
Gearing up for the midterms; what we say matters; volunteer profile; upcoming events	View in browser

February 2, 2022

In This Issue

On a Positive Note

Volunteer Profile: RIch Gatto

Learn More About Effective Giving through the Crimson Goes Blueprint Portfolio

Georgia Phone Bank

Movement Briefing

CGB launched our midterm strategy at an exciting event last week, focusing on three areas:

Promoting Democratic victories
Protecting the freedom to vote
Ensuring election integrity

The next ten months will fly by. Get started today by joining an Action Team.

On a Positive Note

President Biden has only been in office for a year. But already, we can celebrate significant accomplishments:

Over 6 million jobs —the most ever in one year — have been created, and unemployment has dropped to below 4 percent.
14.5 million Americans have signed up to get health coverage in 2021 through Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces, beating the previous record enrollment by 2 million
The Biden administration and Congress passed a rescue package that:

Included $1400 stimulus checks
Expanded and extended unemployment insurance
Funded billions for schools
Kept millions of children out of poverty with the enhanced child tax credit

Remember, all this was done with the narrowest congressional majority in U.S. history, and the opposing party refusing to admit that the presidential election was legitimate.

So let's spread the narrative of these accomplishments.

What we say matters

The members of Crimson Goes Blue are an unusually powerful group. We have outsized influence over the narrative that gets spread about issues, candidates, and our country’s future. Many of us are in positions of power or have the ear of those who are.

In last week's Way Forward event, we heard from Anat Shenker-Osorio on effective messaging.

Here are some important lessons from Anat's talk:

Say what we are FOR (e.g., Freedom to vote).
Order matters. Values. Villain. Vision. The order of the message matters. State what our collective shared values are; name the person or organization that created the problem, and how it violates our shared values; close with a vision of the future and what we achieve when we act together.
Sell the brownie, not the recipe, i.e., focus on the end result that people will experience, not on the policies. Examples of end results: bridges and roads getting repaired, the ability to take parental leave when your baby is born, new jobs being created, funding for schools.
Politics isn't Solitaire. People hear messages from all sides. The other side stokes racial fears and undermines the idea of effective government, and they don’t offer any solution. We need to take that into account in crafting our message and focus on unity and effective collective action.
Use known mobilization techniques.
1. Identity engenders activism: "I am a Voter," rather than “I will vote.”
2. Positive reinforcement: "Hispanics turned out in record numbers" is motivating because people want to do what people like themselves are already doing.
3. Social Pressure: People in your social group will know whether you voted.

Here are some Dos and Don’ts that we can all implement now:

Our Winning Messages

SAMPLE NARRATIVE LANGUAGE

ELEMENTS OF A RACE CLASS NARRATIVE

No matter where we come from or what our color, most of us work hard for our families.

Begins rooted in unity and shared values, overtly naming race in a way that includes everyone

But today, certain politicians and their corporate donors profit by dividing us. They try to make us fear each other so we won’t come together to demand the schools, health care, and jobs all of our families need.

Names racial scapegoating and/or deliberate division as a weapon that enables economic harms to all of us

We need to go all in for all of us, joining together with people from all walks of life to make a better future for us all.

Emphasizes unity and collective action to solve problems

[Optional addition] …just like we won better wages, safer workplaces, and civil rights in our past.

… counters cynicism by evoking previous wins through cross-racial solidarity

Together, we make the future, and we will rewrite the rules to make this a country where all of us can prosper.

Connects working together to positive benefits for all, activating the brand

Words to Embrace and Replace

SAY THIS

INSTEAD OF

BECAUSE

People of different races and from different places

Black, brown, or white

Whether you’re Black or white, Asian or Latino, Native or newcomer…

Whatever your … [race / gender / color / religion /zip code / job]

No matter [who you are / where you’re from / what language you speak / how you pray / who you love / the color of your skin / where you live / what you do for a living / how much money you have in your wallet]...

Whether we were born here, or chose to make this our home…

All people

Everyone

Explicit reference to race engages people of color while keeping white listeners on board.

We recommend using creative formulations to hook the audience while establishing a shared value at the outset of a message.

The examples on the left are just a start–these opening phrases can be tailored closely to your community, issue, or geographic location.

No matter our differences, most of us want pretty similar things

United we stand, divided we fall

“United we stand” can be a confusing set up from which to move to explicit division; it may be heard as a description of the present, not an aspiration for the future

Join together across racial differences

Join together in our communities

Making racial reference increases interest of our base and persuadables

And keep an eye out: we will soon begin posting regular messaging advice on our website.

Volunteer Profile: Rich Gatto

New Hampshire Action Team Leader

Interview by Tomasz Maciak

Rich Gatto ‘73, Crimson Goes Blue’s New Hampshire Action Team leader, spoke with CGB intern Tomasz Maciak ‘22 about his learnings from years of working on political campaigns.

Rich took time off between his junior and senior years at Harvard to work fulltime on the McGovern campaign against Nixon. He coordinated the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign’s get out the vote (GOTV) efforts in Maine and ran the Kerry-Edwards GOTV campaign in Cincinnati/Hamilton County, Ohio in 2004. He volunteered for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign in New Hampshire, then for Antonio Delgado in the 2018 midterm elections in NY19. More recently, in 2020 Rich worked as a community organizer of the For Our Future Fund PAC for Biden-Harris in Northeast Pennsylvania.

Below is the full interview. It has been lightly edited.

What drew you to Crimson Goes Blue?

The first thing was their focus on fair elections and their recognition of what a critical point we’re at in terms of protecting elections. For me, that's the bedrock issue. If we are able to vote and elections count, then we will have debates and the swing of the pendulum politically, but we have a shot. If we lose free elections and that foundation, that’s hard to get back.

Can you talk about your experience with politics and organizing?

I live in Needham, MA. My original Harvard class was 1973, and I left school to do political work and then came back to finish a couple of years later.

Phillips Brooks House was the thing that got me thinking about and involved in the politics of our time. The program that stuck with me was the Norfolk Fellowship program, visiting a prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts. It was really just a discussion group among people from the outside and some inmates. It opened my eyes to how my upbringing was so different from the guys who were on the inside. The inmates I was meeting with had grown up primarily around Boston, and their path to getting arrested and having to do time was a whole different experience than mine. That gave me pause, thinking about how we're not all as equal as we thought we were.

The start of it was the presidential campaign in 1972. I was about to become a senior, but I left school to work full-time on the McGovern campaign, trying to defeat Nixon. A lot of it was about trying to end the Vietnam War. I had a lot of friends who served. I was in school and got a very high draft number, so I wasn't going to be drafted. But I felt that you had to be involved in (the Vietnam War) one way or another. If I didn't believe in the war, I should actively do something to try to stop it.

Tonight: Learn More About Effective Giving through the Crimson Goes Blueprint Portfolio

Wednesday, February 2, 7 pm ET / 4 pm PT

If you'd like to hear more about our Crimson Goes Blueprint Portfolio, where you can give effectively to candidates and grassroots groups, CGB's own Janet Singer will be on a panel about giving circles.

Janet is on this panel because Crimson Goes Blue raised the most money of any Blueprint Giving Circle in the 2020 cycle.

Hear from members of the Blueprint Team about their 2022 strategy to maximize the effect of donations and from Janet on engaging fellow alumni to give strategically.

Easy Phone Bank to Georgia

We are running phone banks to Georgia every other Thursday: 2/10, 2/24, 3/10.

Since Georgia voters do not register by party, we will be calling registered voters and asking them 7 questions to determine how likely they are to vote Democrat, so we can call the right people during Get Out the Vote. This is easy phone banking, since you don't have to persuade any voters. So if you have never phone banked before, this is the perfect way for you to dip your toes in the water and see how rewarding and meaningful it can be.

Want to hear more from Anat Shenker-Osorio?

Wednesday, February 2, 3 pm ET / 12 pm PT

Every other Wednesday, Anat and the team at Independent Strategic Research Collaborative do a briefing on how to help realize the promise of our democracy and defend our country from anti-democratic right-wing forces.

This week, they'll be joined by Prentiss Haney from Ohio Organizing Collaborative to hear how they took on GOP gerrymandering at the state Supreme Court and Ross Morales Rocketto from Run for Something, who will fill us in on recruiting pro-democracy candidates for election administration and how we can play a role.

They will also share the latest strategies for the midterms and messaging to call out our opposition while keeping our base energized for the long haul.

Action Team Meetings

CGB Fundraising Action Team
Thursday, February 10, 3 pm ET / 12 noon PT

CGB Voter Protection Team
Friday, February 11 4pm ET / 1pm PT

Crimson Goes Blue

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