Election-related efforts this close to Election Day require us
to follow two simple principles:
a) It's all about
turnout.
Neither money nor media nor polls win elections.
Votes do. It does not really matter how many people agree with us. What
matters in elections is how many of them actually vote. We work to persuade
people of our message all through the year, every year. But in the weeks before
Election Day, the focus has to be on
getting the people we have already
persuaded out to cast their vote!
b) Go after the
low-hanging fruit.
If you had five minutes to pick oranges from a
tree, you would be well-advised to use that time to grab the ones you could
reach just by raising your arm, rather than using that time to climb the tree
and get fewer oranges that are farther away.
Similarly, this is the time to mobilize those who
already agree with us rather than to spend that same time and energy trying to
persuade those who don't. Do not presume that all who agree with you are
registered and ready to vote. Let's mobilize those already "in the fold." Then,
after Election Day, we can resume the work of going after the fruit that is
farther away.
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