Voters Are Seldom Swayed by Local Campaign Stops
各地巡回宣传？选民不买账

A survey during the 2012 election found that bus tours and visits to greasy spoons didn't do much to change voter opinions. Christopher Intagliata reports.
调查显示，在2012年美国大选期间，依靠巴士之旅和拜访小餐馆造势并不会改变选民意见。克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔报道。

撰文/播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔(Christopher Intagliata)
翻译：杨枭
审校：吴非

Donald Trump hasn't been running the most traditional campaign. And it's not just the unfiltered tweets. "He's neglecting campaigning full stop." Thomas Wood, an assistant professor of political science at Ohio State. "He's had about half as many public events as his opponent."
 唐纳德·特朗普一直没有进行最传统的竞选活动，这可不是一条未经证实的推特消息。俄亥俄州的政治学助理教授托马斯·伍德说：“唐纳德·特朗普完全忽略了巡回竞选活动，他所参与的公共活动数量只有对手的一半。”

Wood's own campaign experience was with the Romney/Ryan ticket back in 2012. Every night, the campaign surveyed thousands of voters… 64,000 over all… asking them how they felt about the politicians, after a local visit. That is, if the voters actually knew about the visit.
伍德自己曾在2012年有一次支持罗姆尼、瑞安的宣传活动经历。那时每天晚上走访一个地方后，竞选运动组都要调查千百计的选民，他们一共调查了64000人，如果这些选民知道这次走访，就会询问他们对于政治家的看法。

"Instead of seeing candidate X visiting somewhere in Pensacola they're now seeing candidate X visit somewhere in their local market. And it's not really filtering through to that many folks that the visit was there—you know one event sort of looks like the other. They all sort of blend into each other. It's hard to make it clear to the person who's just watching the evening news that this was a visit in your local marketplace."
“相比于走访彭萨科拉的某处，现在居民可以看见竞选者走访当地市场。然而，“有竞选者拜访当地”的消息并不能传到很多居民的耳中。你懂得，这些活动看起来都有些相似。看客很难弄清楚，到底是谁拜访了你们当地的市场。”

In other words, visits didn't even register for most locals or those in adjacent markets. And the voters' opinions of the candidates went up just a measly couple percent after local visits—before fading back to baseline a few days later. So despite the huge investment of time and money, the local campaign stops were pretty worthless—at least from a numbers standpoint. The findings are in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. [Thomas Wood, What The Heck Are We Doing in Ottumwa, Anyway? Presidential Candidate Visits and Their Political Consequence]
换言之，大多数本地居民和邻近市场的周边群众甚至没有对这样的走访作记录。而选民对于竞选者的支持率也只在走访后可怜地提升一点点，几天之后又重新跌回走访前的基线。因此，一站接一站的巡回宣传尽管耗时耗力，从数字的角度上来看却是无用功。这项结果发表在了美国政治社会学会年刊上。

As for this election season—any advice for the noncampaigning candidate? "I would provide advice that has nothing to do with his frequency of visits. I'd be providing advice as to how one comports oneself with the national press, try to earn some goodwill. I guess just being polite. I would say that Trump's sort of lethargic process of campaigning is probably the least of his worries." Better, he says, to just spend more time fundraising. To throw more cash at things that really work: like get-out-the-vote campaigns, and ads. Then again…Twitter's free.
既然这样，在这个大选季，对不搞活动的竞选者有什么建议呢？“我的建议与走访宣传的频率无关，而是如何在国内新闻界表现自己，努力赢得好的信誉，有礼貌。我得说，特朗普有点昏昏欲睡的竞选活动大概是他最不需要担心的。更有利的是，他花了许多时间筹款。要把钱花在真正值得的地方上，比如：动员投票活动和广告。还有就是……推特是免费的。”