[Page contains auxiliary
materials for book Persuasion:
Messages, Receivers, and Contexts, by William Rogers, Rowman
&
Littlefield, 2007]
Political
Campaigns [See chapter 12 on political
communication, chapter 13 on campaigns, and chapter 15 on starting a
campaign]
Sample Grassroots Campaign:
Judith Rose believes that Constitutional ratification by the nation
of an American Bill of Responsibilities is needed—to complement the
Bill of Rights. She envisions an American Bill of Responsibilities where
each American is encouraged to:
1.
Be a loyal citizen, honor the flag 2. Speak up when the criminal or
legislative actions of any persons threaten the welfare of your family
or your nation 3. Consider the welfare of ALL the
citizens of the United States of America
4. Support yourself and your own
immediate and extended family 5. Make a difference in the lives of
your family, your community, and your nation 6. Be educated and informed 7. Use wisdom in selecting those who
will lead you 8. Value and defend human life
How would a grassroots campaign for this Bill of Responsibilities get
off the ground?
According to chapter 13, at the center of a campaign organizations is
an executive, who could be one person with personal interest in and
motives for running a campaign, or a team, a committee, or a director
of a wider organization. The executive sees to it that the campaigns
mission is defined, that resources are acquired or recruited, and that
strategies are adopted and adapted. Work can be directed toward
engaging target groups or toward refining the campaign mission,
campaign resources, or campaign strategies. It is very important for a
campaign to identify the target groups that will be necessary for
carrying out the campaign's mission. A campaign's work can be evaluated
by how well focused the campaign is on its mission, and how much it
gets done in a timely, effective, and efficient manner.
Target groups fall into several categories, including (1) communities
of people defined by where they live or work, their social
affiliations, age, gender, race or ethnicity, and so on; (2) other
organizations, private or public, including both the leadership and the
membership of those organizations; (3) authorities, whether in the
executive, legislative, or judicial branches of government, and whether
local, regional, or federal; (4) the press, including editors,
journalists, and writers; and (5) professionals or experts who can
provide knowledge or services to the campaign.
Thus, to mobilize help for ratifying a national Bill of
Responsibilities, a campaign might identify such target groups as:
citizens, government leaders, leading personalities in print and
electronic media forums. Lawyers, historians, and Constitutional
scholars might also contribute valuable services. Needed resources for
getting the plan before the concerned public would include money;
material such as supplies and offices; information and knowledge; and
people working inside the campaign. Strategies concern effective,
efficient organization procedures for handling money, promoting the
campaign's mission, mobilizing target groups, and managing the
day-to-day work that gets done by workers.
It is important for an organization to monitor the effects of its
campaign activities. Often such outcomes concern how successfully
target groups have been informed, persuaded, activated to do things,
and committed to playing a role in the achievement of the mission.
Critical mass is here a figurative term meaning that at a specific
point in influencing a target group, a sufficient number of people may
be convinced to help. Critical mass occurs when the minimum number of
people in a target group necessary for the campaigns success get on
board. Target groups can be defined very generally, such as “All the
residents of town X,” or very specifically, such as “The editors of
newspaper Y” or “The shopkeepers on Main Street, Mudville.”
Getting back to the sample grassroots campaign, would you envision a
different set
of responsibilities? Would you amend the ones proposed by Judith Rose?
Visit the websites below to get ideas about your proposed set.
Chapter 13 also includes an original diagram that illustrates the
workings of grassroots campaigns.
Running for public office:
The
first thing a candidate will do is surface. Here, a candidate must seem
credible and able to transcend politics to see to domestic and foreign
policy interests, or possibly the world’s interests, depending on the
political ambition. The candidate needs to be taken seriously by a
political party, by the news media, and by potential money
contributors, small and large. In each election cycle, a number of
contenders will appear who to varying extents fit the above criteria.
The next stage is winnowing, where contenders play to their individual
party’s core constituents in trying to become the nominee. One
candidate after another now drops out of contention in this endurance
race. Next comes the convention period, filled with hoopla,
confidence-building, and the launching of the campaign ticket and its
platform. Here is where the campaign team is consolidated and resources
are built up after varying degrees of depletion in the run-up to the
convention. Most importantly, of course, is the election, where
candidates must now delicately balance the desires of their core
constituents with the sensitivities of the electorate as a whole (a
tactic sometimes called “moving to the center”).