The 74 1/2-foot-long trailer doesn't draw much attention. It looks no different than the other thousands being hauled across Montana or parked to pick up or deliver products.
This one, however, is designed to help deliver votes - the most precious commodity in this election cycle - and send Democrat Jon Tester to the U.S. Senate.
Inside is a sophisticated, high-tech telephone-calling center the likes of which the Montana Democratic Party has never seen. Using volunteers and some paid staff, the truck has the capacity to generate up to 10,000 telephone calls a day or potentially a million total phone calls to Montanans between its arrival here in September and Election Day.
Here's how it works:
A computer automatically dials, programmed to skip answering machines and homes where no one answers the phone. Up to 24 people - mostly party volunteers, but some paid - sit at separate computer workstations and talk to the people automatically reached by the computer-assisted phone system. Those at the workstations use a computer mouse to check off the voter responses, which become part of a valuable database.
If a volunteer takes an average of 20 seconds to poll or talk to a voter on the phone, another live phone call will be queued up for that volunteer in exactly 20 seconds.
The calling is a three-step process over many weeks. On the early calls, volunteers ask a few questions to learn where Joan or Jay Smith on Elm Street in Anytown, Mont., stands on a few issues and how they're likely to vote in the U.S. Senate and their local legislative races. This is called the voter identification, or voter ID.
Later, calls urge undecided or independent voters to back Tester and fellow Democrats. These are referred to as persuasion calls.
Finally comes the get-out-the-vote effort - known simply as GOTV to political insiders. These calls are intended to prod self-identified Democrats or those supporting Tester, a local legislative candidate or some of their issues to get to the polls.
Meanwhile, the computers can generate a block-by-block, home-by-home list showing how every person the callers reach lines up politically. That's valuable information for legislative candidates knocking on doors, for targeted direct mail and for future elections in a state where voters don't register by party.
Barney isn't the only weapon at the Democrats' disposal in advance of Tuesday's statewide vote. There are still the traditional phone banks at union halls and local party headquarters.
Yet this calling center's presence looms especially large in the party's strategy as it tries to unseat three-term Republican Sen. Conrad Burns in what's expected to be a tight race election night.
“It's meant a lot,” said Jim Farrell, executive director of the Montana Democratic Party. “It's allowed us to mobilize volunteers, identify our voters and set the stage for a record Democratic turnout on Nov. 7. The mobile action center has enabled us to increase the volume of voter contacts exponentially.”
Farrell is blunt about the value of this information and how it's used.
“Get out the vote will decide this election,” Farrell said. “GOTV will decide the Senate race and who controls the Legislature.”
So how did Barney wind up in Montana?
“Montana has one of the hottest Senate races nationally,” said Ted Dick, state director for the Service Employees International Union. “The people in the SEIU like Jon Tester and like what he's done as a legislator. The people in our organization think that Jon Tester reflects our values. He stands for working families and for (expanding) health care.”
Dick oversaw the Montana Democratic Party's successful 2004 legislative campaign efforts. In the 2005 Legislature, he was the Montana Senate's sergeant at arms, one of the top jobs under Tester, who is Senate president.
He said the calling center is state of the art and offers valuable services.
“I would venture to say that the coordinated campaign has mobilized a lot of new people that usually would not have been involved in this effort,” Dick said. “They're really reaching out to a large number of people. I think a lot of that comes from the enthusiasm that Tester brings to the effort.”
SEIU, which nationally represents home-health care and nursing home workers, has no organized locals in Montana but hopes to organize here, Dick said. It has one unaffiliated local with 30 members in eastern Montana.
Although national Republicans talk about their tactic of micro-targeting neighborhoods, blocks and individual voters through sophisticated new research and marketing techniques, state Democratic director Farrell dismisses this talk as the latest fad and “over-coaching.”
“Not much has changed under the sun in terms of winning and losing elections for a long time,” Farrell said. “Successful campaigns still win by the eternal methods of a hardworking candidate, a strong message and a grassroots mobilization to move your voters to the polls on Election Day.”
Barney has greatly enhanced that mobilization effort, officials said.
“It comes down to shoe leather on the ground, knuckles on the door and fingers dialing phone calls,” Farrell said.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)