When the results of the experiment came in, the phone calls showed no influence in getting people to vote. The direct-mail program increased turnout a modest but appreciable 0.6 percentage points for each postcard sent. (The experiment sent up to three pieces per household.) But the real revelation was in the group of voters successfully […]
Entries Tagged as 'Campaigning'
The Importance of Voter Contact – “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns”, Sasha Issenberg
December 6th, 2012 · Comments Off on The Importance of Voter Contact – “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns”, Sasha Issenberg · Campaigning, Politics
Tags:Campaigning·GOTV·Political Campaigning·Politics·Voter Contact
Political Advice and Story Telling – “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns”, Sasha Issenberg
December 5th, 2012 · Comments Off on Political Advice and Story Telling – “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns”, Sasha Issenberg · Campaigning, Data, Narrative, Politics
“A lot of what gets done on campaigns gets done on the basis of anecdotal evidence, which often comes down to who is a better storyteller. Who tells a better story about what works and what doesn’t work?” says Christopher Mann, a former executive director of the New Mexico Democratic Party. .. The people who […]
Tags:Campaigning·Data·Evidence·Narrative·Political Strategy·Politics·Story Telling
The Deep Seated Paranoia and Insecurity of Political Parties – “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns”, Sasha Issenberg
December 1st, 2012 · Comments Off on The Deep Seated Paranoia and Insecurity of Political Parties – “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns”, Sasha Issenberg · Campaigning, Politics, Progressive Politics
The best way to get anyone to do anything on the Democratic side—and I’m sure it’s the reverse on the Republican side—is to tell people that the Republicans are doing it. It doesn’t matter: the Republicans could be doing something completely stupid, but if you tell the Democrats they get scared and think they should […]
The Short Half-Life of Political TV Ads – “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns”, Sasha Issenberg
November 30th, 2012 · Comments Off on The Short Half-Life of Political TV Ads – “The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns”, Sasha Issenberg · Campaigning, Political Communication, Politics
The ads may have delivered sizable effects on the weeks in which they ran, the eggheads concluded, but they decayed rapidly. Much of Weeks’s folklore was right: if your goal was to move public opinion, it made sense to wait to go on TV until you would be able to sustain the buy.
Tags:Campaigning·Political Ads·Politics
People Came to This Country for Either Money or Freedom – “Freedom: A Novel”, Jonathan Franzen
October 27th, 2012 · Comments Off on People Came to This Country for Either Money or Freedom – “Freedom: A Novel”, Jonathan Franzen · Campaigning, Politics, US Politics, USA
People came to this country for either money or freedom. If you don’t have money, you cling to your freedoms all the more angrily. Even if smoking kills you, even if you can’t afford to feed your kids, even if your kids are getting shot down by maniacs with assault rifles. You may be poor, […]
[Read more →]
Tags:Campaigning·Freedom·individualism·Labor·liberalism·Politics·progressive·progressive politics
National Party Freedom Bonds – “Joh: The Life and Political Adventures of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen”, Hugh Lunn
October 18th, 2012 · Comments Off on National Party Freedom Bonds – “Joh: The Life and Political Adventures of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen”, Hugh Lunn · Campaigning, Political Communication, Politics, Queensland
For its part, the National Party – fighting its first state election under a new name – approached the election with patriotic fervour. So much so that in the campaign the party put “freedom bonds” up for sale at $10 to $100, making them, intentionally, like war bonds. The party justified this by saying the […]
[Read more →]
Tags:Campaigning·Political Advertising·Political Communication·Politics·Queensland·Sir Joh
A Bad Campaign Speech – “Joh: The Life and Political Adventures of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen”, Hugh Lunn
October 18th, 2012 · Comments Off on A Bad Campaign Speech – “Joh: The Life and Political Adventures of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen”, Hugh Lunn · Australian Labor Party, Campaigning, Political Communication, Politics, Progressive Politics
Joh set such a campaign pace in 1974 that he made it difficult for his ALP opponent Tucker to keep up. Tucker’s chartered plane got lost in a storm while flying to Quilpie in the West. The plane was half an hour overdue when Tucker himself used a road map to help the pilot establish […]
[Read more →]
Tags:Campaigning·Elections·Labor·Politics·Queensland
Karate Chop Political Advertising – “Joh: The Life and Political Adventures of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen”, Hugh Lunn
October 17th, 2012 · Comments Off on Karate Chop Political Advertising – “Joh: The Life and Political Adventures of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen”, Hugh Lunn · Campaigning, Economics, Political Communication
The big surprise (in 1974) was the defeat of Brisbane’s popular Lord Mayor, Alderman Clem Jones – or was it such a surprise, considering the advertising campaign mounted by his Liberal opponent, Don Cameron. He ran a series of television commercials in which he moved around in front of a big pile of roofing tiles […]
[Read more →]
Tags:Campaigning·Elections·Inflation·Political Advertising·Political Communication·Queensland
Write for a Six Year Old – “Huey Long”, T. Harry Williams
September 11th, 2012 · Comments Off on Write for a Six Year Old – “Huey Long”, T. Harry Williams · Campaigning, Political Communication, Politics
(Long) would scrawl a circular out on several sheets of tablet paper and hand it to a secretary to be typed. He told one secretary his concept of effective political language. “Always write everything so a six-year-old child can understand it,” he said.
[Read more →]
Tags:Campaigning·Political Advertising·Political Communication·Politics
Demagogue – “Huey Long”, T. Harry Williams
September 9th, 2012 · Comments Off on Demagogue – “Huey Long”, T. Harry Williams · Campaigning, Political Communication, Politics
Those who apply the label of demagogue to Huey or to other politicians hardly ever trouble to invest the term with any precise definition. It was coined by the ancient Greeks, who were sorely afflicted by rabble rousing orators and who described them scornfully. The demagogue, said Euripides, was ‘base-born’, ‘a man of loose tongue, […]
[Read more →]
Tags:Campaigning·Democracy·etymology·History·Political Communication·Politics·The Greeks