How do we reach people who are too busy to care about politics?

[ringmastery]

There are many people working 60 hours a week, with kids and a family that don't have time to care about politics.

How do we reach these people who are not well informed and get their news off of 5 minutes blurbs on tv?

[cliss]

1. If they don't have time to think,

let us do it for them! We can be the Red Lobster of politics. "We think, you vote". Too busy too cook? We'll make dinner for you. It's not as good as if you did the cooking yourself (there's nothing like digging out the truth on the Internet), but since you're too busy, we'll share the conclusion with you.

That's exactly what I intend to tell people when I start getting busy with the Democratic Party.

Appetizer: Cheatin' Cheney, Rums-filled, Conda-liar and their conniving tricks and lies.

Main Course: BeelzeBush and his heresy in the White House for the past 3 1/2 years.

Dessert: Fruit salad of all the neo-cons and sprinkles of liars interwoven throughout the Pentagon, State Department and of course the White House.

End result: A new President.

[LividLiberal]

7. Rotfl! That's a cute recipe for success!

[rumguy]

2. Howard Stern is helping us do just that

Millions of busy Americans, sitting in their cars on the way to work listen to him...

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Explain that this election goes far beyond "politics" --

explain the full extent of what is at stake if Bush gets another four years.

[Mairead]

4. Offer them something real.

I guarantee you'll get their attention if you offer them $50 for an evening of their time. Fifty bucks is real.

But offering them bloviation, windy promises of brib...er, tax cuts for businesses, and tax credits for the money they spend on health insurance that they don't really because they can't afford it? That's not real, that's just more worthless hot air from wealthy politicians.

[Barad Simith]

5. not sure I understand

Are you talking about paying people to listen?

[Mairead]

6. "Are you talking about paying people to listen?"

Yes and no...it was an example of how to get their attention.

My point is that they're not listening because there's nothing in it for them. They've heard it all before, they know it's BS as usual, and they're not going to spend more time or energy on it. Until there's something in it for them--something they value, not something someone tells them they should value--they're going to remain unmoved. They don't care. Their lives aren't going to change measurably either way. It's the Crooks vs the Robbers, and the difference between the two is the difference between Pepsi and Coke. Meaningful to chemists, maybe, and marketing weenies, and people who obsess about things like that, but not to anyone else.

But fifty bucks? Fifty bucks is real. Non-profit healthcare as from June '05 is almost as real. Unimployment insurance that doesn't turn pumpkin after 6 months, available to anyone who loses their job as from now (catch-up paid after inauguration, of course) that's real.

Real. It needs to be real.

[RichM]

8. "We" don't have much to offer them, even if "we" reach them.

All Democrats have to sell them is a lesser evil. Why should most working people be terribly interested in that? The basic message is, "Vote for Kerry. He won't screw you as badly or as quickly as Bush will."

[arewethereyet]

9. wait on them till fall

trying now will only piss them off and you are right to assume that they will defer their entire descision making process till then.

its time to develope the infrastructure of the local networks. too early for much else.

[DemDogs]

10. With Edwards? (n/t)

[arewethereyet]

11. that would have been the sensible choice but it didn't go that way

the party decided to vote for the guy who voted for the 87 million before he voted against it and explains it all as nuance.