Your district has about 200,000 adults. You question only adults. Mr. Upright needs 15,000 votes. If one out of four of the people you meet casually has even heard of your man, he is a cinch for the nomination; but if it is late in the campaign and only one in ten seems to know that he is alive, you had better get a hustle on and see to it that your election day organization gets every certain and every probable vote to the polls-or you're licked! You can still squeeze through on the one-to-ten ratio by hard work just before and on election day, but it won't be easy no matter what the telephone poll said.
Chapter X
How to Win an Election (conclusion)
The Final Sprint
Last Week Mail Coverage: Your candidate has called on more than 3,000 people, possibly as many as 5,000. (Fantastic? I once rang 8,000 doorbells under similar circumstances.) Your precinct workers and you yourself have worked on the rest of the 25,000 targets. (You did not have time, you yourself? My dear lady - or sir - you must have time. I suggest a firm date for Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, one to five. Accept no other engagements for those hours.)
The campaign has not been perfect, but 20,000 aimed shots have been fired, in addition to the shotgun spread of publicity and meetings. However many of these shots were fired weeks ago; you need to use last minute reminders.
I suggest the use of either penny postal cards or personal letters - nothing in between. The usual political advertising, sent third class in an unsealed envelope and addressed by stenciling, then stuffed till the envelope bulges with wordy printed matter, has a way of landing in waste baskets unread.
A post card will be read because it is short, and it stands a chance of being kept around for a few days as a reminder. A personal letter of any sort, sent first class, will be read and noticed.
Even for postal cards your postage alone will be $200, plus printing costs and the (volunteer) effort of addressing and signing-all cards should be signed by someone, even if with an "authorized" signature, not marked as such. The signing and addressing take many hours and the work will need to be done long before the mailing date.
The final mail coverage will be the largest single expense in your campaign and may be one-third of your total campaign expenses. You may be forced to use postals, rather than letters, to save time and expense, but I suggest that you consider personal letters for the persons the candidate called on, as these are your prize prospects.
("Five thousand personal notes? It would take a crack typist four months to do such a job!" So it would-)
A man named Hooven invented a sort of player-piano typewriter which types any given copy over and over again, using a standard typewriter. The pseudo-player-piano roll can have signals cut in it which stops the typing and permits a human typist to insert a name, a date, a phrase, or any other variation in the copy, without disturbing the set-up. There is no way to tell a Hooven-typed letter from one typed entirely by hand.
Hooven-typing service is available in most large cities; you can do business by mail if your community does not have it It is much more expensive than printing and much cheaper than equivalent service by a typist. (Some day, he said dreamily, I hope to awn one of these marvelous gadgets for the use of my own district organization.)
I suggest some such copy as this - make it short, both for economy and effectiveness:
(Letterhead)
(date)
Dear Mrs. Boggles,
I hope you will recall my visit to your home last April 3rd and our discussion of the primary election. The election is next Tuesday. Naturally, I would like to have you vote for me for the Demican nomination for Congress. I enclose a short memorandum of my qualifications and the issues I am committed to support
Whether you support me or not, I urge that you and your family turn out and vote next Tuesday. The privilege and the duty of voting are more important to the safety of our country than an individual's candidacy.
Faithfully yours,
Jonathan Upright
JU:htc
The name and the date of the visit are the only items which require the Hooven robot to stop for an insert If you use printed post cards you fall back on "Dear Fellow Demican" and "recent" Full coverage by post card of the persons called on is better than partial coverage by personal letter, but do not be tempted to cover the whole list of registered voters by mail-it won't pay its freight
It is worth while for Mr. Upright to thumb through his cards and dictate as many post-scripts as possible, which are to be hand-written by the person who signs his name. "ES. My regards to the chow puppy-JU" or "I'll be after Bobby's vote in 1960!" or "Will you write to me your opinions on that reclamation matter?" or "I hope your husband is completely well by now."
Some of your precinct workers may be able to afford Hooven service for their own precincts, or they may be industrious enough to tackle the job of writing or typing personal notes - a big job but manageable for single precincts. Otherwise you will supply them with printed postals with the "trademark" picture of Mr. Upright occupying a third of the space, and a short "Dear-Neighbor" note on the rest, following the general idea of Mr. Upright's note. Leave space for the precinct worker to sign, and use the type face which simulates typewriter type style.
You may be forced to ask those who can afford it to pay the postage. It comes to a couple of dollars per worker; it amounts to a couple of hundred dollars at least to the campaign fund. One of the inspiring things about volunteers is the way they will give till it hurts right before an election, whereas a paid worker expects everything furnished to him as well as his fee.
Special attention must be given to the unregistered potential voters turned up during the campaign by Mr. Upright and the precinct workers. You have been obtaining regular reports on these people, daily from TJprightand weekly from your area supervisors, and you have been turning the names over to deputy registrars with whom you have friendly liaison. These votes are free for the asking and they may amount to a couple of thousand, enough to turn a bad defeat into a narrow victory. (These are the votes Mr. Dewey needed but didn't get in 1944-the "sleepers.") Special attention by mail and special attention on election day is indicated. You can vary your printing or your Hooven set up.
Your mail coverage should be delivered to the post office, tied in bundles by districts, on Friday afternoon before the election.
Election Day: The campaign is over, all but the final sprint That sprint needs careful preparation.
An ideal election day organization has block workers on every street, a precinct captain and lieutenants, a squad of automobiles directed from each precinct headquarters, a trained telephone organization, workers at the polls, a flying squad to take care of physical opposition, and another squad of legal eagles to take care of more esoteric matters. The whole thing is organized like a war ship going into battle.
You won't have any such organization; you won't find it anywhere save in some large cities east of the Mississippi, and it won't be complete even in those cities.
Your ideal organization - which you won't achieve; 80% is a fine score - will consist of three workers in every precinct, one at the polls, one at the telephone, and one with an automobile, plus roving area leaders with a telephone contact for each, a telephone and a couple of helpers for you, and two lawyers on tap who will drive to any trouble spot in a hurry. You dispense with muscles in your flying squad and depend on the fact that no one, not even a bad cop, will break the peace in the presence of a lawyer who announces himself as such.