Indeed, our activism would much more effective directed to the public. We should have learned this from the Swift Boat Vets. They would not have been successful trying, as individual activists, to pressure the Bush campaign to expose Kerry.
The swift boat vets did a very bright thing. They hired an advertising specialists to prepare their ads and structure their fund raising. The experts also chose the places the ads were to run.
The first ad was designed to get free major media play and cause people who were already opposed to Kerry to donate money. The second phase had two purposes. It was to continue to raise money for more ads, while at the same time convince people who were not inherently opposed to Kerry to not vote for him. The third phase was designed to just reach people who were inclined to vote for Kerry. It did not try to get people to vote for George Bush. The object was to keep people from voting for John Kerry.
About half of all veterans are Democrats. The ads caused some of those Democrats to just not vote for anyone for President. Other vetrans who normally vote for democrats, were so fearful of Kerry getting elected that they held their nose and voted for Bush.
What many of us fail to do is to structure our pitch to the people we need to convince.
There are never enough liberals or Conservatives to make a majority. But to win decisively a party has to get majority support. Ya gotta win the moderates. Some who are on the other side have to be converted.
That is why firebrand preaching to the choir always fail. The base loves it.. but elections are lost not won.
The best conservative at appealing to modereates was Ronald Reagan. Let me give you an example.
We all know Reagan got the American people in favor of the 1981 tax cuts. The question is how did Reagan get the House of Representative controled by Democrats to pass his tax cuts when it was the policy of the Democratic party to oppose tax cuts.
A conservative would tell everyone that tax cuts stimulate the economy and creates jobs. That is what Reagan said to the conservatives. But that won't get moderate support. That gets you to 35 percent. The problem is over 50 percent support is needed to get things done.
Moderates are not ideological. If ideological arguments had appeal moderates would be either on the left or right. Moderates are driven by self interest. Sometimes moderates vote for Democrats. Other times they vote for liberals. They are not changing their philosophical minds. Moderates often vote for a conservative president and a liberal senator or vice versa in the same election.
Reagan knew that moderates are convinced by things that appeal to their self interests. To the moderates he asked the question. "Why is it better for the Government to take your money and spend it the way it wants, rather than you keeping your money and spending it the way YOU want?" That was the Reagan appeal to moderates. It is a subtile but very important difference.
The Swift Boat Vet ads worked because both in the ad content and the ad reach, they targeted the people whose behaviour they needed to modify.
Boiled down the Swift Boat Vets were smart enough to get professionals to help them tell their story to the people they needed to reach in a way that was effective in reaching them.
Look at the success of FOX Vrs CNN. CNN is run by people who decide what they think we need to know, and then they tell us what they want to tell us.
Fox news tries to figure out what we want to know about, and then tries to give us what we want.
My tastes in music and news are not those of the general public. Back in my radio station management days, sometimes one of my program directors or news directors would ask me if I liked what they were doing with the air sound or content. I always gave them the same answer. "If I tune and and like what I hear, you are in a heap of trouble." "You and I both are here to please our audience."
If the audience loves what you are doing, I can hate it and I'll only be thinking about how big your raise ought to be." "If the audience hates what you are doing, even if I love it, I'll be looking for your replacement."