It also used to be that there was a ward heeler system and ward heelers had to get out the votes for the party. The real value of ward heelers to incumbents and potential candidates was that they knew everybody in the ward, their kids, the economic status, their everything pertinent for gathering community together. They funneled all that info. to the party. Politicians on the local level, at least, did hear everything that was going on in their wards. That was the days of real machine politics. Unfortunately, the ward heeler system was so fraught with chicanery that it was finally dismembered.
I wouldn't want to bring back the ward heeler system, per se, but every candidate does have to have people living in the ward who will beat the bushes for supporters and get them to the polls on voting days. And every candidate needs picnics to talk to all their supporters and meet the kids and etc. SSB held a barbecue every summer and it served her well on voting day.
In Cincinnati, one of the biggest summer events was "the Orphans Picnic." St. Joseph Orphanage held a massive fund-raiser every summer. Booths for food and games, kiddie rides, all that carnival stuff. Every politician and wanna be politician in town was there. The incumbents, of course, came in flashy convertibles, kissed babies, worked the crowd. All us kids in my family and in other families were volunteered by our relatives to work the booths for the sake of the orphans.
About midway through the afternoon the Sheriff of Hamilton County came to the picnic--on a horse, dressed in his best white leather chaps, vest, and gloves, wearing six-shooters, boots, hat, and spurs. Rode a white horse, he did. What a sight! He brought a whole posse, of course, so they were decked out too and on horseback.
We thought it was majorly cool, but what did we know--we were 10 or 12 or younger. But I still remember the sheriff leaning down to shake my father's hand and saying, "How are ya, Vince?" I was pretty impressed with my father that day.
We still have the summer fairs and the politicians do come to as many as they can manage, but the picnics by democrats for democrats that happen every year, election or not, are gone and that's a loss. That loss is costing votes every election.
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