Voter anger threatens Karl Rove's playbook

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Two parties far apart in turnout tactics too
The GOP uses precision pitches; Democrats try to exploit broad unease.
By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writers
November 6, 2006

BOCA RATON, FLA. — Jewish voters received a pamphlet about Israel's fight with Hezbollah. Spanish speakers heard radio ads about Fidel Castro. Seniors got recorded telephone calls from crooner Pat Boone, now 72, about Social Security.

As Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.) fights to keep his seat in Congress, he is drawing heavily from the Republican playbook of dividing voters by their backgrounds and interests and appealing to them with tailored pitches. His success — along with his party's hopes for hanging onto its congressional majorities — relies in part on databases and search tools used to identify sympathetic voters and move them to the polls.

Shaw's Democratic challenger has a far different strategy. Instead of specialized appeals, state legislator Ron Klein repeats a simple message to nearly every audience: Iraq is a mess, and it is time for a change.

That contrast underscores a central question to be answered Tuesday in this South Florida House district and other competitive races across the country: Which political force will prove stronger — the niche-marketing effort, led by GOP strategist Karl Rove and powered by computerized outreach methods, or the classic "throw the bums out" mood of an electorate uneasy with the Iraq war and unhappy with one-party rule?...

***

As the two campaigns make their final appeals, the differences suggest that many of the advantages that have boosted Republicans to victory in the past — more money, redrawn congressional districts and the superior voter targeting demonstrated by Shaw's courtship of Jews, Latinos and seniors — may be less potent this time....

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-turnout6nov06,0,529091.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[williesgirl]

1. FL Dems - get rid of Shaw now. recommended

[Rose Siding]

2. An anecdote within that piece indicates that Karl's voter data is obsolete

I've often wondered about that. They spend so many millions for updates and within 2 years much of the value is gone:

...But of 99 households assigned to this particular team of home-schooled teenagers, only 15 people were contacted directly. Many on the list had moved, or lived in buildings that banned solicitors. Two reacted angrily when asked whom they were voting for.

[karynnj]

3. Why would they have Pat Boone tell seniors about SS?

I know a couple who live there - they're voting for change. I assume that many seniors in that community are like them - former successful businessmen and women.

I doubt either of them would be overly impressed with Pat Boone's credentials in this area - unless he has some background that I don't know of having never followed him.

[spag68]

4. Pat Boone was a bad singer,

who stole Fats Domino's songs and never had an original thought in his life.

[karynnj]

5. Agree 100%

[shimmergal]

6. As someone who falls in that category

("senior citizens"), I sure wouldn't be impressed by hearing from Pat Boone on anything!