Mike,
Thank you for your excellent analysis of CBM vs issues-based
marketing. Although one of the best pieces of writing I ever saw was
your constituency-based brochure on LGBT rights, the majority of LPSF
members seem to define the LP in terms of issues rather than
constituencies; which would be fine with me, except that given the
fact that we always receive such a low percentage of votes perhaps
some other definitions and approaches might be in order. It might
even be in order to start with the very basics, a definition
of "political party;" however, I will see if I can respond to your
concerns now, without the benefit of such a definition.
1. CBM does refer to the identification of one or a few target
constituencies. Republicans have identified conservatives and big
businesses. Democrats have identified liberals and workers (wage
earners, labor unions). Greens have identified proponents of big
government and of a managed environment. You suggest that the LPSF
consider identifying drug users, nudists, sex workers, and children
(i.e. individuals who, as you say, the other parties ignore at best
and maltreat at worst). I submit that we already have identified the
first three; and if we choose to continue focusing on only those
constituencies, we will continue to be unknown to the general
population. I have no problem including those constituencies you
mention in an LPSF outreach program, but I am suggesting not limiting
ourselves to them.
2. Mark Schreiber, as my handout indicates, is the author of the
paper to which I referred at the meeting. Yes, he is the "marketing
director" of LP who was hired to brand the LP. He apparently made an
argument to choose small business as the (apparently only) target
constituency. In my opinion "branding" the LP is a poor choice of
words; which gives opponents of his plan a good platform from which
to shoot down his entire approach. Singling out only one group seems
provincial at best. My suggestion was to simply identify a few
constituencies and tailor our outreach to each.
3. My handout of the Republican party website showed only one page
of the website. There were several other pages, many of which dealt
with issues, such as the war in Iraq. My suggestion was to *add*
constituency as a strong approach to our outreach, not to discard
issues. In answer to your question of what would I want to see on the
website of a party with which I was not familiar, I would say: clear
indication on how the party stood on issues. HOWEVER, as most, I
would consciously or unconsciously be looking for issues that effect
me (CONSTITUENCY) personally. I submit that we cannot possibly
design an effective website, or other outreach tool, without a grasp
on the subject of constituency.
4. I am puzzled by your comment that "There is a hint of insult in
CBM: It takes us all to be mainly self-interested in the narrowest,
most short-term sense." I have no problem admitting that many of my
actions are the result of self-interest, short term and long term.
Capitalism, which the LP espouses, is often described as a group
voluntarily interacting in individual self interest; nothing narrow
or short term about that.
5. I completely agree with you that the LP does not view government
as a "bag of treats." There is a significant difference between
telling a group what the party can do for them (liberal approach),
and telling a group how a party can help them get government off
their backs so they can flourish (libertarian approach).
6. I would love it if you and other volunteers drafted some web
pages, as you have offered to do. I suggest we proceed in the manner
that Phil Berg briefly described at the last meeting (unfortunately,
we had to end the discussion because of the vote on the Iraq
Resolution): Volunteers pick a constituency (or constituencies) they
want to address and design outreach material that would be of
interest to that particular constituency (or constituencies).
Mike, thanks again for your input. I would also welcome the input of
others.
Marcy
--- In lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com, "Acree, Michael" <acreem@o...>
wrote:
I was persuaded during Saturday's meeting that the idea of
constituency-based marketing (CBM), properly implemented, may have
merit; but there are a couple of traps involved, so I wanted to lay
out the issues as I see them, partly for the benefit of members who
weren't at the meeting.
It was natural for me to assume, in the first place, that CBM
referred to the identification of one or a few target constituencies,
since the idea is most closely associated with the name of Mark
Schreiber, who was behind the recent proposal to "brand" the LP as
the party of small business. Small business owners are
unquestionably a very important constituency, in terms of both their
numbers and their treatment by the major parties; but evidently many
members besides me opposed the narrow identification of the LP with
any single such constituency, and I've heard no more about it. The
page Marcy circulated from the Republican Party website, on the other
hand, consisted of links for a large number (95?) of constituencies--
Arab Americans, Jewish Americans, evangelicals, and so on.
I agree that a similar construction might be useful on an LP
website--with this caveat: It strongly evokes the now-traditional
idea of a political party as Santa Claus, with something to offer
everybody. We obviously don't have anything to offer except the
promise to help get government out of people's lives, which they may
perceive as a benefit or not. Our identity as "The Party of
Principle" really fits much better with an issue-oriented approach
than with a constituency-oriented approach. There is also a hint of
insult in CBM: It takes us all to be mainly self-interested in the
narrowest, most short-term sense. If you were browsing the website
of an unfamiliar party, would you want to know (a) where it stood,
for example, on the war in Iraq or Social Security, or (b) what it
had to offer, say, Brazilian Americans or labor unions?
Nevertheless, there are many constituencies for whom getting
government out of their lives would be a benefit--perhaps greater
than they realize. Our most natural constituencies are all those
groups--some large and some small--who are victims of victimless
crime laws--who are not only neglected but actually persecuted by the
major parties. Probably the largest and most obvious of these is
illegal drug users and their friends and families. That doesn't
count all the people who would want to use those drugs if they
weren't illegal. There are many other groups--e.g., nudists, sex
workers--who may be comparatively small in themselves, but who add up
to significant numbers. An even larger group than drug users is
children. They are totally neglected by the major parties just
because they have the status of slaves--of property; they can't
vote. But, even under the present regime, they will be potential
voters in the near future. These are all groups who won't find
themselves on the constituency lists of any major party. Ralph Raico
did a tremendous service to the Party with his gay rights pamphlet
for the MacBride campaign in 1976--spelling out the implications of
the LP platform on issues like cross-dressing and gay marriage for
people who would never have bothered to read through the whole
platform, or who might have doubted the implications of what they
read. The CBM approach on a website can perhaps offer a similar
benefit to people who define themselves in such terms, and I would be
happy to help draft some of these pages. But we might want to
consider a general disclaimer, about how we distinguish ourselves
from other parties in not viewing government as a bag of treats.