Lessons from 2008 trenches in Florida

by Chris Faulkner, The Next Right

This part of The Next Right's series was with Erin VanSickle. She is the communications director for the Republican Party of Florida. She served as the RPOF’s press secretary during the ’06 election cycle and served as press secretary for the Florida Senate Majority Office prior to that.

Florida GOP’s Lessons from the Trenches

CF Tell me about Florida?

EV Due to its sheer size, the State of Florida necessitates more than retail politicking—it requires any statewide campaign to have a methodical and energized ground game that can conquer ten media markets and a message that resonates with an incredibly diverse population—Hispanics from distinct countries of origin, African Americans, Veterans, seniors, the Jewish community, and military families, to name a few. This vast state compels campaigns to master a complex political strategy that incorporates the ever-critical I-4 corridor, “condo commandos,” Hispanic Little Havana, and conservative Northwest Florida. As a political party, the Republican Party of Florida is here to provide support, guidance, infrastructure, and fundraising for campaigns, from the presidential campaign down to the Broward County Sheriff’s race.

CF What does Obama’s victory in Florida over the McCain campaign say about the political ground game in Florida?

EV It shows that this was a perfect Democrat year. The Obama campaign simply had more resources. The Obama camp out-spent McCain 7-1 in Florida, an extreme TV state where TV advertising is critical to success. I would note, however, that because of the Republican team in Florida, McCain came within 21/2 points of winning Florida—which says a lot about the folks who worked tirelessly across Florida on behalf of the Republican ticket. Additionally, while Florida Democrats were awash in cash, political operatives, and newly registered Democrat voters, the Florida Democrat Party utterly failed to take advantage of it, defeating not one single Republican incumbent in the Florida House or Senate. Congressmen Gus Bilirakis and Bill Young both got 60+% in Tampa – an area Obama carried. In Miami – another area Obama carried – Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart both fended off credible, well-funded, DCCC-backed candidates. I think our performance across the board bodes very well for the Florida GOP.

CF How did the Florida GOP stack up against the Democrats as far as mobilizing grassroots supporters and organizing GOTV?

EV Under the leadership of our Executive Director, Political Director, and 72-hour Director, Florida led the nation in the number of volunteer voter contacts six of the last seven weeks of the 2008 Election Cycle. Through our volunteer efforts, we contacted more voters in 2008 than in 2004, touching more than four million voters this year. We made over one million phone calls and knocked on more than 100,000 doors during the 72-Hour Program. The RPOF also created a new Absentee Ballot Request Walk Program and implemented Absentee Chase efforts, which were nationalized by the RNC. Additionally, we installed VOIP phones and used bubble sheets with cell phones to better capture data on targeted voters.

On the grassroots communications front, we launched a text message pilot program of using text messages to contact volunteers and voters. We also upgraded to an enterprise level blast email distribution system that allows for more segmentation in selecting email recipients. Additionally, each Victory staffer was provided with an account and personalized segments for each county to aide in volunteer recruitment and retention and to provide greater communication between field offices and volunteers.

CF Do you think you utilized New Media effectively?

EV I think there is always more we can do. For example, we are going to have a hands-on training session at our Annual Meeting in January to show folks how to use text-messaging. Keep in mind that many of our grassroots activists are older Floridians who haven’t necessarily had much experience with cell phones, the Internet, email, or social networking.

That said, we’ve accomplished a lot this election cycle, especially this year, communicating to both grassroots supporters and the media via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, our Conventional Wisdom blog, and text messaging. The challenge is to integrate them all together. We’ve done some comprehensive prospecting, cleaned up and built our e-mail lists, implemented the new email system I referred to earlier, and synchronized fundraising efforts. We also advertised online on carefully-targeted sites to maximize the effect.

I am especially proud of our Conventional Wisdom blog (http://rpofconventionalwisdom.blogspot.com/), it was an instant hit and picked up by the media. Disclaimer—Mark Halperin’s The Page was our inspiration and I hope he checks our blog every now and then to see how we’re stacking up. We originally launched the blog during the Democrat National Convention (hence the name “Conventional Wisdom”) to provide a running commentary of video messages, articles/updates, and exclusive political cartoons to bracket the Democrats more creatively, but we ultimately kept it going because it was popular.

We also created a Voter Action Center through our website, a one-stop shop allowing users to register to vote, request an absentee ballot, find Early Voting/Election Day voting locations, sign up to volunteer, find their local field office, etc. The VAC utilized Google Maps so it was helpful for voters.

CF How did you leverage earned media?

EV We quickly found that “earned media” is often synonymous with “new media” and we used it to our advantage to communicate with the grassroots and the media. For example, we created a web ad once Tim Mahoney’s multiple affairs were exposed utilizing his own tape-recorded voice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCp9mNtZkQM); the media loved it and it fired up the grassroots the way no email response ever could. We had over 2500 hits the first day alone, which is pretty impressive for a state party web ad.

We also launched several microsites, including a Real World spinoff highlighting a Democrat congressional candidate. Our Democrat fundraiser tracker microsite (http://rpof.org/dem/) garnered national attention; this was back when the Democrat presidential candidates were boycotting Florida because of the early primary. Remember that they could come hold fundraisers in Florida, but the DNC forbade them from holding grassroots events. So we illustrated the hypocrisy and ensured that the negative narrative continued.

Once Obama was the nominee, we rolled out the welcome mat for him for his first trip to the state, reminding people that he had not campaigned in Florida; the music was “Welcome Back Cotter” and it certainly got in your head. That microsite also got us quite a bit of national media.

CF What new fundraising techniques did you use?

EV We tried our hand at low-dollar asks based on news and events. For example, we launched a “67 Days, 67 Counties” 67 days out from the election, with a goal of getting folks to donate a dollar for each of Florida’s 67 counties, based on the fact we only had 67 days left in the campaign. As economic times got tougher though, we returned to more traditional fundraisers instead of asking mainstream Floridians to donate. That said, we will continue to identify news stories, holidays, events, etc. that we can take advantage of for non-traditional fundraising.

CF What should readers/bloggers know about the Florida GOP?

EV We do things a little differently here in Florida. Under Governor Crist and Chairman Greer’s leadership, we’ve focused on putting partisan rhetoric aside and instead running on our record. It’s worked for us, keeping the Governor’s approval at record-breaking highs and allowing us to build the party during these Democrat-friendly times. Florida was a bright spot on a relatively tough election day for the GOP, with zero Republicans defeated in the Florida Legislature and a strong showing among our Congressional candidates. Even in the extraordinarily-Democrat Broward County, the first Republican to win a countywide election in 30 years was elected Sheriff.

Look, Floridians voted to maintain overwhelming Republican majorities in the State House and Senate, voted strongly to cut taxes, and voted to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. I think this demonstrates that we’re doing something right to get our message out, and I’m proud of that.