Monday, November 10, 2008

What's the Matter with Texas cont'd

A reader writes:

I am an election judge, GOP precinct chair for about 20 years.

The Harris County losses were from a constellation of failures.  The joint judicial advertising campaign was ineffective.  Only the white judges participated, giving a flavor of lack of inclusion at a time when the young Asian, Hispanic populations of the city are growing.  The campaign implied that civil judges were tough on crime, which was widely ridiculed by those who understand what the courts do.  It also touted Republican ID at a time when many voters think judges should be nonpartisan, and broadcast this campaign on the airwaves where it angered Democratic leaning voters.  A more targeted campaign by mail to reliably GOP voters would have avoided some of the backlash from this inept campaign. (A joint push card with websites and a copy of the pledge to the Texas flag was one of the features of this campaign.  Old voters don't all have access to the web, and young voters could care less to have a copy of the Texas pledge, especially if they had moved here from Nebraska or Georgia.)

No energy or volunteers on the GOP side willing to do blockwalking, identify favorable voters, update voter lists, etc.  This was true even after the Palin pick.   By contrast as a benefit of the huge primary participation on the Democratic side, they had better data about who were their supporters, and from the high caucus participation they had cell phones, emails, etc.  The GOP ground game never caught up.

The local party is divided between business/countryclub/economic conservatives and religious right/nativist/social conservatives, with the latter firmly in control of party platform, precinct leadership vacancies, and the like, but uninterested in doing door to door or telephone work.  The former group is older, and also unwilling to do grassroots work, and many are drifting from the GOP.  I delivered materials to about a dozen GOP precinct chairs in mid October.  One had a Baldwin for President sign in his yard.  Two, who had attended the national convention as delegates, had no GOP signs of any sort in their yards. (One would not support McCain after her favorite Ron Paul lost.)  In fact, none of the others displayed any yard signs either.

11/10 11:00 PM