As suggested above by Leslie and Margot, Oprah has an ideal audience to reach but I will add to that by saying there should be some way to educate those she does reach about what they are voting for or against, something I don’t think Oprah’s sponsors would approve, but which needs to be done for that same audience.

She promised to pass it along to her friends, but then it occurred to me: why not make it available to customers at the salon? And even, why not deliver stacks of these information sheets to other salons in the area? It seems like a great way to access women, many of whom are unmarried!

(And thanks to FDL for making me aware of the need to do GOTV among young women.)

One would expect more voters with LDs to support Bush, b/c to someone with learning disabilities, in a very chaotic environment, he comes across as “coherent.’ There’s zero complexity in his public statements. Contrast Kerry (and other Dems) who, by virtue of being able to formulate a complex sentence with more than one dependent clause, get slammed for being ‘fuzzy.’

Unfortunately, given the fact that ‘made-for-sound-bite’ politics prevail b/c of the commercial nature of US media, the cmu structures in the US have become almost diabolically devised for an ADHD man to become president by delivering platitudes. Being There is here.

In a communication structure skewed toward sound bites, the DeLays and Bushes prevail. They are as much captive to the sound bites as they are creators of sound bites, and it’s an ideal communication environment for them. It favors sanctimonious, short, simplistic rhetoric over any statement that includes even a single dependent clause.

Problem is, sound bites don’t translate into governance.

John Caspar is onto something here.
Mary, great, GREAT post.

It would seem to me that to understand the why some members of a class don’t vote requires simultaneous consideraton of why members of the same class do vote–don’t they call this kind of stuff multivariant regression analysis or something? (see why I didn’t do all that well)? Here’s my point. I’m a single guy. I’ve always been a single guy. I’ve always voted. I’m sixty-five. I’ve voted when I was in school. I’ve voted when I was not. I’ve voted when I was mobile, I vote when I’m not (I like my work…I’ve been doing the same thing at the same place for 34 years). Do I vote all the time because I go to church? If so, why don’t I vote righty? I’m single, no kids. Why do I always vote for school bond issues, even if it raises my taxes? So how am I different from single males who never vote? In my voting behavior, who am I most like–single women, married men, married women, old folks, young folks? If the cadre to which I’m closest is my gender, then GOTV needs to consider that. If it is educational level, then it needs to consider that. If it is age related then GOTV needs to focus on that. etc, etc. etc. I don’t know why some other single guys don’t vote in terms of demographic analysis. For that matter, I don’t really know why I vote on the basis of demographic analysis. Maybe I vote because I drink a lot of skim milk. I know I’m an even prouder broccoli eater because I know that George Bush senior didn’t like eating it.

Bottom line, I vote because I see it in my self-interest to do so. A lot of the time that’s pretty much an act of faith on my part. But I know I have zero control over my political destiny if I sit on the sidelines, and even a tiny bit of control is better than zero.

Preview thingy ain’t working for me… apologies for nasty code if any.

Mary! A !

I believe it requires door-to-door campaigning to get out the vote. I think it would be fabulous if Oprah and Desperate Housewives would have some political and VOTER education going on with their shows. Registration, education, motivation is what the Rev. Jackson says. It can’t hurt that Obrador is doing some of that educating south of the border. At least SOME of the potential voters of the US will get some new ideas about democracy that way.

I was on a d-t-d canvass last weekend in my neighborhood. I have lived here for almost 20 years and have been active in the neighborhood most of the years. I know lots of people, and we have a huge number of transient voters–apartment dwellers, non-English speakers and a pocket of poverty in the environs. In the p-o-p are large numbers of elderly Hispanic residents who have a long history of voting for Democrats (mostly). I take voter registration forms and offer to register new voters in addition to changing addresses and names for voters who have moved or whatever.

I worked as a MoveOn precinct leader in 2004. I believe I reached my target voters and turned almost 100% of them out, but it was dogged work going back and back and back to each address until I made a PERSONAL contact with each voter on my list, got their comittment to vote for Kerry, and then made sure they got to the poll on election day. It was very effective.

I have some issues with MoveOn, but their model, personal contact by going to each door, I believe is effective. People who are inclined to vote (and most people are inclined–very few actually say “I won’t/don’t vote) have HUGE respect for someone who comes to their door, more than once, to encourage them. I received more accolades from “my” voters than from any other activity I have ever been involved with, including lots of other community-oriented volunteer activities. They were genuinely impressed that anyone cared enough to WORK for their vote.

On my walk last weekend, I registered a young woman who I believe is probably a single mom. She was not educated about the campaign, nor about politics in general, and I think she did not register in any party. (Sometimes I find someone who says “what party is Bush?” I tell them, and they do not want to register Republican, at least in my experience.) We have done registration at WalMart (lots of ex-cons shop there. . .that’s another story. . . about how WalMart targets their locations. . .), at bars, at concerts, grocery stores, sports events.

I also met a young woman, also unmarried, a new mom whom I met when she was in 5th grade. She is now in college, and she is totally politically aware. She is also a first generation Mexican American. She may be the only person in her household who can and does vote. She is upset about the Iraq war.

I plan to re-visit the young woman who needs some political education and will find out what will motivate her to vote. But it takes this attention to each unlikely voter, IMO.

And then, we need to make sure THE VOTES ARE COUNTED. We lost a lot of votes in the machines last time. Now (2006 and beyond) we will have paper ballots. WOO HOO!!