COMM 221: 'Microtargeting' and angry voters. Extra credit

In class Monday, we discussed a Los Angeles Times story that compared get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts in the congressional district that includes Palm Beach, Fla. Incumbent U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., R-Fla., had a very sophisticated "microtargeting" campaign that contacted voters on specific issues of interest to their demographic groups -- Israel for Jewish voters, for example, and Fidel Castro for Spanish-speaking voters -- while his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Ron Klein, relied on traditional door-knocking and repeating the same "time for a change" message over and over. We kind of thought the GOP strategy would win.

Turns out we missed our bet. Klein, the challenger with the primitive GOTV strategy, won. He got 51 percent of the vote to Shaw's 47 percent.

So the simple, repeated message won out over microtargeting. Here's what The Miami Herald said about it:

Klein said Tuesday there was ''no question'' he successfully capitalized on the anti-incumbent, anti-war mood, defined by his apt but simple and oft-repeated catch phrase: ``It's time for a change.''

''I think people are looking for new ideas and new energy and people who are going to stand up for them,'' said Klein, 49. ``They've lost trust and confidence in Washington and they want change.''

Shaw, who was in his 14th term as a U.S. representative, was personally popular. But this year that wasn't enough to overcome Klein's message. The Herald reported:

Shaw, 67, spent the final day of the campaign in radio appearances, thanking supporters, calling recalcitrant Republicans to urge them to the polls, and waving signs and voting in his home precinct.

Ultimately, though, the hometown popularity and grandfatherly demeanor that helped Shaw squeak past previous challengers just wasn't enough to overcome the volatile election politics that swept Republican incumbents out of office across the nation.

Neither was the legendary GOP get-out-the-vote effort, which was dwarfed by widespread dissatisfaction with national Republican leadership.

In the final months of the campaign, Shaw worked to distance himself from Bush -- even as Klein pushed an unrelenting message that his Republican opponent was too closely tied to GOP leaders, including the president.

Does that mean microtargeting doesn't work? Not necessarily. But it does mean it didn't in this election. I am inclined to think you have to do both -- identify your core voters and contact them personally, or have your campaign workers do it, and stick to one message in your public statements. Sell it both wholesale and retail, in other words.

For more on microtargeting, GOTV and elections in general, Donald A. Green, professor of political science and director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University, has a very interesting proposal on on Harvard University's Neiman Watchdog website.

Green, in so many word, says more people would vote if we made more of a party out of it:

Social scientists are far from answering this puzzle, but recent experiments suggest some interesting hypotheses. Here is a bit of background. Voting in the 19th century was an all-day affair. People would mill about for hours, socializing with friends, imbibing free booze supplied by the political parties, and watching their neighbors cast what was until the 1880s a public vote. The advent of secret balloting did not bring about an immediate drop in turnout. In fact, the effects of the secret ballot were initially fairly modest. But the same social movement that cleaned up elections by instituting the secret ballot also instituted the rule that said that party workers had to remain a good distance from the place where balloting occurred. That innovation seems to have undermined parties' incentives to supply booze and food; voting gradually became a sober affair in which voters cast ballots quickly and quietly. As the fun went out of voting, turnout rates gradually declined. In the North, for example, turnout rates in the 1880s were roughly 30 percentage-points higher than in the 1920s. One might suppose this decline was due to the end of petty bribery, but in fact the decline is evident not only in cities (where machine politics was common) but also in outlying and rural areas as well.

In an effort to understand the role that the social environment may have played in the 1880s, recent experiments have investigated the extent to which a festive, carnival-like atmosphere increases voter turnout. Randomized experiments have gauged whether Election Day festivals increase turnout. Potential festival sites are identified, some are randomly assigned to the treatment group, parties are thrown, free food and (non-alcoholic) drinks are served, and votes tallied. Approximately two dozen such sites have been studied, and the results suggest that creating a festive atmosphere generates a statistically significant increase in turnout. Of course, 21st century voters have no idea what to make of announcements of an Election Day festival, so time will tell how this innovation alters turnout patterns over the long term. Nevertheless, the results are an exciting potential development in the understanding of what makes -- and made -- people vote.

For extra credit. What do you think? Would a big election-day party be good PR? Would it be good politics? Would it give us good government? For extra credit, post your thoughts as comments to this blog.