This evening, my wife and I were door knocked for the first time this election cycle. A very earnest paid canvasser from a union backed entity asked us half a dozen questions, got our contact information and engaged in small chit chat. He stayed on our porch for ten minutes as a nasty but brief squall ripped through the neighborhood and took down a pair of branches from the walnut tree across the street. As we were talking, I mentioned that I had been a data geek for a similar 527 organization a while back. I understood that this was an initial data canvas and not a mobilization nor a persuasion canvas. Neither my wife nor I need persuasion nor mobilization. We have not missed an election in ten years, and the latest either of us have voted is three hours and seventeen minutes after the polls opened (this year as I was working from home and had to get the kids to school and coffee in me before casting a ballot for Hillary Clinton).
Any resources devoted to either persuade or mobilize my wife or I are wasted resources. We’re going to vote, and we’re going to vote for the most plausibly electable liberal that we can whenever we can. And this is a problem that calls for a solution. We’re going to get hit up with at least four different liberal GOTV ground campaigns (Clinton, joint/coordinated Federal and State Dem victory campaign, an environmental organization and a union backed 527 that we just talked to). Each of these groups will call us, they will mail us, and they will door knock us. If we only answer ten canvassers at the door this fall, I will be surprised. All of that effort is wasted effort that should be deployed on either getting a sure liberal but unsure voter out to vote, or a sure voter but squishy persuasion target out to vote for Democrats.
Is there a solution where my wife and I can register with a data vendor to say that we are 100% sure of voting and we are non-persuadable in the general election cycle so send resources three doors down to the new couple that moved into the neighborhood from out of state and have just registered to vote for the first time? If that is a third party entity, then both the campaigns that are allowed to coordinate with candidates and independent entities can buy the same cleansing lists to clean and narrow their actual target universe.