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Any mainstream online media presence? You tube video? Facebook campaign page. Twitter campaign? Wikipedia entry? Places where prominent people can endorse/donate/support you? Know any celebs? Got any pictures/videos of you doing interesting things or with well known people? (Brand recognition is about connecting with already known brands).

Does humour work in Washington - or at least get people talking about you? Think of a few zany angles that will provoke interest rather than be off putting.  If you are paying for newspaper ads, the least they can do is interview/profile you.

In general people will vote for someone they know something about - anything - rather than someone they know nothing about.  What's your name recognition compared to your incumbent opponent? It can come down to something as trivial as that.

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by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Thu Jun 7th, 2012 at 12:30:17 PM EST
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PS I have googled you a bit and the only online presence I can find is on truly awfully wonkish sites that only committed political activists and technical specialist will read. You badly need your own website with lots of colour, family photographs, videos of you giving presentations, favourable news coverage, and opportunities for voters to engage with you via comments/email etc. Talk over videos of your locality showing you understand the issues people face in their daily lives. Include footage of popular or well known local personalities engaging with you. You have to SHOW you understand, not just include abstract references in dusty policy statements.

Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Fri Jun 8th, 2012 at 12:14:22 PM EST
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I will try to do better.

paul spencer
by paul spencer (spencerinthegorge AT yahoo DOT com) on Fri Jun 8th, 2012 at 08:36:05 PM EST
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that we are building pages on several Dem-Party-linked sites.

paul spencer
by paul spencer (spencerinthegorge AT yahoo DOT com) on Fri Jun 8th, 2012 at 08:37:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Which may help consolidate support from already committed Dem supporters and thus be of very marginal benefit at best.

What you need to appeal to uncommitted voters is a presence on apparently unaligned or "non-political" sites singing your praises - facebook pages etc. Local community sites, a personal campaign site emphasising your personal qualities and community ties rather than your political identification.

Committed Dems will vote for you because your a Dem. Everyone else will vote for or against you because of how you present yourself to them as a person  - and a strong party identification may even be a negative for them.

You are a multi-dimensional person, not a party apparatchik. You have to appeal to a multitude of different people on a variety of different levels. Only a small minority of people will vote for you on purely ideological grounds, and only a few more on perceived competence.

The swing vote is typically composed of low information voters who are looking for some hook or symbol by which they can differentiate between two candidates they know little or nothing about  - and who will then promptly forget about their choice and get on with their daily lives far removed from any consideration of politics

You have to give them some reason to vote for you in that one glimmer of consciousness when they are actually deciding how to cast their vote.  So they have to have some positive association with you:

  1. Name recognition
  2. Local/community identification
  3. Professional respect for what you have accomplished
  4. Some belief in the more positive future you are depicting/promising
  5. positive, warm, sunny emotional feeling/vibes about you (are you someone they would like as a colleague, neighbour, grandfather, community representative)
  6. Association with other things they feel positively about
  7. Party political/issues identification - comes about last in the list for swing voters.


Index of Frank's Diaries
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Sat Jun 9th, 2012 at 09:13:46 AM EST
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