Reaching one voter at a time... as long as we fine tune our message

[question everything]

Many posted here that, when it comes down to specifics, most voters - yes, including the red ones - do support our issues; they just are not aware of them. And many of us were frustrated that Kerry, and many of our current leaders, cannot effectively communicate with the masses. Thus last year Rove set the arena on "social issues" - abortion and gay marriage - and Kerry was cornered, never succeeded in dismissing them with one sentence and concentrating on the important points. Well, he did, but you had to have had at least a high-school diploma and to really really want to listen to him. In hindsight - always 20/20 - I wish that the convention did not emphasize the past - Kerry's vietnam record - and concentrated on the future.

But we can reach them, if we break down the issues to what counts, personally to the voters. For example, the early 90s first highlighted the problem of so many with no health insurance. When I would try to talk about universal care, whoever I was talking to would bristle: I do not want the government managing my health care. But, scratching below the surface, and the the person would know a friend or a family member who suffered a heart attack, or cancer, whom no insurance company would touch. As an aside, I wish that employer-provided benefits never existed. If all of us were forced to shop for our own health insurance, a universal cover would have long been normal part of our lives.

Here is where I am heading: On occasions we would have threads about parental notification of a minor in need of abortion. Many object to this because in many cases the parent or the guardian is also the father. Most of us, however, look at this as a matter of principle.

California Proposition 73 recently was defeated and I commented that many still are mad that "the government is intruding on their parental rights" and one DUer - tamtam - had a brilliant post, turning the tables on these comments, saying that these parents want the state to do the parenting for them.

A moderately conservative friend from California asked for my opinion on the recent elections and I concentrated on Prop. 73, following tamtam's line of reasoning and wrote that if parents could not instill in their daughters their beliefs and trust, they should not expect the government and the courts to do the parenting for them.

And, I got this reply: "Come to think of it, I like your explanation for not wanting prop 73. I voted for it, but honestly your rationale is fine."

This is the point of my post. We need to concentrate on our agenda: access to health care, to decent jobs, to dignified retirement - and to break them down to every day examples so that the voters can see themselves in the situation and will realize that only the Democrats can deliver on the points that are important to them.

[The Magistrate]

1. Excellent Points, Ma'am!

A well-written, and most useful and instructive, piece.

[question everything]

2. Thank you very much. Appreciate it coming from you (nt)

[leftstreet]

3. It helps to change the talking points

For example, rather than debating whether or not we SHOULD have national health care, change the talking point to "what do you think about Senator Kennedy's ideas for expanding Medicare to all citizens?"

This can be done with those issues the polls are telling us are important to Americans on both sides of the aisle.

Look at Iraq. Thanks to Murtha, all the talk now is about the best strategy for pulling out the troops.

[question everything]

4. That's an excellent point

or ask someone: what would you do if your employer drops group health insurance... to stay afloat? What would family members do? Friends?

Most people distance themselves from such a scenario, thinking that it will never happen to them, that they will be able to bounce back, to get a better job. Many claim that if they have managed to pull themselves by their bootstraps, that others can, too.

But I think that reality is encroaching.

[Toots]

5. I wish that the convention did not emphasize the past - Kerry's vietnam re

When I vote for a person to be my President I want to know about their past and what challenges they have faced. How life has formed them and what values they have lived by. It is far more important to learn about how one has dealt with conflicts in the past than on what a politician tells you he will do in the future. If you know how they lived their life then you know how they will live the future. IMO.

[question everything]

6. Of course it is important to know their past

and do you remember the movie "the man from Hope" during the 1992 convention?

But this was the only theme of the convention. And while we looked at the fact that Kerry chose to go to Vietnam and then to speak against it as a sign of courage and of thinking - it did open the door to the swifters that took so much resources and that, really caused him to lose the momentum.

Kerry Vietnam record, just like abortion and gay marriage became a distraction during the campaign when he really wanted to talk about the important issues.

First he ignored them and when the topic did not go away, he was forced to reply and by then it was too late.

Clinton is probably the best Democratic campaigner that we now have and in 1996 he went against Bob Dole by emphasizing looking into the future not into the past.

Besides, people change. One can come across petty when one concentrate on only what one did some 20 or 30 years ago as we will learn the hard way with Alito (a different topic).

I don't know the stats, but I would guess that a large number of voters - the young one, that we wanted to reach - were born after Vietnam, or do not remember Vietnam and, mostly, do not care about Vietnam.

Yes, of course it was important to tell Kerry's story about Vietnam, but it appeared that this was the theme of the Convention - not the way to attract young voters.