NLC Institute 2010 – Political Marketing

The New Leaders Council of San Diego (NLC) held its Political Marketing session on the February 21st, 2010.

Training began with an overview of the theoretical architecture of modern polling. Campaign veteran and UCSD Political Science Ph.D. candidate Travis Knowles presented for two hours on the why’s and how’s of polling.

Campaigns and organizations poll for a number of reasons. Polling can identify what your audience wants, and it can track how attitudes change. But not all polls are the same. Some polls have higher margins of errors and some have questions or weighting that biases the results. Knowles ran through some of the key indicators of polling reliability.

Later in the morning, the Fellows heard from Scott Barrett and Colin Rice with Elevate Communications about voter targeting.

The basic questions in targeting are “Who do you speak to?” and “What do you say?” The answer to these questions can be found through a number of resources, including a voter file, opposition research and polling. A voter file can help narrow a universe of potential voters to only those that are likely either to vote, or to vote for your candidate or issue. Opposition research can identify weaknesses in any candidate. Polling can show what motivates voters in a particular district to vote.

Rice and Barrett focused on “movers and switchers,” or people you can bring to you. They also explained their philosophy that any credible candidate can find the right set of voters to win an election.

NLC Co-Director Evan McLaughlin spoke with the Fellows during their lunch session about the history and current direction of the labor movement. The presentation was stylized as a condensed version of the San Diego and Imperial County Labor Council’s Labor 101 training. McLaughlin started with the overarching questions of “What is a labor union, and why do we need them?" He followed up with some real world examples of how labor unions affect the lives of workers, and those who patronize companies with unionized workforces. McLaughlin also identified some of the current public policy issues labor is dealing with locally, including project labor agreements and living wage ordinances.

After lunch, McLaughlin transitioned to a discussion about methods of voter contact. He identified some of the key methods of voter contact, including mail pieces, precinct walking and telephone outreach. Each methods have different values. For instance, direct mail is useful for persuading voters, but not in turning them out to the polls on election day.

McLaughlin also showed some examples of local voter mail pieces from the 2008 election cycle. He explained how each element was crafted to appeal to specific audiences, and he showed the Fellows how to structure their communications to their audiences in a useful and targeted manner.