Comments on: The Pulse | One reason Deeds lost

By: chrisgraham

chrisgraham — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:59:04 +0000

Great insights here. Thanks, Paul. A lot matches up to our experience. We also invested in an HQ with phones. We even paid for the phones. Only we didn’t get the paid organizer. I don’t think it would have mattered much.

By: Paul Hampton

Paul Hampton — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:56:28 +0000

First reason, election wise, is that the R’s and certain independents were fired up to vote for many months. Combine that with the fact that Deeds ran away from Obama on many issues and even declined to call himself an Obama Democrat – I wasn’t surprised that Obama voters weren’t motivated to come out and vote. Seems Deeds tried a futile effort to reach out to voters already sworn to oppose him. Second, or maybe an extension of the first, Deeds ran a campaign to extend Mark Warner’s legacy and offered diffuse deference to the economy and jobs issue. His literature had the word jobs in it but in small print in the body – not blazing across the headline. Third, or maybe an extension of the second and first reason, there were few young and minority voters compared to last year. Obama handily won the higher Democratic performing wards last year while this year with far fewer voters, Deeds lost handily.
We invested in a headquarters with phones and got a Deeds organizer for the it. We tried everything to get voters out. We had lists of voters who were considered 90% likely to have voted for Obama. We talked to thousands who were friendly and supportive in their manner. We left thousands of phone messages and pieces of lit for other voters. They just weren’t motivated to show up.

By: chrisgraham

chrisgraham — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:41:38 +0000

Organization and focus, lack thereof, that is, was the problem. GOTV efforts (canvassing, phone-banking) generally start with the base, but later expand to the middle and people who lean the other way, but aren’t necessarily solid in their leanings.

(Cat out of bag? Nah.)

But if you don’t even touch the base, there’s no way you can reach out to the middle and the leanings on the other side.

By: Andrew Clem

Andrew Clem — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:22:29 +0000

How does this tie into the perennial question of whether to target the party’s base or the independent voters? Your story suggests Deeds failed to do the former, at least in Waynesboro, but he didn’t seem to put much effort into courting non-Democrats either, leaving that field wide open for McDonnell. Was Deeds simply unable to make up his mind on basic strategic questions?

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:37:28 +0000

What’s interesting to me in the post-mortems is the complaints Deeds didn’t focus enough on Northern Virginia and the urban crescent. And you’re saying they didn’t focus on Waynesboro either.
Perhaps if he’d been named Barack Obama Deeds instead of R. Creigh.