The Elly Report: Candidates Corner

2004 Candidate Survey: A State Committee Member's Response 2

by Rebecca Dono Healy, Republican State Committee, 1st Worcester District

Thanks for providing a topic for discussion and a forum for it to be shared. I'd like to weigh in with my thoughts on an issue which has not been addressed in the comments of Desiree, Chanel, Steve, or Tilda: The Campaign Portal.

According to comments submitted with the survey: "Numerous candidates expressed frustration at having to divert time and effort from their campaigns to update volunteer and voter lists in the 'Campaign Portal' because of the suggestion that Mass GOP financial support would be contingent on those data base maintenance efforts."

As far as I am concerned, identifying voters, capturing their information and reusing the data for GOTV in the final stretch IS campaigning - NOT a diversion from campaigning. Candidates should spend their time making quality contacts with voters who a.) live in the district and b.) are likely to vote. Although shaking hands at the fair and standing out at the rotary are classic campaign activities, they are not an effective use of a candidate's limited resources (time). The percentage of people met in these situations who are actual voters in the district is very low and (IMHO) a waste of time.

A good friend of mine from college lives outside of Cincinnati OH and in a county targeted by Bush 04. She was required to make in person contact with identified voters, she was required to report her results back to the Bush HQ and was judged in her efforts. I don't need to tell any of you that the on-the-ground campaigning in Ohio was decisive in the success of the campaign.! The Dems also did a massive voter turnout initiative, but they failed to effectively target actual voters. They relied upon broad based voter outreach - targeting groups rather than individuals to their detriment.

As for using the portal as the repository of the data for those candidates who actually do real voter ID, I strongly believe that the RSC was CORRECT in directing candidates to use the portal. What I have seen happen time and again is the data, which is painstakingly collected, gets buried or lost at the end of a campaign. Whether this occurs due to disorganization, disappointment, or simple unwillingness to share, this loss is a tremendous blow to our attempts to build structure and an electoral base. (We talk about a farm team of candidates, but what we really need is a farm team of voters.)

Every cycle, time and resources get wasted recreating this data. This is a tragic waste. By entering this data into the portal, the party is capturing it for future candidates to use (or for themselves if they run again.)

I have heard the complaint that the portal is simply a tool to ID voters for Romney. I disagree. In 02, Romney was able to pull so many volunteers for his Worcester phone banks, that there were times I used my cell phone to make calls since all of the phones were being used, so he has no shortage of volunteers. However, the bigger point is that the data collected by Romney is really useless for a local candidate for House and/or Senate while data collected specifically for any H/S candidate is invaluable to all H/S candidates.

A voter who is willing to support a local candidate with out name ID (unlike Romney, Swift, Cellucci, Weld or whoever is at the top of the ticket) is likely to support future local candidates. A H/Scandidate cannot reliably transfer IDed voters of a 'big name' candidate to their candidacy. Electoral results since 1992 have shown this to be true, where the GOP wins statewide yet loses in the local races. The IDed voters who support local GOP candidates are like gold.

I only wish that the GOP had a tool like the portal earlier to cultivate voters from campaign to campaign. Think of the positive comments we would have received (and additional votes), if the candidates in 04 would have started out with a list from 02 like that they are bequeathing to the next round of candidates.

What Steve said is correct: this must be a multi-year rebuilding process. This kind of data collection is critical for our success. Credit should go to the present leadership of the MassGOP for building a permanent infrastructure.