Talk to an activist in almost any town, and you’ll discover a common problem. People turn out to vote in presidential elections but don’t always vote for local offices. They are less likely to vote down-ballot and many that do are throwing darts blindfolded.
Mostly it is a lack of understanding that the down-ballot races and your town officials have a significantly more significant impact on your tax burden than those other candidates.
I’ll use my town as an example. We have about 18,000 registered voters who show up every four years en masse. For the midterms, not a much. Town elections fuggedaboutit! If we get 4000 votes in a springtime town election it’s a miracle. As a result, most of those positions are filled by progressive or lefty-leaning folks.
Because they know the score. They are attracted to power. They can turn out just enough people to win.
Preventing that in Republican towns like mine just requires our side to turnout.
Ellen, Skip, and I spent a few minutes talking about this on the Jim Lawrence Show last Tuesday. Those races are important. But how do you get people on the right involved, informed, and off their backsides to take a trip to the polls?
We have an idea about that. Several, but let’s stick to the context of the soundbite (3′ 26″).
First, and most apparent. Those races matter. A lot.
Second, we’re deploying GraniteGrok’s reach and resources to the local level with MicroGroks. Websites built under GraniteGrok.com that use local writers, vloggers, and podcasters to cover issues at the town and city level. ManchesterGrok, NashuaGrok, Monadnock Grok, and so on.
We’re just getting them started and can easily cross-post content to all the Grok sites when needed, but the goal is to get them to a place where they are hyper-focused on their local politics.
As we note in the audio, it’s about having a bigger effect. Providing the bandwidth to explore local issues and candidates. Give local Republicans and Conservatives a place to meet and engage and debate. And yes, there are challenges. Finding folks who have things to share and will share. But they’ll be delivering news that people in their town won’t discover if they rely on the old-school media for balanced or complete coverage.
The aging media standards can’t or won’t cover it, so we will. But we’ll need help.
If you are interested in writing content or op-eds, providing leads, taking pictures, recording meetings, let us know. Our volunteer army is looking for folks who want to use this vehicle to activate voters at the town level to take their local government back.
Because, in the process, you’ll take back every other level of government as well.
