I picked up my husband Glenn’s Yale Alumni Magazine and saw a short piece called, “Barack and Mitt, take Note:”
Political campaigns are increasingly using voter targeting: sending tailored messages to voters based on their ethnicity, religion, or special interest. But new research suggests that it doesn’t really work. A new paper expected to appear in the Journal of Politics implies that voters rarely prefer targeted messages to general messages—and that they don’t take kindly to off-target messages.
Eitan Hersh, a political scientist at Yale, and Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, created a fictional congressional candidate named Williams. As part of a survey, they showed the “candidate’s” messages to four groups of potential voters—people in union households, gun owners, born-again Christians, and Latinos—and showed off-target messages to voters who didn’t belong to any of these groups.
Some group members received a generic message (“Williams pledges to work hard on behalf of the middle class”) and others a targeted message (“Williams pledges to represent the interests of Latinos in Congress”). The voters seemed unswayed by targeted messaging: when Latinos were asked to rate a candidate on a scale of 0 to 100, those who got a targeted message rated the candidate about the same as did those who got the generic message.
The most conspicuous finding: mistakes in targeting are costly. Non-Latinos who got the Latino message tended to rate the candidate 25 points lower than did those who got the generic message. “This is not trivial,” says Hersh. He estimates that 25 percent of those targeted as Latino do not identify themselves that way. ….
One thing I wondered about from this study is if people who are identified by ethnicity were less likely to be persuaded to vote for a candidate. Afterall, gun owners have an issue–the second amendment–whereas someone identified as a Latino may have issues that are partly seen as conservative, other times more liberal. I looked up the authors of the study to see if I could find out more about how they conducted their surveys and found this article that stated:
So far, our results indicate that targeted appeals only increase support for Republican candidates among born again Christians and appear to offer little advantage over broader-based appeals among Latinos and members of labor unions.
Also from the article:
In most cases, candidates did no better among group members by appealing directly to that group’s identity. Further-more, these narrower appeals come with risks as such appeals led to diminished support for the candidate among non-group members.
I find this study interesting–is this how you respond to voter targeting or do you feel differently than the study findings?
Well, I think the basic principles of democracy argue against such targeted campaigns. Even if the basic principles of *campaigning* argue in favor of it – you go to the Greek festival and drink ouzo, you go to the baseball game and wear the team hat, etc.
Those of us of certain age tend to value privacy, while today’s yutes post naked pictures of themselves on public web sites. So I’ve always been irritated at web sites tailoring ads to me (they think), just how did they come to think I’m in the target market for hemorrhoid creme anyway?
What has seriously irritated me is NOT getting campaign material from the other party, just my own party trying to energize the base. Hey, I’m not that base. This is supposed to be a contest.
Grrr, …
Sounds like the study actually demonstrates that voter targeting works–if you’ve actually targeted a self-identifying group of voters. It doesn’t work so well when you assume that nice lobbyist fellow who takes you to the most wonderful places for lunch is telling the truth when he claims to represent millions of votes for “Latino” or “union” causes.
Personally, I’d probably be ecstatic if a politician targeted my vote as a small-business owner by sending me information on all the ways they promise to make my life easier by reigning in the bureaucracy. It only works if they really are campaigning on that, though, because they’re going to miss the target sometimes and turn off some members of the public employee unions. No big deal if they were going to lose those voters anyway, but it doesn’t work for a slice-n-dice campaign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o8R5GvwUFU8
This is in Mr. Obama’s own words. Remember in 2007/08? Well, it’s un-edited, un-redated, un- rescripted.
Play it, listen carefully and see if this President can be trusted to “Defend and Protect the Constitution of the United States of America, so help me God!!!” (He has an aversion to the word “GOD”)
Show it to your friends, then take 10 or 15 of your friends with you to vote, for massive fraud on a scale never before seen in these USA is unfolding right before our very eyes.
Remember the 2010 Census? Remember when Mr. Obama took it from the Commerce Department and put it under control of Mr. Rahm Emmanuel in the Executive Branch? Well, now We The People know white populations were deliberately undercounted, while Hispanic populations were over counted.
How do We The People know this? Texas filed a complaint. Most Hispanic heavy communities across these “fruited plains” displayed the same anomalies.
Only way to combat this fraud, is to vote massively this Nov. 6. Chicago-style thuggery is on full display for all to see and witness for themselves. In this video, in Mr. Obama’s own words, he says his administration will obey the “Rule-of-Law.”
This administration is America’s largest criminal enterprise yet in an elected office.
Kabuki theatre, “Right/hand – Left/hand Rule” is on full display.
While the Right/hand gesticulates…the Left/hand is “presto!” foisting off on America another Executive Order (900+ and counting-of which some 128 are totally unConstitutional)targeting a specific constituency,i.e., Dream Act III.
God Bless America. Amen. Pray for Her, she’s on life support.
When I receive a targeted (identity) message or a message targeted on an insignificant policy matter, I am INCENSED.
Intelligent people call it “Pandering”.
Voter targeting is a terrific idea, if your goal is a Balkanised nation where each voter and narrowly defined splinter faction sees all others as competitors for government handouts and favors. It would be a nation not of Republican vs. Democrat but thousands of ethnic, racial, regional, local and all manner of other special interest groups fighting for spoils. The only ones to benefit will be government as it will have to grow the bureaucracies to handle the dispensation, and more police to monitor everyone.
What the Republicans should do is develop a simple message and a simple plan like Reagan did and sell it. Don’t tailor it via the spoils system but just stick to principles and mean them. If people could be convinced they will be better off, the Republicans will win. If the people would rather have a dictatorship with handouts, infighting and no freedom, then that’s what they deserve. It’s just a shame those of us with sense will be stuck in the same boat.
This is potentially very good news for Repubs. The targeted approach is deeply embedded in Democrats DNA and they are frankly just better at it. However, voters still want to feel like they’re voting for reasons that go beyond simple economic interest (otherwise, frankly, why spend an hour out of one’s day to cast a vote that has virtually zero chance of affecting even local elections). As for ethnic identity politics, that gets a little trickier. Personally it disgusts me, but I think a well crafted message will allow the targeted group to at least tell themselves they are voting for altruistic motives. The examples given don’t really qualify. That said, I imagine there’s an ongoing battle in our information age between the targeters and the leakers.
During the 1950′s to 1970′s it used to be received wisdom that voters very often — one might almost say usually — did not so much vote “for” someone as “against” his opponent. Helen Smith’s article here could be interpreted as a reformulation of this same basic insight: Targeted appeals to your own ethnic group tend to fall flat because you are being invited to vote “for” something whereas a mis-targeted appeal (receiving a political flyer designed for someone else’s ethnic group) gives you a potent reason to vote “against” something, namely a politician who manifestly favors special privileges for people who are not like you …