I’m a big believer in doing things full-out. Obviously anyone reading this website is rooting for a certain outcome to the Presidential election. But what have you actually done about it? Hmm?
Maybe you’ve gritted your teeth, screwed up your eyes and wished really hard for Obama to win. Maybe you’ve made a slightly legally iffy donation to the campaign by slipping an American friend a few quid. Or maybe I’m underestimating you and you’ve temporarily married an American to gain voting rights. If it’s the last one you’re off the hook - otherwise, you need to up your game.
I was acutely aware that doing a lot of the screwing up my eyes and writing the odd thing for this site was great but not quite enough. So I decided to take it to the next level.
For the last week I’ve taken my struggle to the heart of the battle and spent time in the crucial swing state of Florida. My goal was to spend time at the cutting edge of the greatest struggle of modern political times, to actually change the hearts and minds of voters on the ground – finally giving a bit back.
Fortunately for me my week’s effort would coincide with my girlfriend’s plan to have a holiday in a delightful Key West hotel so I’d have some comfort and company at the end of a long day’s influencing.
Here are the steps I took to guarantee victory in Florida:-
Voter registration
The wisdom goes that if Obama is to win, he’ll need a substantial number of first-time voters. The more we get registered, the greater the chances of victory. Now, thankfully for democracy, there are several professional companies and organisations signing voters up.
However in 2000 Bush won Florida by 537 votes - so it was important to make sure no stone was left unturned. Young people are the key to finding first time Obama voters and I had a ready source of them in the service industry.
It was a simple transaction – they needed my signature on my credit card slip; I needed theirs on a voting form; quid pro quo. Obviously my commitment to the campaign meant I had to maximise my interactions with such people through as many food and drink orders as possible: rest assured, I was very very committed.
Making every vote count
It’s impossible to think of Florida in presidential elections without remembering 2000 and the sight of several middle-aged men holding up voting slips with tweezers for about 14 weeks as an increasingly bored world looked on.
Regardless of where your alliances lie, it’s vital for democracy that every vote counts. To help make this happen I spend some time looking for stray chads. After all as voting forms are distributed a few are bound to fall out causing a possible compromising of democracy.
Despite not knowing what a ‘chad’ actually looked like, I think I found 8. It was only later I discovered that following 2000 the state has switched from paper to electronic voting. So that’s one afternoon I ‘m not going to get back.
Direct marketing
Obama seems to have the main mediums – TV, billboards and the like - covered, but there’s plenty of marketing avenues to exploit.
I took the message to the people by renting a jetski and carving the words ‘Vote Obama’ in the ocean with my wake. Admittedly this was mainly aimed at those people flying over that particular bit of water at low altitude… but a powerful piece of direct marketing nonetheless. Sadly, as it turned out, the beginning of the wake had disappeared by the time I reached the end and you can’t actually do gaps between letters - but most of these marketing thingies work subconsciously anyway, so I’m sure it did the job.
As an adjunct to this effort I also wrote the same message on the beach with a stick. I’m pretty sure it’ll last until polling day.
Sharing international opinion
Figures show that the vast majority of Americans haven’t left their own country. If you don’t go abroad, it does become tricky to fully understand how other countries perceive you - so it was vital to let Floridians know how we view them from the outside. When in public I made sure I spoke in a very proper English accent and subtly inserted some home truths from overseas into regular conversations.
Here’s a snippet from one such interaction:
Waiter: ‘Would you like salad or fries with that?’
Me: ‘Well, speaking as someone from overseas, I really don’t like the Bush doctrine of going to war with foreign nations in a pre-emptive fashion, a policy which would only continue under McCain. But I do like fries, so I’ll have those.’
Cancelling out the opposition
Joe Wezeweerlchuckarr the plumber from Ohio has been made the centrepiece of McCain’s campaign lately, as apparently he’s an ordinary guy who prefers McCain to Obama, and they’ve got all excited at actually finding one.
Obviously this needed balancing out. Faking a small problem with our in-room whirlpool tub was easy. Convincing Alan the plumber to vote Obama when he arrived was a little trickier, however. Segueing from u-bends to competing small business tax proposals proved challenging. I suggested to Alan that there was a problem with our mini-bar - it was over-full. Several tiny whiskies later and you could put Alan’s vote in the blue column. Boom in your face McCain - millions of campaign spending cancelled out with a simple bubble jet emergency.
………….
The unexpected bonus was that my girlfriend became determined to join the effort and took the message to the people in the form of a ‘Vote Obama’ visor. People wear visors in Florida. A lot. This does not make it acceptable, but she was speaking to them in a language they understood. Look for a swing to Obama from slightly portly middle-aged women.
So there we are: my contribution to the campaign – thorough, determined, self-sacrificing. I think the latest polls in the Sunshine State show a small but growing lead. I don’t want to take all the credit, but it’s nice to make a difference. Swing state well and truly swung.
Does anyone know if our campaign needs any help in Hawaii?
