Yesterday President Obama was at a rally for Senator Boxer. Astoundingly on several occasions members of the audience did NOT know he and the good Senator were moving to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
I am involved in a highly contested conservation initiative and there are several groups promoting our position and promoting it vigorously through any and all media available. However, we ran into a reality we did not expect.
In a recent poll it was discovered our position was very poorly known. The industry we are opposing was reaching the public through 'Post Office Mailings.' Thinking about conservation we wanted to go 'the green route' and not use paper. Well, that was a huge mistake. So what we did was to print up fliers ON RECYCLED PAPER with information regarding the conservation point of view and literally canvased a 'sensitive' neighborhood door to door. We reached 200 households in one afternoon of 'grassroots' door to door canvasing and were welcome in every one of them. The people did not know about our opposition OR the profound conservation issues at stake.
The sensitive neighborhood was low income. The place we are working to impose a conservation initiative is not an impoverished area of the country, but, only has scattered low income areas. The people are not 'plugged' into the same COMMUNICATION and INFORMATION media that most conventional thinkers believe is working.
There was something else. One of the members to the conservation movement was at woman's gym. While she was there, a member of the Tea Baggers was there. The Tea Bagger literally was acting as a 'town crier' and simply ranting on and on about their position in regard to anything. It became so annoying to the conservation member and two other women members to the gym they threatened to cancel their memberships if they were going to be exposed to such harassment. The next time the conservation member went to the gym there was no such activity and it hasn't returned in the last week and a half.
As a result of that information we are now encouraging everyone in our canvasing efforts to act proactively and speak to others regarding the issue and verbalize opinion. It is our experience that Democrats tend to be shy and sometimes silent people. We, in our efforts, would like them to feel completely comfortable with facts and feel free to 'stand up' for their position and hold their ground in any conversations they may have.
It is interesting, but, any educator will tell you about the emotional competency of information that is verbal as opposed to simply read or watched. Visual competency of an issue is passive and more 'victim' than verbal which requires competency and being able to be 'the center of attention' when making any statement.
Verbal communication tends to relay an image of 'authority' while visual competency of an issue is more a 'follower' authority. We are sticking to this methodology and we believe it is the best method we can have to reach as many people as possible. We intend to use the 'religious' models of those that go door to door to bring FACTS and not opinion. But, in presenting facts we are sometimes asked opinion and we then can relay more competency as the public becomes more familiar with the content. We literally are 'recruiting' as we canvas and it is working.
The sensitive neighborhood was low income. The place we are working to impose a conservation initiative is not an impoverished area of the country, but, only has scattered low income areas. The people are not 'plugged' into the same COMMUNICATION and INFORMATION media that most conventional thinkers believe is working.
There was something else. One of the members to the conservation movement was at woman's gym. While she was there, a member of the Tea Baggers was there. The Tea Bagger literally was acting as a 'town crier' and simply ranting on and on about their position in regard to anything. It became so annoying to the conservation member and two other women members to the gym they threatened to cancel their memberships if they were going to be exposed to such harassment. The next time the conservation member went to the gym there was no such activity and it hasn't returned in the last week and a half.
As a result of that information we are now encouraging everyone in our canvasing efforts to act proactively and speak to others regarding the issue and verbalize opinion. It is our experience that Democrats tend to be shy and sometimes silent people. We, in our efforts, would like them to feel completely comfortable with facts and feel free to 'stand up' for their position and hold their ground in any conversations they may have.
It is interesting, but, any educator will tell you about the emotional competency of information that is verbal as opposed to simply read or watched. Visual competency of an issue is passive and more 'victim' than verbal which requires competency and being able to be 'the center of attention' when making any statement.
Verbal communication tends to relay an image of 'authority' while visual competency of an issue is more a 'follower' authority. We are sticking to this methodology and we believe it is the best method we can have to reach as many people as possible. We intend to use the 'religious' models of those that go door to door to bring FACTS and not opinion. But, in presenting facts we are sometimes asked opinion and we then can relay more competency as the public becomes more familiar with the content. We literally are 'recruiting' as we canvas and it is working.
We also have highly valuable, verifiable and SOUND information that cannot really be debated as to authenticity and 'comfortable safety' in taking a stand in opposition. In other words, our canvasing provides the BEST information so the public feels 'strong' in their opposition to the position of the corporation that has highly refutable information.
I believe President Obama may have run into the same phenomena we have found. It is my opinion that with a collapsed economy and the 'establishment' of digital while removing 'air wave' television, people are left stranded to valuable information for them to make decisions. I also believe 'recycled paper' fliers that are hand delivered can be the best form of political information, however, recycled paper fliers delivered by USA Postal Service is also reaching the UNREACHABLE voter.
GO GET 'EM.
