Deception & Misdirection
The Origins of “Zuck Bucks”: Reaching the Emerging Majority
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The Origins of “Zuck Bucks” (full series)
Getting Out the (Democratic) Vote | New Organizing Institute
Reaching the Emerging Majority | Center for Tech and Civic Life
Reaching the Emerging Majority
Reaching this “emerging majority” required a sophisticated and well-funded operation. In an August 2012 presentation, Joy Cushman calculated that trained activists could reach a target of 1,000 new voters by registering 125 people “per shift” across eight shifts.
“How many voters do you want to register? By what date?” Cushman asks. “You can focus your registration efforts by demography and geography,” particularly with door-to-door canvassing, which reaches “lots of young people and/or renters.”
Campaigning for Democrats
Accompanying its registration surveys was NOI’s 210-page behemoth “Campaigning to Engage and Win: A guide to Leading Electoral Campaigns,” the result of prodding by CNN commentator and ex-Hillary Clinton presidential campaign manager Robby Mook.
Besides Joy Cushman, the report’s authors include NOI co-founder Judith Freeman, a former Obama presidential campaign aide; Douglas Hattaway, a consultant to the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations as well as board member to Sixteen Thirty Fund, part of Arabella Advisors’ $1.7 billion “dark money” empire; ex-Democratic National Committee field director Karen Hicks; and Democratic consultant Susan Markham.
The document is an all-in-one guide for setting up partisan political campaigns, from fundraising to mobilization strategy and sample campaign narratives. While the guide is rather straightforward, it often draws on NOI’s past research into the effects of same-day registration and voter ID laws in turning out voters. NOI was intended to be a one-stop shop for helping leftists elect Democrats, with nonpartisan language sprinkled in where necessary to avoid IRS scrutiny.
In the next installment, grants from Center for Tech and Civic Life uses “Zuck bucks” to privatize the 2020 presidential election.
