It is well established that people don’t really hear our story until they have a chance to tell us their story first. We practice this in daily life all the time. To earn anyone’s trust, they need to feel like they are being heard, that someone cares enough to listen. That is why the listening campaign is the authentic alternative to traditional GOTV campaigns.
Listening is way more respectful than prying confidential voting intentions out of a stranger. Listening shows that you care. It sets the tone for the kind of representation that you seek to elect to office. A well run listening campaign stands in sharp relief to the mainstream parties. And it opens the public’s mind to the policies and progressive solutions that need to be developed as we address the challenges of our time. It also demonstrates that you care about the individual citizen and that you are not simply part of a machine that slices and dices the electorate for its own political advantage.
There is a magical tool that Mike Schreiner introduced me to in the spring of 2018. It seems simple at first but I’ve seen it transform countless conversations on the doorstep from cold and standoffish to warm and receptive.
Here is how it works. You take an issues card and snap it to your clipboard. After you introduce yourself properly at the door, you hold the clipboard in front of the resident and while asking them if they would mind sharing which of these issues are top of mind for them, you hand them the pencil. The magic is in handing them the pencil. It is a simple act but it symbolizes a transfer of power from the canvasser to the voter. This offer is almost always accepted and it effectively starts the conversation off on the right foot. We listen becasue we care. And by listening we earn their trust.
But there is another aspect to the listening campaign that must not be overlooked. By collecting and recording which issues are actually top of mind to voters in your riding, you gain valuable knowledge that the candidate can use to address crowds at a rally, at meet and greets, and during media interviews. This is especially effective if it is done in conjunction with an open architecture data collection system which is described in more detail in another post.