Message-ID: <24736214.1075846355633.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 08:15:00 -0700 (PDT) From: flavin@bipac.org Subject: Call To Action! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: "Flavin, Deborah" X-To: X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \Steven_Kean_Dec2000_1\Notes Folders\Internet sites X-Origin: KEAN-S X-FileName: skean.nsf The Washington Post said today: Surveys taken for the AFL-CIO found that . . . * 76 percent of the workers who remembered receiving a flyer from their union supported the endorsed candidates; and, * Those who had a conversation about the election with a union volunteer at the workplace or on the doorstep were 81 percent in support of the union choices." You need a strategy: * Register your employees to vote; * Get them the information they need to make informed decisions; and, * Tell them these decisions impact their lives, their jobs and their industry. Need help? We have the tools. Click here www.politikit.com (create your own user name and password). The complete article follows . . . . Democrats Tuning Up for Turnout By David S. Broder Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 21, 2000; Page A01 LOS ANGELES -- Now that the hoopla of the Democratic National Convention is past, it's time for Michael Whouley and his team to go to work. Whouley is the Gore campaign consultant supervising the Democratic Party's ground war--the man in charge of identifying voters who are likely to support the vice president and other Democratic candidates and getting them to the polls on Election Day. With Democrats hoping for--and anticipating--a close battle for the White House and both houses of Congress, the margin of victory could, they believe, turn on the turnout operations run by the "coordinated campaign" teams Whouley and his partners have been recruiting in the last few weeks. As if there were not enough motivation in arming for battle at every level from the legislatures up, the Republicans have raised the stakes by announcing two weeks ago that they will funnel most of a $100 million "Victory 2000 Fund" through their national and state parties into a similar operation, targeted on ticket-splitters and weak partisans. Democratic officials are not certain how seriously to take the threat and are skeptical Republicans can match them in manpower--even if they spend much more on the ground war than they have in the past. But as Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew said, "Since we don't know what the test will be, we are presuming it will be the toughest." The job of getting people to the polls is harder than ever for both parties, because of the shortage of high-intensity issues in a time of general prosperity and the growing public cynicism about politics and elections. But Republicans have an easier task. For months, more than 90 percent of their self-identified partisans have been telling pollsters they support Texas Gov. George W. Bush. With those "base" voters highly motivated by the prospect of recapturing the White House, Republicans plan to pour their resources into swing suburban areas, find out which ticket-splitters are leaning to Bush, and deluge them with mail and phone calls supporting the entire Republican ticket. The counterpart Democratic effort or "coordinated campaign" will, according to Andrew and Whouley, focus more on turning out the urban "base" of the party, with a secondary push in selected ticket-splitting suburbs, in districts and states where key House and Senate races are likely to be decided. Democrats have more experience than Republicans in running these turnout efforts for their whole ticket. They have been using this model since 1988, when the late Paul Tully, working at the DNC, convinced statewide candidates and the unions supporting them in several key states that, rather than working individually, they should pool funds and hire staff to register and mobilize voters for all their races. The Democrats have been expanding and improving their operation in every cycle since then, and turnout programs employing targeted mailings, phone calls and literature distribution, as well as "soft money"-financed "issue ads," all aimed at African American voters, are credited with powering 1998 upset victories, especially in gubernatorial races in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. But this year, they face special challenges in the black and Latino constituencies, and there is some nervousness about the pace of preparations for the battle ahead. New Jersey Sen. Robert G. Torricelli, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said: "The coordinated campaign is late starting this year. In 1996, we did a good ad program for our base during the summer, and I haven't seen anything like it so far." Others, including some labor officials who have been critical in the past of the youth and inexperience of the coordinated campaign directors dispatched from Washington to the states, say that this year the DNC has a seasoned corps of people heading the field operations. The three top DNC staffers for the coordinated campaigns, Laurie Moskowitz, John Giesser and Fred Humphreys, all were working states in 1988, when Tully began setting up the model. Andrew began prodding states to develop their game plans for this fall as soon as he became party chairman in March 1999, having been convinced of the value of direct voter contact during his previous job as Indiana Democratic chairman. With Democrats and Republicans tied in the Indiana state House going into the 1998 election, Andrew targeted 15 districts for intensive voter contact work and won 10 of them, giving the Democrats control. With that experience as his talking point, Andrew has persuaded all 50 state parties to submit their own coordinated campaign plans and budgets. At the end of last week, 42 states had their coordinators chosen--if not always in place. Democrats declined to disclose their budget, but Andrew said they will be outspent "at least 2 to 1" if Republicans actually put $100 million into Victory 2000, as they have advertised. But Andrew's figure does not include what labor unions supporting Gore and other Democrats spend from their own treasuries mobilizing members and their families. And it is that union effort which Republicans say is their biggest worry. After spending millions on issue ads in the 1996 campaign, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney decided to switch those resources to a voter contact program, with dramatic results. The union household share of the actual electorate rose from 14 percent in 1994 to 23 percent in 1998, according to exit polls. Surveys taken for the AFL-CIO found that 76 percent of the workers who remembered receiving a flyer from their union supported the endorsed candidates; those who had a conversation about the election with a union volunteer at the workplace or on the doorstep were 81 percent in support of the union choices. With control of the House as important a target as Gore's victory, the AFL-CIO has mobilized 5,000 "local coordinators" in 71 targeted congressional districts. Unions that are part of the labor federation now are dispatching staff members to coordinate the coordinators. Sweeney, for one, argues that "without the machinery and the people we can deploy, the Republicans' talk of a $100 million ground campaign is really just a public relations ploy." That may or may not prove to be true. Meanwhile, there were some complaints at the convention from African American and Latino elected officials and organizers about the planning--or lack of planning--for turnout programs in their communities. One key California labor official, for example, charged that a half-million-dollar program targeted on Latino voters had been canceled after Tony Coelho, a former California congressman, left his post as chairman of the Gore campaign. Despite the static, Democrats are clearly serious about trying to win the ground war. Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer, a central figure in the national network of Democratic mayors whose political organizations will be competing with those of the Republican governors in their states, said, "Winning this election is not just Al Gore's job. We're taking the responsibility on ourselves to get the message out about the stark differences between the parties this year." And then he noted, with a smile, "You know, the Auto Workers' new contract makes Election Day a holiday for their members. Just watch 'em vote." , 2000 The Washington Post Company