A reader who is active in Democratic politics, and who has been involved in winning campaigns at the county-level sent us these six points and gave us permission to run them as an entry on our blog.
We urge all Medina Democrats who are interested in local campaigns to read our reader's suggestions on how to win local campaigns.
1. The local candidates developed a really nice joint piece for lit dropping and canvassing. An individual piece of literature, however, would be better for the absentee mailing. People who vote at home take it really seriously and like to review the lit. It would be money well spent for each candidate to do a piece to tell his or her own story for this mailing.
2. I have voted early at the BOE for 3 election cycles and did not receive one piece of lit from D or R local candidates - this means advantage incumbent. These are good voters and can't be missed. These voters can be identified because their absentee applications and the submissions of their ballots are on the same day.
3. Some local candidates targeted only Independents with their mailings. Given this was a year where so many more people than the loyal base pulled a Dem primary ballot, this probably overlooked many good and persuadable voters.
4. Only one local candidate made a case for change, but it may have been too late. The case must be made before the campaign begins. With 20,000 plus good voters voting before Nov. 4th -- the case has to be made before the early voting begins.
5. TV advertising is essential. People need to see the candidates in their homes to "know" them.
6. The cooperation was impressive this year amongst candidates, but the party needs to organize a ground game. Until there is a geographically based organizational structure that survives from year to year, this will never be a blue county. Blue counties aren't necessarily blue because everyone is left of center, but rather because these counties have infrastructure.
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