Quote:
Originally Posted by st.cronin
Axxon - this election, like all general elections, will not be determined by Democrats or Republicans. It will be determined by independents. If the independents turn against Obama, he will lose. Likewise, if the independents turn against McCain, he will lose.
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I have to admit that I am not caught up with the minutiae of the demographics of this election yet, so it could be the case that independents will matter this year.
However, election strategy (especially on the Republican side) in the last 15 years had very little to do with convincing independent voters to vote for you. Simply put, the keystone strategy was turnout management: target the voters that were already ideologically inclined to vote for you and convince them to turn out to vote. The idea here was that it was more efficient and that there was more to gain by engaging your pre-existing base rather than to take the extra (and often wasted) step of having to convince undecideds and those already inclined to vote for the opponent.