Mr Biden’s speech is his first major campaign event of the 2024 election season
President Joe Biden marked the third anniversary of the January 6 attack on the Capitol by warning that the issue of American democracy will be “what the 2024 election is all about,” as he runs against former president Donald Trump once more.
Mr Biden, who spoke near the Valley Forge historical site where George Washington and the Continental Army were encamped during the winter of 1777 and 1778, told attendees that they were there “to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?”
“This isn’t rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time,” he said.
Mr Biden said his speech, his first major event of the 2024 election season, was “deadly serious,” and about a topic that needed to be raised at the outset of his campaign.
Unfortunately in the US deep canvassing is not a viable strategy for most political campaigns since it’s too resource intensive. It’s far more effective to canvass as way of identifying likely voters. Then you can make sure they vote when the time comes.
I can’t say for sure if it’s viable at scale or not. I can say with certainty that it was a big part of why California finally approved same-sex marriage in the early 2000s.
You don’t have to convince everybody, just enough to tip the scales in your favor.
I think you might have your history mixed up. The courts legalized same sex marriage in California in 2008 but it was banned again after proposition 8 was passed by voters. It’s possible deep canvassing was used in the campaign against proposition 8. However, it certainly didn’t tip the scales. Same sex marriage only became legal again in 2013 thanks to a different court case that invalidated the proposition.
That said, I do think there are contexts where deep canvassing may be effective. For example, similar methods are an essential part of labor organizing. Progressive causes are just too resource poor in the US to use such methods at scale.
Thanks! I read about it in the book How Minds Change sometime last year, so I probably got some of those details a bit mixed up.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it played out. California residents actually voted for proposition 8 which banned same sex marriage. It wasn’t until a court case invalidated said proposition that same sex marriage became legal.