Pretty sure this will be a white Christmas

Vote, run, and get trained

A few quick things for your Tuesday…

1. Today, many communities and school districts - not all, but some - are holding elections for such things as millages, bonds, and the like.Click here to see if your community is holding an election, and if so, remember to VOTE!

2. A week from today, May 14, is the deadline to file to run for local office in Michigan this year. Many cities are electing mayors, city commissioners/councilmembers, and so forth. For more information on running, contact your city clerk's office. We need good progressives at all levels of government - so please consider running for office!

3. Be sure to apply for Center for Progressive Leadership's training in Kalamazoo. Applications are due a week from tomorrow!

Social media, brand management - and Michigan Democrats

(As we head into the final 24 hours of a hotly contested campaign for MDP Chair, I wanted to express a few thoughts regarding what Democrats - not only on Townsend Street in Lansing, but Democrats in general - need to do regarding communicating our message and managing the Democratic brand.)

Three years ago, we saw one of the most egregious attacks on our Republic since its founding. The Citizens United decision posed - and continues to pose - a substantial threat to the integrity of our elections. Later that year, we saw just how detrimental unregulated corporate funding of our elections can be to our Party and our civic process.

One of the major reasons Citizens United is such a detriment to our elections is that it enables politicians and corporations to manipulate the message voters hear by buying up hundreds - even thousands - of points in TV advertising, plus countless lit pieces, robocalls, and the like. (For those who don't know, for every 100 points of TV advertising bought by a campaign or company, the average viewer will see their ad  once. For example, if a campaign buys 700 points' worth of TV advertising, then the average viewer will see their ad(s) seven times.)

While Citizens United puts progressives and democracy itself at a disadvantage, we have a powerful tool up our sleeves. A tool which, if used effectively, can neutralize the harmful effects of Citizens United. A tool which Obama used very effectively in 2008 and 2012 - and one which we Michigan Democrats need to use effectively in order to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.

That tool is social media.

Social media and brand/reputation management
When I say the words "Ann Arbor," what comes to mind? It probably involves the University of Meeeeeeeee-chigan.

What about "Detroit Tigers?" Perhaps you think of one of their players, either past or present. Perhaps Jim Leyland, Sparky Anderson, or Ernie Harwell come to mind. Maybe you think of the 2012 AL championship, Comerica Park, the Illitch family, or perhaps their losing ways of just a few years ago.

Let's try another one: Unions. Many of us on the left think of the word "Solidarity," while others think of good wages and working conditions. Sadly, some think of "union bosses" and "thugs."

What are three things that people associate with you? What are three things they associate with Obama? Romney? Snyder? Urbanowski? (Just kidding - 2022 is still a few years away.)

I could go on, but the point is, your average John Q. LionsSuck is going to associate certain entities with certain things. They draw on those things when deciding what to buy, where to shop, what to watch - and yes, how to vote. The point of brand management is to ensure that people associate you, your campaign, or your company with only positive things - making them more likely to vote for you or buy your product or service.

In 2008, people associated Obama with hope and change, while they associated McCain with "more of the same" (i.e. more Dubya). In 2012, it was Obama's "Forward" versus the out-of-touch Romney. In both years, OFA used social media to effectively paint both Obama and his opponent as they wanted. In 2010, on the other hand, we saw "one tough nerd" beat "the angry mayor." As Bernero's fate reminded us, we can't always control our reputation - but we better do what we can.

People are busy. They hear dozens - even hundreds - of messages each day telling them what to wear, what to drive, where to vacation, and what to eat. During election season, they also see hundreds of messages about how to vote. As you can imagine, it can be hard for the brain to retain all that information. Indeed, the brain only remembers so much about certain entities. That could explain why, with all the ads you have heard over the years for a certain shoe brand, you still associate said brand with the phrase "Just do it."

If a voter sees a TV commercial saying "Vote for X," and then they see something on Facebook saying "Vote for Y," they get two conflicting messages - but one campaign paid a considerable amount of money to spread that message, while the other campaign likely spent little, if anything. (NB: the impact of Facebook ads is not the same as the impact of a TV commercial, which is not the same as the impact of a lit piece in the mail, etc.)

This is why campaigns and parties need to be careful how to spend their communications dollars. Just as the candidate with the most money doesn't always win, the candidate with the most likes and retweets won't always win. Just like money, social media must be used properly and effectively by candidates, in order to ensure that voters have a favorable view of the Democratic brand and its candidates. As George W. Bush would say, candidates need to use "strategery."


When used effectively, social media can also:

Help candidates and electeds stay in touch with their voters. People are more likely to vote for candidates if they feel connected to those candidates.

Remind supporters to vote. Two things are well documented: (1) More Americans lean Democratic than Republican and agree with us on issues - yet (2) Republican voters are more likely to vote consistently, in every election, without missing one. While it's hard to forget about a presidential election - and while few people miss a presidential election because they forgot to vote - people are much more likely to forget about voting in a midterm, primary, or local election. Social media can, and should, supplement phone banking and door-to-door as effective GOTV tools. (Notice I said "supplement," not "replace" - social media cannot replace these more traditional GOTV methods!)

Educate people about issues and candidates. Why is it important to raise the minimum wage? Why should we buy local? What is it about Candidate Z's character that would make her an impeccable public servant? Social media can be an effective way of getting people to understand issues and candidates.

Educate people about the voting process. The 2012 ballot was one of the more confusing ballots in recent Michigan history. Result? Some voters voted straight Democratic, not realizing that that they hadn't voted for our Supreme Court candidates. (Judge Connie Kelley got 45% fewer votes than Obama.) Not understanding everything on the ballot, many people voted No on all 6 statewide proposals. Yet consider the example of Justice McCormack, who credits her victory to Facebook ads, among other things.

Refute lies. True or false? In non-"right-to-work" states, you must join a union and pay union dues in order to work in a unionized environment. That, of course, is false. Thanks to a long-ago Supreme Court ruling, no American is required to join any union under any circumstances. It is shocking how many people don't realize that. Yet because they don't, Right-to-freeload supporters are more likely to get away with their lies."If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats," Adlai Stevenson promised, "we will stop telling the truth about them." The way things are going, we won't have to stop telling the truth about them anytime soon. OFA's Truth Team was a great example of using the power of the Internet to speak the truth about the President's record.

A look at demographics
With any type of marketing, you have to know your audience.

Pew recently published a report on internet users and social media. Among their key findings: Social media users tend to be younger, with 83% of 18- to 29-year-old Internet users on at least one social network. Internet users who make less than $30,000 per year are more likely to use social media than those who make more than $30,000. Furthermore, among internet users, women, residents of urban areas, and minorities are more likely to use social media than men, rural residents, and Caucasians, respectively.

Youth, lower-income Americans, minorities, women, urban residents... Notice a trend? This is our base! These are the people whose support we need in order to win. These are the people to whom we need to be reaching out.

Because it is such a new phenomenon, the role of social media on politics is the subject of much debate. But there is little doubt that social media does play a role in elections by affecting how voters view candidates and brands. For this reason, unless you are a 'paper candidate' who has no chance of winning (as this blogger was in 2012), your campaign needs to use social media. And that is why social media needs to play a bigger role in Democrats' communication efforts going forward.

So, if there's a floor fight at Cobo...

(Note: I prepared this based on the rules that have been used in recent conventions, including the 2010 Endorsement Convention. It's possible that things have changed/will change for the upcoming convention; I am not aware of any such changes.)

So it's looking very likely that we will have a contested vote (a.k.a. "floor fight") for Chair at the MDP Convention two weeks from tomorrow! Okay, a part of me thinks it will be settled before it gets to the floor, but what happens if we go to a floor fight?

No, it won't be a 'direct' or 'popular' vote. If 1,501 people show up at Cobo and vote for one candidate, while 1,502 people vote for the other, the latter won't necessarily be Chair.

For purposes of voting at conventions, the MDP divides up the state based on two things: Counties and Congressional districts. Currently, 73 of our 83 counties are entirely within a congressional district; eight counties are covered by parts of two congressional districts; and Oakland and Wayne each cover part of four congressional districts. That gives us 97 different territories (to use a field term, I'll call them "turfs") to which votes are allocated.

Each turf gets one convention vote for every 500 votes Jocelyn Benson got in 2010 in said turf. For example, I live in Kent County and the 2nd District, where Jocelyn received almost 16,000 votes; 16,000/500=32 delegate votes.

When it comes time to vote on the 23rd, a person will note our county and congressional district (it will be printed on our name tag that we pick up when we register at Cobo), and we will tell them whom we support. (Alternatively, those supporting Johnson will be asked to stand in one place, while those supporting Brewer will be in a separate group.) Keep in mind that this will be a public vote; MDP (and I think DNC) rules proibit secret ballots.

The person chairing the convention will call on the chair of each District Party, who will then announce how many convention attendees from each county in the district voted for each candidate. The secretary will then plug those numbers into a spreadsheet that is projected onto a screen for all to see.

A turf's delegate votes are then allocated to candidates in proportion to how many people voted for that candidate. (This is where that spreadsheet comes in handy!) So if there are 32 of us from the Kent/2CD turf, and 17 vote for Candidate A while 15 vote for Candidate B, then A gets 17 votes while B gets 15. In the unlikely event that I'm the only person from this turf to show up at Cobo, then my candidate of choice will receive 32 votes. If there are five of us there, and we vote 4-1, then our votes will be divided up 25.6 to 6.4. Note that those numbers are not rounded; decimals do play a role.

What if no one from a turf comes to Cobo?

Now, of those 97 turfs, I can almost guarantee you one thing: Some turfs will not have any voting MDP members on the floor at Cobo. That will particularly be likely for counties in the UP and Northern LP. So, what happens to their delegate votes? Are they lost into the ether, never to he seen or heard from again? Nope. They will get allocated to candidates based on how well candidates do in the rest of the congressional district.

Take Dickinson County, for example. Located entirely in the 1st District, Dickinson County gave 3,224 votes to Jocelyn in 2010; thus, they can expect to have 6 votes at Cobo. Suppose that no one from Dickinson shows up at Cobo, and that in those 1st District counties that do have representation, one candidate gets 58% of the delegate vote, while the other gets 42%. In that case, Dickinson's 6 votes get divided up 3.48 to 2.52.

If I'm a candidate for Chair, I'm making sure I get at least some support from as many of those northern counties as I can. That way I can "run up the score" by winning all of the delegates from some of those counties, while simultaneously getting votes from the counties from which no one showed up.

But how will we know if the count is accurate?

As the votes for each turf are announced, we will see those votes plugged into the spreadsheet - and each turf's delegate votes will appear instantaneously. At any point during the process, check the spreadsheet to see how many votes each candidate has amassed. I'd bet the house that both Brewer and Johnson will have folks keeping an eagle's eye on process to ensure that no foul-ups take place.

But Scott, I gotta say: This doesn't seem like a fair process! What happened to "One Person, One Vote?"

I'm reminded of what Winston Churchill once said: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those others that have been tried." Likewise, the MDP's delegate allocation method is the worst way to select party officers and nominees - except for all the other methods. I'd submit to you that this system offers the following advantages:

1. It ensures that the interests of Democrats across the state are represented, and that candidates have to listen to the views of people from across the state and ask for their votes.
2. It gives yet another incentive for Democratic activists to get out the vote in their county/district. Had 26 more Dickinson County residents shown up to vote for Jocelyn in 2010, they would have 7 delegate votes instead of 6.
3. Let's be honest: Some of us don't have to drive as far to Cobo as others. If you live in Hamtramck, Cobo is a quick jaunt down Woodward. It's about three hours for me to drive in from Kentwood. And for our friends in Marquette, it's almost a half-day-long trip. This system rewards those of us who are dedicated enough and who care enough to make a long trip down to Cobo.