(1) WVWV is, or has become, really really bad at doing what they are supposed experts at doing — and what they are paid big dollars to do. During this primary season, they have been screwing up a whole lot more than “timing”; they have been sending out anonymous robocalls in state after state — which anyone in the biz knows is prohibited in just about every state — giving out false and misleading information right in the thick of a hotly contested primary campaign season. Not only that, they’ve been caught at it and promised that, nationally, they would stop doing it. But they kept doing it.

(2) WVWV has been hijacked during the primary season to do a black-bag job for the Clinton campaign in key states (like VA and NC, where WVWV broke the law and did so in a way that would inure to Clinton’s benefit). To be sure, the only evidence for this is purely circumstantial, but there’s quite a bit of it (and don’t tell us that circumstantial evidence doesn’t count — I will refer you to the legions of prisoners in the U.S. who were convicted on such evidence).

Either way, I don’t see any compelling reason to leap to WVWV’s defense because they’re “good people” and we’re going to need them in the future. The former defense is weak and off the merits (plus it sounds exactly like Brian Williams’s defense of his friends the Propaganda Generals) and even if all that has happened here is egregious negligence, I don’t think wee “need” such rank incompetents doing our GOTV. If they’re that bad at what they do, they need to get the hell out of the business, and progressive dollars should go to organizations that are competent at GOTV.

If they want to raise money to register single women, the best thing they could do would be to fund a committee in each state, give them the tools to plan a targeted campaign which can be done at very low cost, and let it play out.

You don’t do voter registration over the phone, certainly not impersonally with robo-calls. Period. You do it in a situation where you can hand someone a card to fill out, a pen, a place to write, and the person handing out the cards knows how to quickly scan them for errors before the new voter moves on — and then transports the cards to the Board of Elections in a very timely way. The person offering registration should inspire a little confidence in a new voter, by being able to answer normal questions, such as where do I find my polling place — the most normal of all. You can’t do that with robo-calls, you just bug people particularly if they are already registered.

I made my complaints clear in 2004, and in fact a number of local women candidates asked they to quit doing what they were doing. They clearly thought up even more ways to screw up. Just because they have a Progressive Board of Directors is no indication that they know anything about how to maximize effort in any local area. For instance, my State Legislative District contains about 2/3rds of the University of Minnesota, where there are — lots of single women. From one election to another, about 50% of them move from one address to another. Student Population is at least 9000 votes around here, heavily DFL, and those of us who have done campaigns around here know the laws, and know how to get maximum number of cards filed using trained student volunteers to get the job done. Women’s Voices Women’s Votes were not even aware that Minnesota had same day voter registeration at the polls on election day, and thus what information needed to be conveyed about using that provision of our law. When the script they use says — you can’t vote if you aren’t registered — they are giving wrong information. That is not a good idea, in fact it is a huge negative. What the potential voter needs is knowledge about how to register on election day.

When they are actually calling single women and providing accurate information on how to register, they obey the local and federal laws, including those concerning self-identification. Even more, they use their real name (i.e., WVWV) instead of some BS cover.

The only way in which they seem to be living up to the stupidity defense is by thinking that no-one would trace the voter-suppression activity back to them.

To win by increasing the number of people voting for you is democracy.

To win by decreasing the number of people allowed to vote for your opponent is Rove.

He’s vouching for the character of the organization, not addressing the questions.

Repeatedly making the same mistakes after assurring authorities more than one that they would stop the illegal activity. All of which favored one candidate.

I could be all coincidental. It would be easier to believe if people would stop vouching for the character of the organization and start addressing the facts.

Voter Suppression and the WVWV Controversy
by Glenn Smith, Thu May 01, 2008 at 03:58:54 PM HST

Bob in HI

So how to reconcile this with past “good” work?

Well.

What if there’s a WVWV inside the WVWV?

Telebro