We live in the land of target marketing. Once the DFL set up a municipal caucus system, it was inevitable that the delegates so chosen would be a highly specialized target market. I can report that slightly more than 3000 folks are involved here, thin in the wards where there are no heavy-duty contests for city council, pretty well maxed out where there are. I suspect a less than overwhelming early-bird response to the mayoral candidates, given that there were only a few weeks for persuasive activities pre-caucus night. Many people may also have decided to bypass the DFL convention in May and vote their preferences for mayor in the fall after months, not weeks, of persuasive effort by the candidates.
What we have now is the spectacle of 3000 people being pestered by robocalls and telemarketing human creatures hardly better than robots presumably for all the rest of March, all of April, and two weeks into May. the city DFL convention is scheduled for Saturday, May 14, at Augsberg's Melby Hall. The delegates are also being lobbied by city council candidates prior to the various ward conventions scheduled for Saturdays in late March and all of April. And they are being wooed by Park Board and Library Board aspirants and by Ms Becker, who sensibly has foregone the notion of irritating delegates with automated contacts for two months prior to asking for their support at the mid-May convention. Would that other candidates follow her shining example. Direct marketing amounts to throwing money at outreach. All the candidates have core supporters with known identities. If you are one of the treasured elect (n = 3000), would you rather have a candidate or a knowledgeable surrogate at your door or a flood of glossy literature, robocalls, and inexperienced voices on the telephone? For two months? I should think the mayoral candidates would be pretty overripe by convention time if that's the required political recipe. Why required? Say the actual convention attendance is 2400. Say that 3/4 of the attendees are locked into support of one or the other mayoral candidate. We know who we are. That leaves 600 undecideds and nine weeks to work 'em over. A manageable task, I submit, via face-to-face encounters before and during the convention. IMHO, everything else is so much white noise. Annoying white noise. Fred Markus, Phillips West, Ward 6 --- http://USFamily.Net/dialup.html - $8.25/mo! -- http://www.usfamily.net/dsl.html - $19.99/mo! --- REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
