As a white 66 year old supporter and activist for Obama in Florida, I am part of his weakest demographic support group in our Sunshine State.
While I own a computer, my lifetime habit of getting my news from a newspaper each morning is the way I start each day as a retiree. I also own a cell phone but still can't figure out how to use all its features.
My point is the Obama campaign has to reach my demographic group in Florida through the ways we receive information, namely by print via newspapers and mail. Sure we watch alot of TV, but targeting on TV is much more expensive, and diffuciult to do for only one State.
Today I read an Op-Ed column by Barack Obama in the St. Petersburg Times on the need for national catostrophic home insurance and his support for a pending bill in Congress that would accomplish this. Obama points out all the benefits for states and home owners, including reducing insurance premiums. His column also includes the fact that McCain and Bush are opposed to this bill that would save Floridians millions of dollars in house insurance premiums. Skyrocketing home insurance premiums is one of the biggest issues in Florida.
My immediate thought was that every home owner in Florida, with a substantial portion being Seniors, should read Obama's column.
My second thought was there are other important issues to Seniors that , if effectively communicated, will make many more Seniors decide to vote for Obama.
I went to the Obama issues section of this website and cut and pasted the "Seniors" issues. While I sent it to a few friends, that doesn't communicate w/ the millions of Seniors in Florida on issues important to them, and in a manner that they will receive it , understand it and make many of them vote for Obama.
Absentee ballots will be mailed thoughout Florida in about three weeks. This is a perfect opportunity for the Obama Florida campaign to begin targeting my group of voters with professionally designed mailings, and ads in local daily newspapers that not only includes Obama's support for a catostrophic insurance fund and McCain's oppostion, but also that Obama wants Social Security to be tax free up to $50K, and will make Social Security more solvent by having very high income earners pay more into the Fund, while McCain wants to privatize Social Security so his Wall Street contributors can make big commisssions on the risky investments. Obama also has other Senior friendly positions including the issues of Medicare and prescription drug coverage.
Unless the Florida Obama Campaign effectively communicates these positions that virtually all Seniors support, it's like a tree falling in the forest and not making a sound because there's no one's there to hear it.
While Obama may not get a majority of my demographic group's vote, it can be substantially increased so it is sufficient not to prevent an overall majority vote for Obama in Florida which would make him win our State and elect him President.
