As a
note to readers, the following article contains inciting
statements, especially for those who favor the results of
the election. Please note the statements contained within
reflect only those of the author and do not imply agreement
from the publisher and/or sponsors.
Hard to believe that only a
week ago all talk focused on the Boston Red Sox and their
once in our lifetime post season performance. Not in recent
memory has such suspense been seen and such anticipation
existed leading up to the big night. The same, it seems, can
be said of the recent Presidential race. That voter turnout
trumped all elections help after 1968 says something, and
similar to the Sox victory, most people will remember this
election regardless for which “team” they rooted.
https://www.lynxtrack.com/signup.php
What I find amazing, excluding
the fact that Bush won, is the number of non-Bush supporters
in our industry. Naturally, I assume that all rational
people would chose not to vote for Bush, but given the
Republican Party’s reputation for being pro-business, it
seems that more people would overlook the winner’s
deficiencies of character and vote with their wallets. I
cannot claim to like or even know John Kerry, but I do not
mind stating my preference for having someone other than
Bush in office, even when considering the current war.
Besides being pro-business, I
would expect more people in our industry to vote Republican
than I’ve found for a reason which I hope will at the very
least entertain thanks to its novelty. The reason I think
more people might support Bush deals with marketing. The
Republicans do it better. Not only that, but in this recent
election, they managed to pull a trick out of the
registration path books by using an indirect lure to
increase the percentage of Republican voters showing up at
the polls.
Many didn’t know, myself being
one of them, that on Election Day, 11 states had on their
ballots proposed amendments to their state’s constitution
that would, if passed, define marriage as a union between
opposite sex couples, thus banning permanently same sex
marriages. In all 11 states where they were on the ballot,
measures banning same-sex marriage won - in most states
overwhelmingly. Even in socially liberal Oregon, where same
sex-rights activists raised almost $3 million in order to
help defeat the measure, it passed handily.
While amazing in and of itself
for the sheer close-mindedness of the American public,
another amazing fact surrounding the same-sex marriage bans
were the states in which they took place. Besides Oregon,
where the measure was up for consideration and passed, were
Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana,
North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah. For anyone that
followed the election even remotely, seeing Ohio in that
list sparks interest. Colorado, Michigan, and Arkansas along
with Ohio and Oregon – almost 50% of the states where the
votes occurred – were battleground states, i.e., ones hotly
contested with no predictable winner, including the one
state that ultimately decided the election, Ohio.
Thinking about which party’s
constituents have the strongest opinion on same-sex
marriage, specifically as it pertains to an opportunity to
make it illegal, the Republican party comes to mind. While
big business often gets credit for controlling the
Republican Party, the “religious right” deserves credit for
the victory, turning out to show their intense opposition to
anything non-biblical. Talk about the ultimate registration
path. Draw voters in with one thing – same sex marriage –
and also have them get to vote on something else too. And
when these people did vote for that something else, it’s no
surprise for whom they voted. More people will turn up to
reject something about which they have intense feelings than
will those neutral on an issue. Incidentally, it is no
wonder people said they made their vote based on morality;
their morality was purposefully on the ballot.
We’ll save for another time
the fact that the a large percentage of those who chose
their president for moral reasons work for companies that
have interests counter to their own, such as reduced health
care coverage. It’s another clever example of the great
marketing done by the Republican party to separate the
backend from the front end. If the Democrats want to win
they need to hire the guys from Adteractive, Netblue,
Azoogle (yes, they are Canadian but so what), and
Coverclicks to do their campaign promotion. These guys know
how to market!
