Try as I might, I just do not understand United Russia’s near-religious faith in the “homeless-people tactic.” You know the one: “we bus homeless people to an opposition rally and snicker about it.” We have seen this many times lately. Sometimes, instead of homeless people, they use migrant workers.
The general idea is obvious: the campaign stand must not look nice, the way a volunteer stand usually does, but look like hell.
But the thing is, it does not work at all. Sooner or later, the police drive the homeless people away, and the migrant workers drift off too. Anyone passing by can see perfectly well what is going on. Our voters—who are generally well-informed—even more so. And the volunteers are there at the campaign picket for a reason: they simply explain everything to passersby.
Even so, this tactic is used constantly; apparently Volodin approved it in the campaign playbook.
As for me, I take the homeless-people tactic as the first sign of possible success. There is plenty of “official” opposition out there—the Communist Party, A Just Russia, Yabloko, and so on—but the administration’s resources are being directed against us, even though, according to the Kremlin’s own narrative, we have just 1% support.
That means they are assessing things correctly—both our electoral prospects and the fact that we are a genuine opposition force.
Join us—it is good to be with a real opposition movement made up of free-thinking people. We have already opened headquarters in Novosibirsk, now here in Kaluga, and today we are opening one in Kostroma.
And be sure to register as a voter in the primaries—you will help create the right candidate list.