Sign Waving vs Canvassing

[eldeeder]

Ok, we had a friendly little debate tonight at one of my meetup groups. Should we do more sign waving or more canvassing? These are my thoughts.

When you get enough people sign waving at a busy intersection, people take notice. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. People want to know what the fuss is about, so they look up Ron Paul. With 15 people, we waved signs at an intersection for 2 hours, and saw around 80,000 cars. At 1.25 people per car, thats around 100,000 people. How long would it take a team of 15 to canvass that many people? Lets say each house has 10 people living in it. Thats 10,000 houses. At 5 minutes per house, with ZERO travel time between houses, thats 833 man hours, divided by 15 people, is about 55 hours per person. Keep in mind the estimate numbers.

I would argue we exposed roughly the same number of people to the message in 2 hours. (granted, not as detailed, but who listens to details when they just dismiss you anyway)

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to discourage anyone from any form in which they choose to campaign, I would just like to know what people here think. When I canvass, I find very, very few people that dont know about ron paul and then get excited about him. Either people support him, or they don't.

I dont think we can depend on converts for this. I think we need the people who don't care, or just don't know about Ron Paul and his message.

So the sign waving gets my vote. People love commotion. Signwaves deliver that. What people don't like, is strangers knocking on their door and wanting to talk politics.

So those are my thoughts. Id like to know what other people think.

 

[RobS]

Sign up for the precinct program, and do it.

It has been proven time and again to boost results by at least two times the norm.

voters.ronpaul2008.com

If you want to supplement the precinct program with sign waves, go for it, but I don't think it can be argued at this point that the precinct program ABSOLUTELY works. We have seen it work in Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina....

 

[Richandler]

None of the other campaigns do sign waving. That should be your first clue as to how ineffective it is. Canvassing and personal phone calls make much more impact.

 

[dante]

We have data from the campaign that canvassed districts turn out 2-3x as many voters for Ron Paul than he gets on average in the rest of the state... and that's also 2-3x what he is/ was polling. Bottom line is sign waving might raise name id... but does nothing to convince potential voters or identify them to get them out to the polls.

 

[hopeforamerica]

Guess you lose that arguement Sign waving is fun and creates name recognition. Now we need to talk to people! Bottom line is that most people won't go look up Ron Paul after seeing all the fuss (those that would have already have done it).

 

[DirtMcGirt]

canvass...

 

[Gadsdenfly]

Sign waving was good and helped create a buzz but time for real hard work of gettting out the vote. That means canvassing. Even lit drops are more effective sign waving. Hit those screen doors and door knobs you can do a lot in a day. Many throw out the political junk but man, many people read through it and then look for more info. And then go sign wave if you like.

 

[HenryKnoxFineBooks]

Sign wave for an hour...then go canvass!

 

[robert4rp08]

Sign waving is utterly useless in terms of spreading the message or teaching people about Ron Paul. The only thing sign waving is good for is showing that Ron Paul has support. That's not going to convince people to vote for him though.

 

[all J's in IL for RP]

An hour spent on sign waving is an hour you can be contacting voters.

Sign waving is sooooo 6 months ago.

 

[VoluntaryMan]

Canvass. Sign waving attracts attention, but doesn't persuade anyone. It's time to go tell those GOP primary voters why you've been waving signs for months.

 

[eldeeder]

Sign up for the precinct program, and do it.

It has been proven time and again to boost results by at least two times the norm.

voters.ronpaul2008.com

If you want to supplement the precinct program with sign waves, go for it, but I don't think it can be argued at this point that the precinct program ABSOLUTELY works. We have seen it work in Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina....

Not familiar with that yet... Thanks for the info, Ill get started!

 

[specsaregood]

thats around 100,000 people.

And how many of them were registered voters eligible to vote for Ron Paul in your states primary/caucus? You dont know? Exactly.

I can say with 100% certainty that the 1000 plus people I have talked to while CANVASSING, ARE ELIGIBLE to vote for Ron Paul in our states primary. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. The shotgun approach was good 6 months ago when people could register or change parties. Not anymore.

Get out there and get the information directly into the voters hands. It is as simple as that.

 

[jblosser]

Since no one really talked about the specifics of your math argument... the problem is that the goal is not to expose as many people as possible to the name. The goal is to get votes. People in American historically don't vote. 10% of the registered voters turning out in a primary is a big deal, and most people aren't even registered.

You canvass because it means going to where the people that actually vote are and making sure they get out and vote for your guy. You can talk to 1000 houses and if only a handful of them come vote for you, you're coming out better than the other guys given a large field like this one.

Sign wave downtown after dark when you can't go door to door. And even then you're doing it to find the existing supporters who will walk up for a yard sign so that you can get them out canvassing the next day.

 

[jabrownie]

# of people who drive by (times) % of people who actually see your signs (times) % of those who will remember that they saw your sign by the time they make it however many miles back home/office (times) % of those who are actually motived to take the time to look further (times) % of those are won over by what they find (times) % of those who actually go vote = really really really really small percent.

Canvass.

 

[eldeeder]

None of the other campaigns do sign waving. That should be your first clue as to how ineffective it is. Canvassing and personal phone calls make much more impact.

In all fairness, I dont really see people doing much of anything for any other candidates.

 

[eldeeder]

Sign waving is utterly useless in terms of spreading the message or teaching people about Ron Paul. The only thing sign waving is good for is showing that Ron Paul has support. That's not going to convince people to vote for him though.

"utterly useless "



I ask you to choose your words carefully. Are you telling me that the 25+ hours I spent LAST WEEK ALONE were USELESS? If thats the case, I may as well drop out now and start pullin my pud a hell of a lot more, because, apparently you're sayin Ill have more to show for it when I'm done. Im not saying I am right in this argument, I just want to know what people think, but PLEASE, dont ever tell anyone what they do is "useless."

If someone just changes their email signature to "google Ron Paul" I would argue they've done plenty. Can they do more? Of course! But who here is ready to say they've done the most they can do?

Im not saying I do more than other people on here, but just be careful telling people what they do is "useless"

 

[RPTXState]

Sign waving gets poeple thinking

Canvassing gets poeple doing

Both are good. But votes win elections, not thoughts.

 

[tx08]

Is there a way to tell if someone has already signed up as my precinct's leader?

 

[specsaregood]

"utterly useless "

I ask you to choose your words carefully. Are you telling me that the 25+ hours I spent LAST WEEK ALONE were USELESS? If thats the case, I may as well drop out now and start pullin my pud a hell of a lot more, because, apparently you're sayin Ill have more to show for it when I'm done. Im not saying I am right in this argument, I just want to know what people think, but PLEASE, dont ever tell anyone what they do is "useless."

I don't think he meant it as a insult, so don't take it that way.

It sounds like you have been running your hindend off trying to support Ron Paul and have just discovered that you were on a treadmill the whole time.

Just take this knowledge, and turn your efforts into more productive approaches. The campaign has officially asked us to canvass, we should take their advice.