This time, Republican officials say, they are preparing to use these "data mining" techniques to reach voters, but will point the strategy at an additional segment of the electorate: the independent and swing voters whom Obama is targeting too.
For McCain, the challenge is to win enough of these voters to make up for a potential lack of passion among conservatives, and he is betting that his image as an independent and his moderate views on issues such as global warming will help. McCain is positioned to "find a new layer of voters . . . that's probably not available to the average Republican," said Mike DuHaime, a McCain campaign advisor.
In Ohio, McCain will target blue-collar workers outside Cleveland and Youngstown, and in the state's Appalachian counties in the southeast, who turned their backs on Obama in his primary contest with Hillary Rodham Clinton.
GOP officials also say that new voter-identification technology will help them make up for any falloff in conservative zeal.
Well, there's McCain's strategy in a nutshell, and it meshes with what I've been saying. He's not interested in the conservative vote. He's taking the approach "Who ya gonna vote for?" with us and is concentrating on the undecided vote and those democrats disaffected because of Obama.
So, you McCain supporters, tell me again why I should vote for a guy who doesn't give a damn about me.
I agree with you and this is the first time in 40 years that I will refuse to support someone who doesn’t believe in anything I believe in other than a strong military.
Where do we draw the line?.....keep voting for the lesser of two evils or should we make a statement and make the politicians pay attention?
I’m in a dither myself. I sincerely don’t know what to do and still be true to my values. You shouldn’t have a choice of holding your nose or not voting.
Maybe you shouldn’t. After 6 months of conservatives saying they would never vote for McCain, it’s hard to fault him for deciding he better find votes elsewhere.
It’s like those who deny money to the RNC until they fix everything people don’t like. If there is no incentive for fixing SOME things, why bother?
The problem with playing hardball is that you can overplay your hand. In a year when there was no clear conservative candidate, and where conservatives showed they were best at attacking candidates rather than fielding one, it’s not surprising we ended up with a candidate who is not counting on conservatives — because we have kind of shown that we are not to be counted on unless you are 100% in lockstep with us.
Except that if you are pretty much dead-on, like Duncan Hunter, we won’t support you at all.
The problem with this strategy is that those newly targeted voters might vote democrat down-ticket. Now, if they are targeted in districts that already were democrat, that’s not a big deal. But it would be a shame if McCain managed to win by attracting democrats OUT to the polls where they defeat our vulnerable down-ticket candidates.