The Warnock/Walker senatorial run-off election on December 6th seems to be “more of the same” campaigning and fundraising as occurred during the general election. “More of the same” with tens of millions of dollars spent on unimaginative TV ads is not smart if Warnock wants to win without a disputed razor-thin margin.
As Lincoln said, new challenges require “thinking anew.” This means Warnock’s closest advisors must take control of the campaign away from political consultants, conflicted with their corporate clients and 15% commission on huge TV buys, and focus on a more effective ground game. Refreshing his daily messaging is key. These changes can be made immediately.
Warnock has spent $20 million on TV ads charging that Walker has neither the competence nor the character to be a U.S. senator. Reaching saturation, spending more on what people have heard and seen ad infinitum generates diminishing returns and increases voter irritation. “What else is new?” many must be wondering. Stop the last stage dittoheading run by profiteering dittohead consultants.
Warnock should highlight the following very popular policies. Every one of these declarations can be backed up by facts and figures from the Georgia scene.
1. For the hundreds of thousands of low-income Georgia workers: “Go vote for a $15 federal minimum wage, it’s long overdue and you’ve earned it.”
2. For many low-income workers: “Go vote for getting Medicaid from available federal funds blocked by Republican politicians.”
3. Vote to preserve and expand Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Washington’s Republicans, led by Walker backer, super-rich former corporate crook Senator Rick Scott, who wants to sunset these and other essential people-protection laws long on the books. (See his misnamed report, “An 11 Point Plan to Rescue America”)
4. Vote to stop Republicans from harming and depriving children. The GOP blocked, in January, the extension of the $300 monthly child-tax-credit that went to 58 million children. Walker’s GOP buddies in Washington stopped it. The same Republican clique is blocking paid child and maternal care and paid family sick leave by not funding these vital protections (long available in other Western countries). At the same time, the GOP wants to keep Trump’s 2017 huge tax cuts for the super-rich and big corporations, whose restoration could have paid for these necessities.
5. How about cracking down on the big corporate crooks who are running over the people in this country? Imagine “pay or die” sky-high drug prices, ripping off people as consumers, cheating on government contracts, stealing from programs designed for the poor, the Covid sick, and blocking the rebuilding of public services. Stop the GOP-protected corporate crime wave with law and order for a change. “We the People” are all bleeding the same color!
6. Why do Republicans have trouble with respecting women, protecting their freedom, assuring equal pay for equal work and stopping gender discrimination in the marketplace? Today’s Republican Party is the cruelest GOP in history in its attacks on the health, safety and economic well-being of women and children. Republicans stand against these crucial interests but have no problem giving the super-rich and big corporations handouts and bailouts galore. Vote the GOP out.
7. Vote to protect your descendants from the fossil-fueled climate storms, fires, floods, heatwaves, droughts and related hellish disruptions of daily life. The Republicans want to protect the oil, gas and coal industries, not the life-sustaining rights of future generations.
8. Recognize the tens of thousands of Georgia workers on the midnight shift who keep the state running while we’re asleep. Commend these hospital and nursing home workers, the factory and all-night store employees and the fire, police and emergency laborers by widely announcing some all-night campaigning. Meet these workers, respect them, learn from them and let them feel that they are included in your campaign for all the people. Start at midnight before the shift change of a large hospital and continue with events that touch on these and other occupations.
Campaigns get tired and repetitive. The media becomes bored hearing the same rhetoric every day. These campaign messages and tactics will generate news for the Warnock campaign, enliven the campaign workers and come to the attention of more of nearly half of the voters planning to stay home.
For more quick usable material, see winningamerica.net.
A 51-49 Senate will allow the Democrats to have faster confirmation of judges and other officials, more productive legislative committees, and more public hearings with subpoena power.
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Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of “The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future” (2012). His new book is, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All” (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).
