Funny thing, democracy. It seems simple, yet the grimy little details make most of us physically ill. And just like the stomach queasies from too many funnel cakes and warm beers, it all starts with the upcoming festival season in T-Town.
First a bit of back story. The fundamentals of the democratic process include votes and candidates. Like, the candidates with the most votes grab the brass ring of public paycheck, err, service. This isn’t the lofty idealism you learned in civics class. No mumbled references to the “will of the people” or some such nonsense. The “people” be damned, we’re talking about folks who go to the polls and choose candidates come the September primaries. In the rough and tumble of City Politics, they’re all that matter.
Serious contenders for political office get this all-important distinction. Oh, they’ll give the rhetorical stump speeches about representing “Toledoans” or “the community,” but the fact behind the bull spew is their eyes are planted firmly on convincing registered voters to skedaddle over to the polling place on E Day and check the little box next to their name on the touch screen. Vast amounts of election resources are poured into this voter contact and mobilization. Literature pieces are crafted with strategic messages to target specific voting blocs. Mailings are targeted at groups of likely voters.
Computer technology has turned this craft into a scientific endeavor. Information gathered on consumer choices and behavior lends itself to micro-targeting. Voting history is used to predict who is most likely to vote at the polls, and how. The predictive capabilities have gotten so sophisticated that campaign staff make estimates of votes needed to win right down to the precinct level, as in, “we need 16 votes in 19F or we don’t win.” Those 16 votes are further targeted, so that Guadalupe Montoya gets a mailing about issues purportedly of interest to Latina voters tailored to her specific profile, while Cooper Richardson gets a different piece targeted to his unique demographic predilections.
In campaigns where a few thousand votes are the make or break numbers, candidates understand the efficient use of resources through targeting the most likely voters with messages tailored to them. And yet, all this scientific strategy and data crunching goes out the window when it comes to that Holy Grail of electioneering: Festival Season!
The first big festivals of the 2013 season are in view, with Point Place Days and the Old West End Festival taking place at the beginning of June. Candidates go gaga over these opportunities. Thousands of festival-goers packed into public spaces! Thousands of folks in a festive mood, easy to approach and win over!
The first true sign of summer in ol’ Froggy Bottom is the swarm of candidates buzzing around festivals like flies around guano. Nominating petitions in tow, they glad-hand and cajole with their most winning smile firmly in place. Stickers with the candidate’s logo are de jour at parades like the ones that inaugurate the Oh Dub Fest and PP Days, as hordes of campaign minions descend on the crowds and emblazon patrons with their candidates’ names. Forests of campaign signs festoon the parade routes as well as points of ingress and egress at gathering spots.
Candidates are notoriously paranoid about their election chances, and so leave none of this to their opponents. If the opponent has twenty signs, we must counter with twice that number, and better locations, and super signs at every corner! If the opponent has stickers, ours must be larger, more colorful! If they have minions in the parade, we must have mo’ better minions! We must have more volunteers, collecting more signatures, distributing more campaign literature!
Oopsy daisy, there, wanna-be-electeds. That matronly type you just spent a half hour winning to your side? She lives in Lambertville. Oh, and those folks who just walked past the sign cloud on their way to the beer booth? They couldn’t distinguish a single individual sign, let alone yours, and oh-by-the-way, they are actually from Akron, visiting relatives here in the Swamp.
That little kid proudly wearing your sticker? He put it on upside down, and his parents aren’t registered to vote, and even if they were, they’d never vote for you. Yep, they were the ones who signed your nominating petition, so their sigs aren’t valid since they aren’t registered. Yeah, we know they said they were registered when you asked. They were just being polite, you being so anxious and sweaty and all.
You just spent the entire day inching through a parade and talking to people. No targeting, no strategy, no messaging. You didn’t sway a single likely voter. It felt damn good, like they all love you. They were being polite. The minute you walked away, they didn’t remember your name, they discarded your campaign lit, they thought you were a joke, they aren’t registered and they live in another state. And you smelled funny.
Party on!
