Dukakis is right that every precinct should have six block-captains that make personal contact with every single voting household starting a year in advance. He poo-pooed this last minute go convince them six weeks, five weeks stuff right before the election. He says "That's baloney." Myself, I live in a community where neighbors know neighbors and if the Democrats aren't calling county residents frequently, talking to them, keeping in constant touch about what's important to them ... well the Republicans are here and have been talking to each other and blogging for quite some time now!!! One thing I notice when I work the polls on the outside: The Republicans all know one another, stop and chat, while the Democrats file into the voting both almost looking guilty.
Well back to the article. Here's what I thought made sense to me:
"We have to organize every damn precinct in the United States of America-all 185,000," Mr. Dukakis said. "I'm serious. I'm deadly serious. I didn't do it after the primary [in 1988]. Don't ask me why, because that's the way I got myself elected from the time I was running for town meeting in Brookline to the time I ran for governor."And when he talks about organizing, he doesn't mean the legions of eager college students-think the orange-hat-clad "Perfect Storm" that Howard Dean sought to rain down on Iowa in 2004-who are shipped off to key states for crunch-time grunt work. He also doesn't mean limiting the outreach to "likely" Democratic voters, because-especially after seven years of George W. Bush-"there are huge numbers of disaffected Republicans out there. Who says they won't vote for us?"
"I'm talking about every precinct," he said, "with a precinct captain and six block-captains that make personal contact with every single voting household. And I mean starting a year in advance. I'm not talking about parachuting in with two weeks to go. That's baloney. And these people are people who've got to be from the precinct, of the precinct, look like the precinct and talk like the precinct."
The way he tells it, this was the missing ingredient in his 1988 effort-a powerful and utterly economical tool that, if properly deployed, could have blunted the Bush campaign's character-assassination-by-paid-media, and one that could spare Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama his ultimate fate.
True to his technocratic roots, Mr. Dukakis has the idea of replicating, on every street, avenue, and rural route in the country, the kind of personal relationships that once powered big-city political machines-with precinct captains calling on their neighbors every few weeks, asking them about their concerns, talking up their candidate and following up on any questions they might have. Mr. Dukakis' vision is rooted in good government-making sure, for instance, that a neighbor's concerns about school vouchers are satisfactorily addressed.