Vote Analysis

Written by: Lee Earl on Sep 9, 2006 10:19 PM EDT

Linked to groups: North Tampa Bay DFA

Primary Vote Analysis

1.Voter turn out by party:

Democratic Governor's race TOTAL 851,957

Republican Governor's race TOTAL 979,437

2. State wide number of voters by party:

Democratic Party TOTAL 4,230,478

Republican Party TOTAL 3,930,602

WHY ARE WE LOSING???

Why with 299,876 more registered voters did the Democratic Party have 127,480 less voters go to the polls? That is a net difference of 427,356 voters. By the way, if Democrats vote for Democrats, this is a blue state!!

So why don't Democrats get out and vote?

1.DECs are not doing their job.

2.Democrats are lazy.

3.Democratic candidates are boring and vote with the republicans any way.

4.Media!! Media!! Media!!!!!

5. Money spent to support all candidates?

What it was not

1.The candidates were both good and covered the issues.

2. Money spent did not matter. It was a primary and both our main candidates spent about the same amount.

3. Katherine Harris did not bring out more voters. The GOP Senate race had 24,940 less votes than the Governor's race.

How to get voters to the polls

1.D.E.C.'s must work for all Democrats equally, not pick and choose. They must petition the state party for help for their local candidates.

2.We all must work as hard as we can to get out the vote and get more volunteers.

3.Media: The media is our biggest demon. Writing letters to the editor helps but it is not enough because the media controls what will go into the paper.


A look at the media.

Some information for a start. Here in congressional district 5 we have no local TV. Yes, Bay News 9 does cover Hernando, Pasco and Citrus counties for news, but it is still a first TV channel. I do not know anything about TV out of Ocala. The newspaper coverage for the southern half of district 5 is controlled by the Tampa Tribune and the ST. Pete Times and both of them are pro republican. I am sure the northern half is no better.
Now to what brought about this analysis. I noticed in the coverage of the Governor's race one way the press manipulates voters. The St Pete Times and the Tampa Tribune both ran articles covering the candidates of both party's. Now a little information about how they manipulated the news coverage. The ST Pete Times has an average daily circulation of 323,031, the Tampa Tribune has an average daily circulation of 236,376. Now on Sunday, the numbers change. The ST Pete Times has a circulation 422,210 and the Tampa Tribune's circulation on Sunday is 309,916. The total difference for both papers on Sunday over the rest of the week is 172,919. The stories about the Democratic candidates were on Saturday and the republican candidates stories were on Sunday. Now we see why the republican's have a better turn out than the Democrats. It has nothing to do with how hard we work. Its THE MEDIA!!!!

What we have to do
We have to make every democrat's campaign a major grass roots effort. We have to build a people to people network. Talk to your friends, neighbors and co-workers. You don't have to campaign, just a simple comment like, Hey did you see where John Russell has a great drug plan, or Hey I hear Glen Claytor has a fix for home insurance. Do not assume that because you neighbor gets the Sunday paper that he read Saturday's story. When a good article hits the paper make a copy and pass it to your friends etc. Hound newspaper reporters, when they omit. change or mislead in an article, send them a correction. In other words just keep on passing on good news, day in and day out and we will win.
The Internet is a great tool with email, web sites and blogs. Now that said, about 40% of people do not have Internet access or have only dial up service. Talk and talk some more, even those who do have access may not know about mail groups and blogs. When you come across a good email or blog post, print it out and pass it around to friends etc.
Need ideas, got any, pass them on. Let's help each other, so we all win.

Lee Earl
learl@tampabay.rr.com

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Location: Spring Hill, FL 34606