter.
Also keep in mind, that in this atmosphere, people will self select to approach you. So out of 100 Democrats, one may be open to the message. That one may approach you and give you the opportunity to sway them. In the prior approach, phone calls and canvassing, this would mean knocking on 100 doors or getting hung up on 100 times.
I’m thinking that many people are confusing the primary process with the general election. We do need to focus on other conservatives and active voters from past elections within that broad category. I think, though, that these Blue Republicans and independents will make the difference in the general election.
For those who think we need to focus on a “new source” of activism, I believe it’s due to a lack of faith that we can get the Perry-ites (He is going to be the RNC’s chosen candidate) to let go of their idea that America is under attack from the Middle East and we need a strong-on-defense president to fight a war like it’s supposed to be fought; like WWII was, for example. The idea that America has been her own worst enemy and our foreign policy has brought our troubles on ourselves is anathema to many, many voters and some RP grassroots are feeling daunted by the job of getting them to see past that message, which is what they’re hearing in his foreign policy statements.