When Republicans know Dems will always fold when the good of the country is at stake, then they will never negotiate.
15.03.2025 00:49
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When Republicans know Dems will always fold when the good of the country is at stake, then they will never negotiate.
If Republicans wanted to force cloture, they could have just eliminated the filibuster, and yet Senate Dems seem to think they would be to blame if the government shut down.
If the civil war can be brought to a swift conclusion and HTS allows diversity of thought and religion to flourish, this could be a boon, not just for the Syrian people, but for global politics as well. As refugees return home, right-wing ideology may lose its fuel.
I’m hopeful that this can be a real turning point for the Syrian people. If the state can be rebuilt in a way that does not oppress the people, refugees could return home and right-wing trends in Europe might subside. If not, Syria may be the next Iraq or Afghanistan. Let’s hope for the former!
There are fewer than 40 trans athletes in varsity sports nationwide. Over 200 died from school shootings in 2023. One of these issues has an extremely small chance at hurting a kid’s sports career. The other will end their sports career.
I happen to believe that the campaign should have taken a more personalized approach. When we try to measure everything, we lose the magic of organizing. If the campaign could have found ways to bring undecided voters into a community, I believe that would be a far more effective approach.
Now a campaign that treats people like datapoints can work, but only when the data is effectively used. We could have collected canvasser notes & analyzed them with AI to pursue more targeted messaging. There should have been metrics to track the quality of the conversations & campaign messaging.
Of course I want to give our amazing volunteers more credit than that. Many had done this for decades and knew how to have these conversations. My point is that I as a staff member did not feel qualified enough to go to people’s doors, and I had more training than most.
Neither on the phones or at the doors did we treat people like people. They were a datapoint on a screen, but if we hit enough datapoints, it was ok because a magical number of door knocks would propel us to victory. Never mind what is said at the door, the door knock is all that matters.
Likewise, we expected volunteers with limited training to be able to instantly connect with a stranger AT THEIR DOOR and talk to them about one of the most sensitive subjects in people’s lives. People were understandably uncomfortable oftentimes to engage in these conversations.
I suppose the biggest disconnect for me was how we were supposed to artificially build that personal connection while operating like robots. When we needed to reach a call and shift goal, it was extremely difficult to build a memorable connection with a stranger on the phone.
The campaign told us that we needed to rely on calls and knocks because they have been tried and tested. We needed to call lists to be as efficient as possible, while also building a personal connection. The personal connection was also essential at the doors.
While we heard anecdotal accounts of canvassers persuading undecideds or Republicans, we never were able to see the underlying data. Furthermore, there was no system to collect qualitative data from volunteers. Notes taken in MiniVan were never looked at again as far as we knew.
When volunteers came into canvass, they were trained on MiniVan, told the general message they should disseminate, and given a list to knock. On a list of 30 houses, people were lucky if they talked to 5-6 people. Folks were told to relate why they were voting Harris, not list talking points.
Once someone agreed to volunteer, they would be blasted with 2-3 rounds of calls confirming their attendance, which became extremely unpopular both with the staff and volunteers. Many found it insulting that we thought they would be so unreliable, although we expected 50% to flake, even with a call.
While we were able to regularly hit our goals in the Main Line, this tactic had the effect of annoying many volunteers, while being extremely inefficient. The reality is that few people answer their phones, and when they do, they are immediately trying to figure out how to hang up.
On our end, organizers were ordered to call prospective volunteers for over 4-hours per day, often calling the same folks multiple times per week. If we got someone on the phone, we had to convince them to join for as many canvass or phone bank shifts as possible.
The Biden and subsequent Harris ground game in PA relied almost entirely on phone calls and door knocks. We were repeatedly told that there was data to prove the effectiveness of these tactics, but my experience showed me that we need to modernize our approach to win in the 21st century.
We need someone who takes AOC’s approach, speaking not just to undecideds, but the folks we’ve lost to Trump. I worked as an organizer in PA this cycle and saw first hand how the campaign ignored anyone voting for Trump. This must change in all 50 states if we want to win.
While I understand the argument, it seems to me that this set a ceiling for our level of support. Of course talking to undecideds was important, but every Trump supporter we converted would have directly hurt him & helped us. I’m curious how such a strategy would have changed the outcome.Thoughts?
The explanation for this was that it would be difficult to persuade a Trump supporter and the time would be better spent talking to undecideds and “persuadable” Republicans. In essence, these conversations were deemed a waste of time.
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about was our policy on canvassing during persuasion. We told canvassers to talk to Republicans, but only if they were leaning Harris or undecided. Folks were told to thank Trump supporters for their time and move on.
Vote totals for Democratic presidential candidate in each of the Main Line’s townships in 2016, 2020, and 2024
I worked on the Harris campaign in the Main Line, and we had two dueling sets of statistics. On the one hand, we increased our vote share over Biden’s from 2020 by .39%. On the other hand, we had fewer votes on our side than Biden did four years ago. Turnout was down, but even lower for Trump here.
We should start a business😂
As far as I know, this is the highest position a Haverford alum has had in US politics. Just setting goal posts for the alumni community…
As a field organizer this election, I can’t emphasize enough how accurate this is.
While we were able to build a large volunteer base, we had to start from scratch with no local connections. We started from a place of distrust and it limited our ability to build infrastructure.
