Campaign veterans will tell you that there are many elements that go into winning, the first being to get out the vote. In order to get out the vote. There are a lot of techniques, old and new, to do this, but the most effective continues to be plain old person to person outreach: canvassing. Campaign representatives beating the streets and engaging with voters has always been the surest way to build a candidates brand and drive turnout.
Apparently, no one told Jeb!
The Jeb Bush presidential campaign has failed to knock on a single door in Iowa so far during this election cycle.
A memo leaked Thursday night shows that the Bush team has made more than 70,000 phone calls and identified 1,281 supporters, but has knocked on zero doors.
Those 1,281 supporters are not nearly enough to win the Iowa caucus. In 2012, both Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney received more than 29,000 votes, and Ron Paul notched more than 26,000.
If the Bush team only identified 1,281 supporters from 70,380 phone calls, that means only roughly 1.8 percent of the campaign’s phone calls in Iowa yielded evidence of a supporter in the household.
Jeb’s campaign has been criticized for being a lot of things: unnecessary, low energy, and laden with insders. But perhaps his greatest failure will be his consistent inability to connect with every day voters. Jeb could have hit the streets, engaging in the same face to face, old school style of politics that made his brother so successful. This might have helped destroy the narrative that he’s a wonky, disconnected insider. It was also likely an imperative. Socially conservative candidates like Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, and Rick Santorum have gone out of their way to build relationships in Iowa, knowing this was their only hope at the nomination. Voters already know where they stand, and many social conservatives see them as their only hope at remaining a relevant part of the GOP going forward. Had the Jeb! campaign talked to these voters and touted his conservative gubernatorial record, it’s possible that they might consider supporting him. Now, with his campaign in the toilet, we’ll never know.
AAN Staff
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