GOTV in Kalee-fornya

Writing at Pajamasmedia, Bill Bradley highlights the Schwarzeneggar GOTV operation. Pretty slick stuff:

The operation, somewhat ominously for Democrats, is not simply to re-elect Schwarzenegger, although that seemed challenge enough when they began building it in February. It benefits the entire Republican ticket, as a recent visit to one of the 48 Voice Over Internet Protocol calling centers around the state made plain. The operation was humming with some 40 volunteers, all of them calling targeted voters computer selected, the calls computer monitored for quality control, their messages determined by sophisticated research. Multiply that by the number of calling centers and it was easy to see how this operation is able to effectively work the selected voter universe to turn them out to vote, either by mail or on election day.

“We’ve made hundreds of thousands of calls to our targeted voters every week since the spring,” says Schmidt. Recruitment began in February, putting together the staff, integrating with existing party and campaign apparatuses, modernizing lists and going after volunteers.
It is not just a matter of voter preference, it is a matter of tweaking that preference and motivating it through “pleasure points” and “anger points,” says a micro targeting expert. This is done through individualized communication via phone and mail.

Traditionally the vote has been turned out geographically. Now, says Schmidt, “it is not a matter of where you live but how you live.”

Deep data mining of the myriad of pieces of information about all of us that now exist in consumer and political databases enables Team Arnold to go after voters the way Capital One and Visa go after consumers. A constellation of data points about the targeted voter helps produce a sequenced plan to communicate targeted messages to that voter through phone and mail to motivate that voter to vote, either by mail — increasingly a preference because the votes are essentially “banked” by the campaign — or in person.

These techniques were first used by Republicans in the 2002 mid-term elections, to substantial effect. Anticipated losses did not occur. They were used to much greater effect in the 2004 presidential race, in which an historic Democratic effort to turn out the vote was outgunned by the Bush/Cheney team. Now they are being employed for the first time at a statewide level.

I find this fascinating given the state's seemingly unrelenting Blue nature (Republicans haven't won the state in a Presidential race since Bush I trounced Dukakis in '88 and Democrats have owned the legislature and a majority of statewide offices since the '92 election). But this effort appears designed as part of an effort aimed at retaking the state.

The down-thread comments are even more interesting as they examine the contrast between how Republicans are doing it versus the Democrat's approach.