Politics – Page 179 – Shall Not Be Questioned

The Unwashed Masses

What is the purpose of the silly season? Campaign messaging seemingly geared toward sounds bites and tailored to the lowest common denominator. See Tam’s site for an example of this. Running against Obamacare because it guts Medicare is a common theme amongst Republicans this year. Without making any comment on the Indiana Senate race, where I probably wouldn’t vote for either of those two either, I will explain why this particular tactic isn’t concerning me all that much when it comes to the struggle for smaller government in general.

Spend some time talking to people in the last days of an election, and you start to feel depressed. Most people, even people who are otherwise pretty intelligent and rational individuals, are rationally quite ignorant of politics. When I say ignorant, I mean to the extent they know anything about political issues, it’s not within any ideologically consistent framework. For the ones who are not just blatantly self-interested, they vote because somewhere in their upbringing they’ve been told it’s their civic duty, but no one ever mentioned the civic duty of not being ignorant about what you’re voting for.

The purpose of silly season is to get the unwashed masses out to the polls to vote for the peopleÂ who support your issues of the day. In order to do that, you have to find messages that motivate people. A lot of seniors are upset about Obamacare. Let me rephrase, a lot of seniors are really upset about Obamacare. Why? Because it’s changing their health care, which they are relatively happy with. Medicare is generally a component of that.Â They are part of the constituency for repealing Obamacare, which should be the primary goal of liberty loving people right now.

Whatever you may think of Medicare, it is tomorrow’s battle. It should be today’s battle, but the 2008 elections set us back a decade, and now we have more ground to make up than we did before. We’reÂ going to find allies among seniors who are pissed at the Medicare cuts, even if they are voting with us for the wrong reasons. They are ready and willing to vote out bastards who voted for Obamacare. By the time we have the fight over Medicare, their government run health care may have killed many of them off, so I don’t worry too much about it.

When dealing with the unwashed voting masses, you can only really think short term. Freedom will not be won back in one fell swoop. The first rule of politics to to forget that the process has anything to do with principles or philosophy. The only role principles play is helping guide you, the activist, to know which battles need to be fought to get closer to your goal.

Battles change, and coalition partners come and go. What politics really comes down to is a very small number of activists struggling against another very small number of activists, using the vast and ignorant voter rolls as pawns on a chessboard. That may make people of principle very uncomfortable, but that’s what it is. The question is whether you’re an observer, one of the pieces on the board, or someone moving the pieces of the board. For the most part, people who love liberty are observers. What we need to be are the people moving the pieces on the board. That’s the only way we’re winning the game in the end.

Why Liberty Loses, Part II

Got a chance to speak briefly to Mike Fitzpatrick, who’s running against Pelosi’s poodle here in the 8th District.Â today. His first questions were geared at what kind of resources I could send his way. I wish I could tell him I had six people phone banking for him last night who banged out 600 calls to constituents, but I can’t. I have one dedicated volunteer and myself, and a handful of other people who help out here and there. The message I have to get across is that I’ll do everything I can to help him out. It’ll be more than most issues can muster, but not as much as we really need if he’s ever facing a tough vote on guns.

This is especially true if we compare it to what Fitzpatrick is up against. Murphy is the rising star of the Democratic Party. They are not going to surrender this seat easily. We represent the burning edge of the Democratic Party’s Firewall. Our opponents are dumping a ton of money into this district, and Fitzpatrick is worried about busloads of union people being shipped in from New York City and New Jersey for Murphy. This is in addition to other left wing activists being shipped up from Washington D.C. on Murphy’s behalf. Murphy has been quite adept at rallying ground troops and money, mostly from outside of the 8th district. He’s vulnerable this year, but he’s not going down without a fight. Keep in mind this guy supported Carolyn McCarthy’s assault weapons ban which would have banned the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine. Basically any semi-automatic rifle of military pattern, and all semi-automatic shotguns. His talk is about how pro-gun he is, but much it’s about as true as when he says he’s a blue dog. The guy sells himself as a moderate, but his voting record is as left-wing as they come.

People who support liberty can’t draw on this level of support. The left is motivated enough to send their shock troops to the front lines to fight the ragtag local militia we’re mustering here. They are sending people across the country, while liberty has a hard time getting people across the county. This is another reason we lose. The other side just wants it more than we do.

Now Begins the Silly Season

Really, it started a few months ago, but these last few weeks are where it gets intense. Headed to a volunteer fair today for Mike Fitzpatrick. This is essentially where they gather people who want to help, and match them up with things they need done. After that it’s off for a few hours of phone banking for Rob Ciervo. Phone banking isn’t really as bad as one would think. It’s mostly leaving messages on machines. The idea is just to get your candidates name out there so people know who to vote for, and so you can help sway the undecided. On election day, you follow up with the “Did you vote yet?” call, trying to get them to the polls.

I always encourage NRA members to wear an NRA hat, an NRA pin, or something to identify yourself as part of the “gun vote,” mostly so that the local endorsees understand where their bread is getting buttered. I get a lot of people we try to recruit saying “Well, I already volunteer with the GOP.” Around here, if you’re pro-gun, you’re probably a Republican, but that’s not universal. We also have more than a few Republicans who need to improve. It’s great to volunteer directly to parties and campaigns, but that doesn’t help me gain leverage over them for the gun issue. Once the political establishment starts seeing a “gun vote” around, they know there’s energy out there for it. They also know there’s something to lose by voting the wrong way, and something to gain by voting the right way.

Politicians are very self-interested, for the most part. They may tell you it’s all about serving the public, but it’s really all about staying in office. There are true believers out there, but they are rare birds, and that usually only happens when they are gunnies themselves. The key to winning is knowing what motivates this particular species, and baiting them properly.

It’s Time To Call Her Ma’am Again

This has to be the best attack ad on Barbara Boxer I’ve seen yet:

Call Me Senator from RightChange on Vimeo.

Done by David Zucker.

Asking the Right Questions

Writing a poll isn’t as easy as it sounds. One of the biggest factors in dealing with respondents is that they can lie, or they can tell you what they think you want to hear. This measure is particularly important when trying to figure out the likely voter model. So, what do you do with a poll when its entire purpose is to determine who will turn out to vote? You have to really dig down and try to ask the best questions possible.

Yesterday, SCI released a poll saying that “nine in ten sportsmen and women are ‘very’ likely to vote in the upcoming mid-term elections.” My first question was how they determined a likely voter. When I finally saw the question, I was a little skeptical. I wasn’t so eager to raise questions to go downstairs and dig out the textbooks from my polling class in college, but this morning a relevant post just happened to cross my path courtesy of Jim Geraghty. And you know how I am about stirring the pot.

The first two questions in SCI’s poll ask whether the respondent is registered and how they are registered to vote. It’s the third question they appear to use to determine a likely voter: “And how likely is it that you will vote in the upcoming November election for Congress?” The best answer – “very interested” – garnered 88% of responses, with “somewhat likely” giving another 10%. That means 98% are “likely” voters by their measure. Anytime a number is that high, it’s not believable at all. Geraghty’s link today pointed out that defining likely voters with this method of questioning is very unreliable in a year like this:

The most difficult job a pollster has is trying to figure out who the actual voters are going to be in a given election year. This is easier said than done, because we know that (a) almost all survey participants say they will vote in the midterm election and (b) historically, only about 40 percent will.

Pollsters do their best to solve this problem by screening out those who are unlikely to vote using a question or series of questions probing interest in the election and/or prior voting behavior. These techniques vary widely from pollster to pollster. Some pollsters use especially “loose” voter screens: asking only, for example, if someone is certain to vote, without probing any deeper.

For example, simply asking respondents if they are certain to vote (used by Suffolk) will sometimes let more than 90 percent of respondents through a screen. In such a situation, nearly half of the respondents who are counted will not actually vote.

The article does note that even when you use tighter screens, you’ll still get people through who won’t actually vote. No poll is perfect, but I do believe it’s worth it to at least try and weed out some of those folks who don’t participate just to get a more accurate picture.

To SCI’s credit, their pollster did try to measure enthusiasm. It was very high, but then again, the survey response was pretty tilted toward Republicans which would likely reflect the higher-than-normal interest in the elections. But, their measure of enthusiasm should be a sign that the 98% number is way off. Respondents were asked to rate their interest in the elections on a scale of 1 to 10, and 23% rated their interest as 5 or less. I would say that interest is almost certainly a worthy measure to consider in whether someone is likely to vote – and that brings us down to less than 80% of potential likely voters. Many polls also ask whether the person has a history of voting in recent elections, which is usually a pretty decent indicator of future behavior. Unfortunately, the SCI poll didn’t go into this background with the folks they called. The more questions you ask along these lines, the more liars you weed out.

Before anyone says I’m just getting nit picky, I think it’s important to consider why we need to go the extra mile to get the right information. Is a publicly-released poll touting 9 out of 10 of sportsmen vote more valuable than one kept internally that shows only 7 in 10 will likely vote? If all you’re after is a quick headline for the movement, a quick dose of patriotism, and maybe some numbers to casually throw in front of a politician, then it probably is better to forgo the expense of adding extra questions to the poll that would really determine your true likely voters. However, if you want the poll to be used in a way to drive turn out machines, move resources in the right direction, or formulate a plan to engage more people, it’s better to have the most accurate information. Personally, I’m more interested in results, so I’ll go with the latter option. It still shows that sportsmen vote at higher rates than the average voter, so it does us no harm. However, it also may show us how we can improve our outreach so the 9 in 10 statistic is actually reflected on Election Day.

A Ray of Hope

Jim Geraghty thinks the fuss about Toomey’s lead evaporating is greatly overblown. I sure hope it is, but we can’t be complacent.

Playing on Fears

Of all the ads this election season, this one will play most decidedly on deeply seeded American fears:

I’m generally not one to enjoy scare tactics in politics, but this ad made my skin crawl. This is genius, even if it’s creepy genius. Sometimes I think people need to be slapped in the face with what’s at stake. This add gets that across.

What Shot Sestak up?

Local pundits are suggesting that it’s this commercial:

Folks, if all a left-wing Democrat has to do to win is put his foo foo dog in a commercial blaming Bush for the country’s problems, we’re totally screwed. I’d like to encourage everyone to get out there and do something for Pat Toomey. We need to win this. If Dems get another state wide win with an openly anti-Second Amendment candidate, it’s not going to stop with Joe Sestak.

Polling

We’re very concerned about some recent polling that shows Joe Sestak either closing the lead on Toomey or ahead of him. Polling is obviously not the end all be all, but suffice it to say it has us concerned. Especially considering it was a last minute surge that put Sestak over the top.

If Joe Sestak is elected Senator, he will be the most anti-gun Senator this state has ever had. If we can’t beat Joe Sestak this year, Pennsylvania will not stay pro-gun for long. Every gun owner needs to get out and vote for Toomey. Sestak doesn’t even believe you have a right to have a gun in the home for self-defense. If that’s not too radical for Pennsylvania gun owners, we’re doomed.

They Don’t Always Get it Right

NRA does not always get grades and endorsements correct. There are few state liaisons that don’t have more than one state, and the number of races to keep track of is in the hundreds. I’ve said before, there’s value in having a working relationship with the local people if it’s a topic you’re really concerned about — and the movement needs people who are concerned about it. That’s manifested itself this election more than others.

The late-in-the-season Castle Doctrine fight has complicated things. NRA has the problem of not only having a key vote that we’d like to consider heading into this November election, but the additional problem of magazines and endorsements needing to go out, and having all of its state legislative resources being focused on ensuring eventual victory on this issue.

That’s lead to me bringing into question some grades this particular election season. These are issues I am raising privately with them, and it’s probably best to do it that way, so I won’t go into details about particular races where I think they got it wrong. My greater point is, if you think they got it wrong, to raise the issue, and have some concrete things to point to as to why you might thing a grade is in error.

One race I can speak about, which illustrates the problem with late legislative fights, is that of endorsements. We just got our magazine, which has our local State Senator Robert “Tommy” Tomlinson listed as an A and endorsed. If you look on the web site, he’s listed as a B+, and carrying no NRA endorsement. The web site reflects the fact that Tomlinson voted to amend the Castle Doctrine bill with an amendment that would weaken LTC reciprocity by removing the ability of Pennsylvania residents to carry firearms on a permit recognized as valid by the commonwealth.

I’m glad NRA dinged Tomlinson for it. He’s been good on our issue in the past, but decided to drift on this matter. It’s a shame, however, that the magazine isn’t going to reflect that. I think that’s probably good, longer term, because it’ll give Senator Tomlinson a chance to talk to some of us about the issue, and hopefully make amends. It’s worth noting the Democrat running against Tomlinson is F rated, and no friend at all. I’m not willing write off Tomlinson yet, but in my role as volunteer coordinator, I’m going to be spending my resources on other races this election year.

UPDATE: I’m pleased to report that in regards to the local race in question, the error has acknowledged, and corrective action has been taken. Far too often people paint this stuff as some kind of conspiracy to sell out gun owners, when in reality sometimes it’s just an honest oversight. If you had hundreds of races to think about every two years, you’d probably misjudge a few of them too. That’s why NRA needs local people paying attention.