Tamara and I woke up today and voted. It was a city council election. Only one candidate came to our house, a guy named Brian Rickert, who espouses lower property taxes. I bought a book not too long ago - Get Out the Vote - and it listed all of the methods politicians use to increase voter turnout. Long story short, the most effective method for getting out the vote is: the door-to-door visit. Mailers, robo-calling, TV campaign ads - all of these take a big backseat to the door-to-door campaign. The bigger the district, the more volunteers you need - because a politician can't physically visit every house. But volunteers can. The guy running against Rickert? Well, I never heard from him at all. I expect Rickert to win. As a matter of due diligence, I went out to the other guy's web site and checked him out. He too favors lower property taxes, but he tried to engage in some negative campaigning, I discovered. So Tamara and I gave the "A" for effort to Rickert, the guy who bothered to come to our door and traded a few email with me. Electioneering takes work, and a strong pool of volunteers. There are no shortcuts. | 
