The following is a transcript from the Pro America Report.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. It’s Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report. Great to be together and so much happening in the world. I have to say I did not see the Republican debate the other night, so I don’t have much to say on that. I I’ve only seen what has been covered by the press, which is, you know, it’s not the same thing as actually knowing what is happening and believing any of it. So I don’t know that I do. So I’m not going to worry about that.
Listen, today I want to talk about a couple of things and one of the very important things that I want to spend some time talking about is the, uh, What happened in Ohio. What happened in Ohio a couple of days ago. Uh, and also we’ll later on in the segment, I will talk about January 6 and a a story that I saw that I wanna put together for you.
But I I want to caution you about what has been the coverage has been breathless across the country and the Coverage goes like. Pro-life is A bad issue for Republicans. They have to get over it and move on. Pro-life is really bad for Republicans, they Have to. And suburban voters don’t like it et cetera, et cetera.
It it it’s pure nonsense. It’s a game that’s done regularly on this topic of of life. They try to say ohh if you wanna. If you talk about life issues, you’re gonna lose voters, blah blah blah. It’s nonsense. What happened in Ohio? Let’s just talk about Ohio. Is it looks like the pro-abortion people had about $75 million to spend on their side and their the Conservatives had maybe $15,000,000, something like that. So outspent 5 to one that’s looks like it’s right. And that’s probably just the numbers we know publicly because a lot of things would be spent privately. But here’s the truth. The truth is That the liberal side, the far left, the Democrats, what they want to call them are winning. Because why? Because they’re they have the money and then they spend the money. And they have the boots on the ground and then they spend the money. And so the only way to win elections is to turn out voters. Now people realize that Donald Trump will be the ultimate turnout machine next year, both for, for and against him. But there won’t be a a Democrat or a Republican who doesn’t go out and vote on That election, but in between. What happens to get voters out is not magic ballot harvesting, that there’s nothing magic about ballot harvesting. In fact, it’s the opposite of magic. It’s it’s more work, but what the Republicans and the Conservatives do is they say, well, we’ll win on the we’ll win on the on the issues. We’ll win on messaging.
Here’s the problem. That is facing the so-called conservative movement. Get out the vote requires hard work and organization. It requires parties that actually organize all year round and then get out the vote. I have to tell you in the in the neighborhood where I live, this precinct I live, it was really organized. And the vote was Pretty good, pretty good. I get out the vote. Just want one precinct. But you know, for example, let me explain to you. What’s missing on the field of battle. Missing on the the political field of battle, for example, is the Army of the NRA. The NRA has, is a shadow of it. What it used to be, and the NRA was primarily primarily. A very sophisticated get out the vote effort. They knew who their people were. They repeatedly contacted them and they got them out. The pro-life movement, National Right to life, state level right to life efforts, organized efforts for pro-life. They would get out the vote. It wasn’t about messaging, it was get out the vote. I already know where you are. I had this example given to me. If you go to a Catholic Church, for example, and somebody goes to church every Sunday, let’s say 100 people go to church every Sunday and you can look at that 100 people, 75 of those hundred will vote Pro Life vote pro life, so you don’t have to go and talk to, you know, 500 other people that don’t go to church but call themselves Catholic and try to persuade them. You don’t even have to go get the 25 that are there out of the 100 and persuade them you just got to make sure that the 75 vote and that the 75 are repeatedly contacted and helped to vote.
That’s what’s missing.
It’s called and what we we talk about In politics, the ground game. Get out the vote ground game.
It’s not that clever. It is hard work.
So, what happens in Ohio is that five times as much money as there, and you can’t buy messaging to overcome that, you just can’t. And it’s still, I think, only won 55-45, of the bad guys’ side. So there’s a couple of things that have to happen going into the next election. So every election, everybody has to realize, oh, and oh, excuse me, let me pause.
The other thing that’s missing is the party structure. The party structure is not, and nobody’s saying why. Do you know why the party structure is not working and why it’s so weak? It’s not because Ronna McDaniels is incompetent. Ronna McDaniels incompetent. I kind of think she is. It’s because the system is rigged against the party structure.
In the old days, you had to go through a party, usually state level, sometimes county level in order to move the money that you needed in order to try to make the election work. So let’s say you’re running for a U.S. Senate. And U.S. Senate, senator says. But wait, we gotta we gotta get out the vote. What are we gonna do? Well, we can only raise this amount of money and we have to use the party structure. Let’s we gotta ask you, Senator, can you please go raise some money for the state party? They’re gonna get out the vote and then they’re gonna organize people to get out the vote. That doesn’t happen anymore.
Because of the change in the law, the campaign finance laws, predominantly Citizens United, and others. What happens is every single campaign for U.S. Senate, for example, has its own super PAC that is focused only on the senator. And so the party structure is weakened to the Point of being non existent. In states you have state parties that should be building organizations and getting out the vote and working in coalitions. And they have $200,000, $300,000. When a campaign in Ohio just on the issue of abortion. And there were lots of other races, but just on these abortion was $100 million and you’ve got party structures that may raise a million, but they’re, you can’t compete and you’re, and that’s not their job. Their job now, because of this way the structure is, is to try to get the candidates to talk to each other and to message right, if they can. And there’s no party structure.
So the combination of get out the vote from groups like the NRA, National right to life, other organizations and the absolutely weakened party structures means that there’s nothing you can do. There’s not enough boots on the ground. There’s not enough people that are out there that can organize and the other side has what? They have built-in advantage for get out the vote – teachers unions, other unions, government workers and then Planned Parenthood, and then all the social network, all the social work networks that take the day off and are happy to do it, and then they have five times as much money.
Why? Because the Democrats know. If they win, they get more money.
They’re they’re not embarrassed by that. If they win, they take more money from us. If they win, when they win, they take more money. That’s every time. They grow the size of government. They grow the payments of government, the transfer payments to their organizations, to their entities, to their people. And they grow them. Over and over again every time they do it. Theirs is a Return on investment thing. They look at it and they say. Hey, look, here’s what we have to invest. We’ve gotta be we’ve gotta, you know, go ahead. We’ve got to build this out so that we can win and then our return on investment will be great. It will be great.
It’s it’s amazing to watch. It’s amazing to watch. It’s amazing to see. And and wonder at why nobody’s serious about it.
And here’s one trick I I worry about President Trump and his campaign because they know that there’s such intensity of voters on their side. President Trump doesn’t have to worry about Get out the vote, but he should. He should, meaning he doesn’t have to worry about his people voting, but he should worry about the coalition that builds up around it, that builds up and you, you know, the NRA is a shadow of what it was in large part because it’s been attacked by the same attorney general that is attacking Trump up in New York. Letitia James. It’s a concerted effort. To tie up the get out the vote.
And I will say the pro-life movement has not has not had a vision on what to do after Dobbs, but they also have been running out of steam for a while. A lot of these organizations have a lot of them, a lot of the movement Conservatives have sort of run out of steam. That’s just the reality. And you got to figure out what the the the way forward is and how to do it. But it’s not going to be by better messaging, and it’s not gonna be by digital. It’s gonna be by get out the vote and and it it may be that messaging helps. It may be the digital helps.
But the only thing that gets people out to vote over and over again is voter contact.
And again, that could be digital. But it won’t only be digital, it could be TV ads, but it won’t only be TV ads and what you have to have is coalitions built out. To make the argument on these issues and then to go vote it, to go vote it and not be dumb, you you run an ad on a radio station in in suburban Cleveland trying to convince someone that Planned Parenthood is not about healthcare services you, you’re just you’re preaching to a choir of people, 1000 people, 900 of whom aren’t going to move, and the more important thing. Is. Oh, that’s not fair. Whatever Number is not going to move. The and, more important than when you need to go to the 400 people, let’s say that you reach 1000 people, 400 are gonna never move on abortion for it and against that’s 800. You could play all, waste all your time on the 200. Or you could go make your 400 move to the polls. That should be the goal. Let’s get out the vote. That’s how you win. Right. That’s what you need to know, let’s take a break. It’s Ed Martin, Pro America Report. That’s what’s going on in Ohio, don’t be fooled. Don’t Be fooled by the press. Be right back.
