ONLY A FEW YEARS AGO voter turnout and grassroots operations--the so-called "ground war"--were overlooked by Republicans and taken for granted by Democrats. But after labor's surprising 2000 push on Al Gore's behalf and then the Republicans' even more impressive 2002 "72-hour-strategy," that fight is as fierce as the battle on television and radio--the "air war." With both sides now playing, the margins are getting smaller, making innovation vital.
In North Carolina's 10th congressional district we may be seeing just such an innovation. What's more is that following a presidential primary season where Democrats created the campaign blog and appropriated MeetUp.com for political use, this is happening in a Republican primary.
Four candidates are racing toward a July 20 primary to replace the retiring Cass Ballenger. Not much separates them: All are strong conservatives with little or no legislative experience, none is well known throughout the district, and a runoff is all but a given.
Nobody knows exactly how many people will turn out, but the safe guess is very few, perhaps 15 to 20 percent. Thanks to redistricting headaches, this year's North Carolina primaries have been pushed back from May to July, which is unusual for the state. "I know a lot of Republicans who do not realize that we have a primary," says Shawn Charles, Republican party chairman of Catawba County, the district's largest county.
In a standoff like this, media is often considered to be the key. Businessmen George Moretz and Sandy Lyons are deep-pocketed self-funded candidates who have been on the air for months. But ads don't always reach the likely voters and in close congressional races--especially low-turnout primaries--turning out one's supporters can make all the difference. So the other option is to fire up the grassroots, which is the route Catawba County sheriff David Huffman and State representative Patrick McHenry are taking.
MCHENRY thinks he has a way to get ahead: a small fleet of portable DVD players.
Last January McHenry sat down with his consultant, former Iowa Republican executive director Dee Stewart, and committed to DVD a nearly identical series of messages. 200 of them, in fact, over the course of three sittings and seven hours: One each for his 20 volunteers and the ten counties they would start visiting. Working six-and-a-half days per week for the past seven months, the McHenry campaign has already knocked on some 40,000 doors, DVD player in tow, playing these short messages to potential supporters. (You can see the video by clicking here.)
In them McHenry introduces himself, then says: "My good friend [Name] is visiting with you today to tell you about my conservative experience, and to discuss with you my plans to bring more good paying jobs to [County] County." He then asks them for their vote and support and thanks them for their time. By July 20, the McHenry campaign expects they'll have brought these messages to 55,000 doorsteps, in a district with some 50,000 active voters in 38,000 households. Everyone will meet him at least once. Those on the fence will meet him again.
The message isn't going to win a Clio and McHenry won't be invited inside The Actors Studio, but that's not the point. The operating theory, as Stewart explains it, is "that a person will rarely vote against someone with whom they have a personal relationship." Even in a district-wide race it is impossible for any candidate to meet with every potential voter, but the McHenry campaign believes it has found the next best thing.
REGENT UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR Peter Wielhouwer studies voter behavior and grassroots politics and thinks this is the logical progression of several trends, notably the practice of sending voters videotaped candidate biographies. In the aftermath of Howard Dean's Iowa yowl, for example, his volunteers sent thousands of 18-minute VHS and DVD clips to Wisconsin--but how targeted were they? And who's to say anyone would watch? This time, McHenry's volunteers have a durable message for a captive audience, and, as Wielhouwer says, they are "bringing the candidate's face to the voter's house." Not only that, but it's a face that knows where it's at and who his representative at the door is. If it's a little gimmicky, no problem--McHenry calls it his "wow factor."
A FEW YEARS AGO, this would have been impossible: Imagine trying to lug a TV-VCR combo around the neighborhood. Today, recordable DVDs are inexpensive enough that any under-funded candidate could do the same. And unlike blogs or MeetUps, which attracted lots of press attention, but not undecided voters, the portable DVD player seeks out voters who might not try to find out more about the candidate on their own.
