In August, Bush campaign officials insisted that anyone in Oregon who wanted to attend a presidential event had to “volunteer” at the local Republican Party.
Want a ticket to see President Bush campaign in Oregon on Friday?
You’ll have to put in a few hours working on the campaign phone bank first.
Callers to the Republican Party in Portland were told yesterday that the only way to get tickets was to volunteer to come in and make calls touting Bush to swing voters.
Trading free tickets to a public event featuring a public official for partisan labor struck some (including me) as a little unseemly, even for BC04. In response, the campaign feigned ignorance.
Bush campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt later said “someone misspoke” and that was not the campaign’s policy.
As it turns out, Schmitt’s pledge — surprise, surprise — wasn’t true. Forced volunteering is very much the campaign’s policy, and it’s being implemented nationwide.
Want to see the president when he comes to your town? Get in line — to make phone calls for his campaign.
President Bush’s campaign aides say they have hit on a novel way to recruit volunteers for his get-out-the-vote army. Anyone wanting to attend one of Mr. Bush’s campaign rallies, anywhere in the country, has to get a ticket first. And anyone wanting a ticket, or a coveted spot up front, can improve his chances by putting in a few hours at a phone bank, canvassing Republican homes or putting up lawn signs.
I particularly liked that “improve his chances” part. In other words, the Bush campaign can coerce you into doing volunteer work you didn’t want to do, and even then, you may get a free ticket to see your president at a public event, or you may not.
Campaign rallies may be as old as politics itself, but in this year of earliests, firsts and most-expensive-evers, the Bush campaign has taken this most basic form of communication to a new state of the art, by pressing audiences to work as foot soldiers, before, during and immediately after Bush events.
The New York Times report said the campaign likes to refer to this kind of retail politicking as “fertilizing the grass roots.” In this instance, “fertilizer” is the same metaphor that comes to my mind, too.