WHAT IS A FREAKING GROUND GAME..?!?!!
Sorry 2b so unsophisticated, but I hear this term sooooo much I think there are a few others who also don’t know.
Ground strategy, money devoted to same, paid staff and volunteers executing the strategy. As opposed to flying in, holding a few mass rallies, and then hoping the attendees will magically divine how to win, and then execute said nonexistent plan.
Ground game means there are boots on the ground door knocking, shaking hands, meeting people face to face. Cruz had 30,000 volunteers working in Iowa for weeks before the caucus yesterday. He worked it hard as did his volunteers.
When I was involved in the last election of 2012, we delivered a Democratic county to Mitt Romney. Our county has/had a majority of Democrate voters. We worked on the ground door knocking, sign holding on street corners and placing signs on lawns. We started in March and worked up until the election. It worked, but it is hard and many hours that you will never get back. Pissed me off that I did it for Romney, but I hated the idea of another four years of this garbage.
More important now as the Supreme Court hangs in the balance which will be game, set, match for the country.
WHAT IS A FREAKING GROUND GAME..?!?!!
They go around knocking on doors begging for money, shamming people into voting — and telling them everyone has dropped out except Daddy Cruz’ Anointed Son.
A ground game is community organizing. Community Organizing is not ideological. It is strategy and tactics. It is using brains and hard work.
Example. 7 Precincts went 55% D. I went door-to-door to every door including illegal Mexican and Asian immigrants, registered citizens, non-registered, Democrats, Republicans, everyone. I came across others who would join me, the wife of the Black pastor, a home schooler, a Marine recently discharged.
I personally registered about 300. My associates registered some also.
The next election was off year local with 3 slates running:
The incumbent slate of the RINO governor.
The Union Democrat slate.
Our anti-establishment, pro-life, low-tax slate.
We shifted the 7 precincts from 55% D to 65% R.
The next election the RINO candidate for governor was extremely anti-Hispanic. Since my 7 precincts were heavily Hispanic and Black and Asian no amount of ground game could overcome the RINO candidate disaster of 27%.
I moved out of the area. The Black pastors wife (think Alan Keyes) took over. She increased my 65% to 87% for the small government slate against a slate where the RINOs and Union Dems had a combined slate.
That is a ground game. Knocking on doors. Getting people to vote for your candidate because you ask them to. Most people do not vote ideological. They vote for who they think is friendly and their friend.
Evangelicals and tea partiers are turning out to volunteer for Cruz. Rubio is attracting some volunteers, but many fewer. Bush is paying people to work, but you do see at least a few Bush doorhangers. Trump's "ground game" is the news media. There may be Carson, Fiorina, Christie, Kasich, Huckabee, and Santorum people knocking on doors and on the phones, but they are like Bigfoot: no one has actually seen them.
The tension in the GOP right now is straightforward. The moderate wing of the party includes many people who are embarrassed by religious and social conservatives -- you know, those speaking in tongues, snakehandling rubes who actually mean what they say about abortion and school choice -- as well as those unsophisticated tea partiers who actually believe in the constitution. Conservatives have sucked it up and supported moderate nominees in recent cycles. The question is whether the moderates will reciprocate.