Virtual Campaign

[Martin Hash]

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A recent study showed that old-style whistle-stop campaigns, where a candidate goes from town to town to meet the inhabitants, shows little or no increase in voter support. In fact, it seems politics has fundamentally changed and none of the old techniques for getting elected work anymore, if they ever did. I wanted to test this hypothesis so I ran an entirely virtual campaign for the Washington State House: no newspaper interviews, no public access TV exposure, no endorsement questionnaires, no door-belling & no appearing before advocacy groups.

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Old-style printed brochures & buttons are out too, but I did put up five 4X8 campaign signs in strategic locations. I also created a large on-line forum, produced every-other-day podcasts & a weekly short YouTube video explaining my position on topics important to my constituency. Unfortunately, those didn't seem to work either, because other than my sons & a couple lost souls, nobody ever read, watched or listened to any of them. Yet in the Primary I received 40% of the vote based on the fact that I was the only Democrat running.

My conclusion is that politics is a complete sham. People vote based on nothing, if they vote at all. Politicians are elected primarily by kowtowing to the Special Interests who do vote. I'd have to conclude that the idea of democracy is purported to be magical but in reality is actually a sham, very similar to religion.

[skankhunt42]

Interesting. This could actually make for a fascinating case study if you had more data. Have you thought about publishing something on this subject Hash?

[Martin Hash]

I'm running again in 2 years with this year as the baseline. Perhaps we could propose some suppositions as basis for a paper?

p.s. I'm actually going to try & win next time.

[Fife]

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[TheReal_ND]

Pray tell Dr. Hash. Have you observed this image?

http://www.martinhash.com/forums/viewto ... =59&t=1257

[Martin Hash]

Who can argue with that plan? Make it so.