We have the power. We have had it all along.
If we want candidates to reject big money, we have to provide a better way for them to get votes. We can do that.
If we want candidates to reject big money, we have to provide a better way for them to get votes. We can do that. We already have the power. The word of a friend or neighbor has always been the most effective way to influence someone’s vote. Soon, it may be the only thing that does. We don’t need permission or a viral candidate or an app. We can develop our own political capacity and use it as we see fit.
Intro
In my last newsletter, I described what it looks like for people to discover their own capacity to help win elections, in the context of a community that is already organizing its own political potential. Today, I talk about why this is the approach we need to take and why it will work. Next, I will write about the many, many ways people can help get candidates elected.
The Money v. The People
“All the money is on one side in this election, and all the people are on the other.”
~ overheard in DC
Campaign finance reform is what got me into politics more than thirty years ago. The influence of money has always stood in the way of government serving the needs of the people, but few people in office will voluntarily change the system that got them where they are. Also, you can’t keep the money out of politics without overturning Buckley v. Valeo, the ruling that decided that campaign spending was Constitutionally-protected speech. I decided a long time ago that the only sure way to defeat money in politics is to make it possible for people with less money to beat people with more money.
Why now? We no longer have any choice. Democrats are generally on the side of the people (certainly far more so than Republicans) but many of them have been constrained by the escalating cost of campaigns to limit themselves to what they can deliver to us without pissing off the big donors and risking being cut off, or worse, actively attacked with unlimited dark money. The problem is that the gulf between what the people need and what donors want is getting so wide that those still trying to straddle it are in grave danger of falling into the abyss. Whether you are talking about A.I., crypto, or monopolistic and exploitative business behavior, it is no longer possible to straddle that gulf. Candidates have to pick a side. It’s us or them. If we expect them to pick us and get cut off from big money, we have to find a way to deliver the votes they need with less of it. The good news is that we absolutely can do this.
Thank you for reading Reframing America! I need your help to continue this critical mission. The best thing you can do is to forward this email to everyone you know who cares about improving how we communicate with the American people.
The Power of Human Influence
“We’ve got more money, but they have more people. I’d rather have the people.”
~ focus group participant
I spent decades trying to convince party committees, candidates, and orgs to invest in expanding volunteer capacity. As part of that effort, I did a deep dive into what actually works. Not just all the campaign studies, but what works in persuasion overall. You know my work with neuroscience and messaging. That is the most effective way to persuade on the language side. On the delivery side, there is a clear winner by a mile, and it is – wait for it! – offline word-of-mouth.
Word-of-mouth has always been the most effective tool for persuasion. Research during the 1940 Presidential campaign established that nine out of ten voters make their decision based on the recommendation of a friend or neighbor. This influential one-in-ten theory has been verified by 85 years of additional research. In fact, a massive body of research conducted by the Wharton School of Business concluded that the only way all advertising actually works is by generating and sustaining word-of-mouth.
Authenticity and Credibility
The voters we most need to persuade are those who do not follow the news. These people are the least likely to believe campaign advertising or content. Dark money projects are maxing out the potential of online manipulation to influence the outcome of campaigns. Elon Musk recently spent $20 million failing to buy a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat. As A.I. generated slop multiplies exponentially online, the credibility of digital advertising and online “news” collapses. The recommendation of a friend or neighbor might be the ONLY way to win over the voters we actually need to reach.
We have people in communities. It is wildly inefficient to extract money from them to buy ads that are almost guaranteed to not generate word-of-mouth, when you could use a fraction of those resources to enlist those same people in a group effort to generate authentic word-of-mouth. That authenticity and credibility is what they can’t buy, not for any amount of money. It is this asymmetry that allows us to beat people who can outspend us 100:1 or even 1000:1.
Volunteer-driven doesn’t mean no money. Real-world word-of-mouth is also the best generator of low-dollar donations. In Maine, the “establishment” candidate Janet Mills just dropped out, claiming that she was being out-fundraised by insurgent candidate Graham Platner. Building your campaign around volunteer mobilization and word-of-mouth means that money is both raised more efficiently and spent more efficiently. It comes from more donors and real enthusiasm instead of wasting your campaign’s most valuable resource: the candidate’s time with voters. It is then spent on facilitating the real-world human interaction that gets, by far, the most bang for its buck of any campaign activity.
One in Ten: We have reached critical mass.
Demonstrations and strikes and calls to elected officials use our voices to influence the actions of people currently in power. This is about using our voices and skills to determine who gets put into power in the first place. If every volunteer generates (at least) ten votes, we could set as our goal the recruitment of enough volunteers to equal ten percent of our vote goal. Zorhan Mamdani had about 104,000 volunteers and received about 1,036,000 votes. That’s about one in ten.
We have had somewhere between 8 and 9 million participants in #NoKings rallies. The largest number of votes ever received by a presidential candidate was just over 81 million (Joe Biden in 2020). If every participant in a #NoKings rally generated 10 votes, we could win the biggest election in the country. I know that this doesn’t automatically translate to winning elections in particular states or districts, but it does give you a sense of the scale. We have reached critical mass. Now, we just have to develop our political capacity: the best way for each of us, individually and collectively, to help generate votes for the candidates we support.
Volunteers can do anything.
In 2018, I conducted a pilot project in a special election in Arizona. I worked with campaign staffers to identify the potential skills and interests of incoming volunteers. Of approximately 270 volunteers, we had fifty people interested in writing content, 27 of which had professional experience in writing, marketing or advertising. By unleashing the talent that literally walked in our door, we outperformed previous Democrats in the district by 20 points. This was done in three months. Imagine what you could do if you cultivated this kind of talent pool over years.
We don’t have to wait for permission. We don’t even have to wait for candidates. If we build the capacity to get people elected, new candidates will arise out of communities. We don’t need tools or apps or polls or expensive voter files. Campaigns existed long before email or the VAN. We could literally go to every door like Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate campaign. And, while we certainly don’t have to, we technically could track our voter data on index cards in shoeboxes, like McGovern did when he won the 1968 Wisconsin presidential primary!
During Covid, all over America people created mutual-aid societies. And just look at the creativity of what the people of Minnesota did. They faced an unprecedented challenge. They built their own communication networks. They identified needs, from grocery delivery, to night watch at detention centers, to singing groups. They assigned themselves to the groups that best met their skills and interests, figured out what to do, and then taught others to do it.
We have it in us. Expanding your personal political capacity could be as simple as making a list of 10 people you know and making sure they vote for the person that you support. The magic number is one-in-ten. Influence the votes of a 100 people? That makes you a superhero. But you don’t have to do it by yourself. It’s way more fun to join a group of other people and find some creative way to generate votes together. If you can organize a book club, you can organize a campaign working group.
We don’t have to start from scratch. Many of us have worked for years or even decades coming up with ideas, plans and even guidebooks for what we could do. We just have to pool our ideas. Next time, I will share with you my training program on the many, many ways volunteers can help get people elected or win issue campaigns, from organizing direct voter outreach and visibility activities, to playing a role as skilled campaign staffer, to collecting information about the people and resources in your community, to being an active conduit in a word-of-mouth operation. What matters is that each and every person finds a way to participate that makes them feel like they are making a valuable contribution. Finding fun things to do (that are not on your phone) and communities of people who share your values? That’s the icing on the cake.
Thank you so much for reading this. I hope it is of use to you in your work and activism!
In solidarity, always,
My work is completely financed by subscribers like you! All content is free, but many people choose to become paying subscribers to help support this mission! USE THIS LINK to upgrade from the app!
Like this post, but not ready to become a paying subscriber? Leave me a tip of any amount you like at my tip jar!
Thank you!
Contact me at antonia@antoniascatton.com or (202) 922-6647
NOTES
You can find ALL of the research referenced in this issue at https://uprisecampaigns.org/research/.
Yes. Yes we do and yes we have.
I appreciate your optimistic perspective! just please don't forget that covid isn't over, and many disabled people are largely online since we're still being excluded from these talking circles where no one masks or considers those of us who are silenced by exclusion ❣️