by Pa Rock
Relentless Campaigner
'Tis the season for receiving political junk mail, and Pa Rock has been getting more than his share. A few Democratic flyers slipped through the heavy GOP cultural curtain that drapes most small communities in the Midwest, but the big majority of political mail that makes it to my mailbox comes GOP PACs in the form of glossy adverts that blast all Democrats as being tools of Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and Maxine Waters. I generally rip those up on the walk back to the house.
What I didn't receive were any personal letters asking me to get out and vote - but I did write a few.
I have mentioned the efforts of Vote Forward in this space previously. The group developed a form letter that left lots of room for personalization by the people who actually filled out and mailed the letters - including a space for the letter-writers to pen why they always vote. The letters encouraged the voters to whom they were ultimately addressed to get out and vote on November 6th. There were no political appeals for specific candidates or parties - just encouragement to go vote.
(The recipient lists provided by Vote Forward were geared toward people in flippable districts who were infrequent voters, but, based on previous voting patterns, thought to be likely to vote Democratic. By the time I joined the effort a couple of weeks ago, Vote Forward was soliciting letter-writers for twenty-nine congressional districts nationwide, many of which also had close governor and/or senate races in play.)
Letter-writers received addresses in groups of twenty-five and could do up to one hundred letters - and then ask for special permission if they wished to go beyond a hundred. I wound up doing fifty: twenty-five for Kansas 02 and twenty-five for Kansas 03 (where a couple of my grandchildren live). Many of the writers worked in groups at letter-writing parties, but I plodded along on my own - with background music from Alexa and moral support from Rosie!
All letters were to be mailed - with the sender's own postage - on Tuesday, October 30th.
The stats began coming out yesterday. 24,681 people wrote and mailed a total of 1,009,383 letters to infrequent voters in districts that could conceivably flip to Democratic control. A lot of those letters won't be deliverable for one reason or another, but the ones that do get through are likely to be opened because they are arriving in hand-addressed envelopes with first class postage attached. They appear much more personal in nature that the generic campaign materials that routinely clog mailboxes at this point in the election season. And of the letters that are opened, a few are likely to accomplish their mission of nudging people to vote.
Vote Forward has instituted a great project. It is likely to increase voter turnout (and research says that of the people who receive the letters, three percent will be more likely to vote because of the letter effort), it engages people like me - getting us fired up and actually doing something productive in the election in addition to voting, and it pumps a nice wad of cash into the struggling U.S. Postal Service - slightly over half-a-million dollars for this year's effort. Win, win, and win!
And Pa Rock feels really good about himself knowing that he may have stirred a handful of votes for three exceptional Democratic candidates: Paul Davis for Congress in KS 02, Sharice Davids for Congress in KS 03, and Laura Kelly for Governor of Kansas!
Go get 'em, Kansas!
And go get 'em, America. Vote, dammit, vote!
Relentless Campaigner
'Tis the season for receiving political junk mail, and Pa Rock has been getting more than his share. A few Democratic flyers slipped through the heavy GOP cultural curtain that drapes most small communities in the Midwest, but the big majority of political mail that makes it to my mailbox comes GOP PACs in the form of glossy adverts that blast all Democrats as being tools of Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and Maxine Waters. I generally rip those up on the walk back to the house.
What I didn't receive were any personal letters asking me to get out and vote - but I did write a few.
I have mentioned the efforts of Vote Forward in this space previously. The group developed a form letter that left lots of room for personalization by the people who actually filled out and mailed the letters - including a space for the letter-writers to pen why they always vote. The letters encouraged the voters to whom they were ultimately addressed to get out and vote on November 6th. There were no political appeals for specific candidates or parties - just encouragement to go vote.
(The recipient lists provided by Vote Forward were geared toward people in flippable districts who were infrequent voters, but, based on previous voting patterns, thought to be likely to vote Democratic. By the time I joined the effort a couple of weeks ago, Vote Forward was soliciting letter-writers for twenty-nine congressional districts nationwide, many of which also had close governor and/or senate races in play.)
Letter-writers received addresses in groups of twenty-five and could do up to one hundred letters - and then ask for special permission if they wished to go beyond a hundred. I wound up doing fifty: twenty-five for Kansas 02 and twenty-five for Kansas 03 (where a couple of my grandchildren live). Many of the writers worked in groups at letter-writing parties, but I plodded along on my own - with background music from Alexa and moral support from Rosie!
All letters were to be mailed - with the sender's own postage - on Tuesday, October 30th.
The stats began coming out yesterday. 24,681 people wrote and mailed a total of 1,009,383 letters to infrequent voters in districts that could conceivably flip to Democratic control. A lot of those letters won't be deliverable for one reason or another, but the ones that do get through are likely to be opened because they are arriving in hand-addressed envelopes with first class postage attached. They appear much more personal in nature that the generic campaign materials that routinely clog mailboxes at this point in the election season. And of the letters that are opened, a few are likely to accomplish their mission of nudging people to vote.
Vote Forward has instituted a great project. It is likely to increase voter turnout (and research says that of the people who receive the letters, three percent will be more likely to vote because of the letter effort), it engages people like me - getting us fired up and actually doing something productive in the election in addition to voting, and it pumps a nice wad of cash into the struggling U.S. Postal Service - slightly over half-a-million dollars for this year's effort. Win, win, and win!
And Pa Rock feels really good about himself knowing that he may have stirred a handful of votes for three exceptional Democratic candidates: Paul Davis for Congress in KS 02, Sharice Davids for Congress in KS 03, and Laura Kelly for Governor of Kansas!
Go get 'em, Kansas!
And go get 'em, America. Vote, dammit, vote!
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