Grassroots to Lawncare: Building a Successful Campaign Part Four

In Part Three, I resumed discussing the requirements for building a grassroots campaign and how it is similar to growing a lawn. The following post will be a continuation of that, getting from lumps and root growth to the lawn’s filling in and how understanding this will help you win an election.

Evidence of your lawn’s clumps and root growth becomes your basis for the remaining yard growth. This will also be one of the fastest periods of expansion for the lawn as it beings grow thick and take on the appearance of a lawn. The same is true for your campaign. Once you have an established, reliable, and growing voter base, you will begin to see the support for your campaign begin to spread at a fast pace. From yard signs and calls, door-to-door efforts and voter polling, your name appeal and commonality will increase exponentially as the election approaches.

The pinnacle of this will be seen in your get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort. A good GOTV strategy can increase your vote count by two or three percent in large races, up to five or six in smaller races. This is no small amount of votes: most races that are close are decided by one or two percentage points. Especially if the votes you gain are swing or Independent voters, not only do your numbers go up but your opponent’s numbers go down.

Your GOTV effort is also a “micro campaign” in and of itself. It is the encapsulation of your entire platform into a few weeks of intense effort and sweat equity leading up to the election. This could be compared to the critical growing period of a lawn: for a few weeks, proper watering and fertilization will be critical in order for the lawn not to have large patches of dirt and to ensure proper coverage in a timely fashion. In campaign terms, this is like your GOTV effort: leading up to the election you are ensuring you are doing everything possible in order bring out the maximum number of voters possible and not having any “gaps” in voter turnout.

If done well, not only will your GOTV turnout go off smoothly and reach all the possible voters you are looking for, it will bring out enough votes so that your “lawn” can reach the point of the campaign: to grow a lawn you can enjoy and take care of.

Matt Robbins gives a full presentation on this topic which can be found here.