Remember to Volunteer for the next election!

[imenja]

I hope everyone translates your anger into activism during upcoming elections. We all need to work to bring about Democratic victories, so when the next campaign calls to ask you to volunteer, please go out to canvass, staff phone banks, and whatever else is necessary. Better yet, don't wait for them to call you!
I called lots of people who said they would help canvass in weeks before the election or agreed to work on election day but then didn't turn up. I wonder how those people feel now.

[jhgatiss]

1. I think its more complex than that....

I went to a political talk last Monday. The speaker held a PhD in political science. He volunteered for the Kerry campaign here and he said they had him cutting out invitations and a former student of his was stringing badges for poll monitors. Should those kinds of people be helping with strategy? Organizing? Or at least calling and canvassing? It was described as chaos.

I heard a similar story here about a month prior to election day. A friend of mine said he went to Kerry headquarters and they were overwhelmed by help. He said he just took a yard sign and went shopping at Target instead.

I get the distinct impression that the Democratic party in Ohio is lacking organization. The PhD said that the Ohio Democratic party only has one full time staffer for the whole state! How can you organize? Plan? Network? With just one person?

I think we all need to get more involved in the leadership structures of our local and statewide parties to see if they have major organizational issues. If that is the case, we need to work on fixing those ASAP so we can manage volunteers better.

[imenja]

2. Yes

The party is disorganized. There is no question about it. If fact, I believe we lost Florida, at least in part, because of that disorganization. But it is up to us to make it better. We won't change anything sitting at home. And if we aren't willing to work for victory, I'll guarantee you that we will continue to lose.

[jhgatiss]

3. Another thought that has been discussed....

The Bush campaign had an entirely in-house GOTV and canvass effort. The Kerry campaign seemed to rely on the patchwork of ACT, Sierra Club, VoteMob, MoveOn, and unions to do this work for them. Its my understanding here that these groups coordinated on election day so they didn't duplicate the GOTV but I'm not sure if it was done as such in the canvassing efforts. Although both were effective, it seems as though the Bush church networking and GOTV efforts were superior to the Democrats.

I know that legally they couldn't coordinate with the Kerry campaign, but would it be legal for such campaigns in the future to coordinate through the state party? It also might be of use to try to form relationships with left-leaning churches for this kind of effort as well.

[imenja]

5. GOP Church activism wasn't legal either

It seems to me that the conservative churches violated the law by their activism. A neighbor told me that the pastor read the Bush campaign's volunteer number during his sermon. That has to violate their tax exempt status that is premised on a separation between church and state.
My guess is there won't be any 527s by the next election. The GOP may try to get rid of them.

[laheina]

6. Disorganization seems to be endemic to the Dems.

It is the case in CA too. I did a lot of 527 work during the election, but there needs to be more organization and coordination.

Something along the lines of Grover Norquist's Wednesday morning meetings, maybe?

[imenja]

4. Strategy

Also, strategy is something that is planned at the national level, not at the local field offices. I too have a PhD but certainly don't feel that means I'm too good to canvass or make phone calls, or whatever else they needed me to do. A person can also take initiative and organize things yourself--early voting events, etc... You don't need to wait for them to tell you what to do if you feel you have ideas on how to proceed. At the local field office here, we didn't have enough people to coordinate all the precincts on election day. That is a volunteer job that requires a good deal of skill, but the campaign staff needs to get to know you before they feel you are reliable or capable enough to coordinate get out the vote efforts, which means you have to volunteer on a consistent basis.

[Milo_Bloom]

7. The answer is in the style and belief!

There was an article in Rolling Stone last month, about how Matt Taibbi infiltrated the bush campaign in Florida. He made some interesting observations about the GOP volunteers, how they acted and what they thought (some things surprising, some things not), but he also made an observation about how the Democrats worked that after trying to volunteer this year, I found to be quite true. Here is the quote:

"Almost every Democratic campaign I've seen has let itself be seduced by the Primary Colors paradigm -- the hip clique full of mildly sexually adventurous twentysomethings who have been working on their memoirs since high school and dream of that chance to wear Versace sport coats and crack jokes on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
If you've ever hung out with the Tricia Enrights and Joe Trippis of the world, you know that the operative vibe of the Democratic insider is wisecracking cool."

I was involved in the Dean campaign in the early days and I mean the EARLY DAYS. (I donated in October of 02 and attended the very first meetups in January of 03) When the meetups first started, they were awesome. We had groups of highly motivated people who all just wanted to do one thing... help out.

By March of 03, the vibe had changed and with the exception of myself, every single one of the people from the early meetups had stopped being involved. Why? Because the political hawks had swept in and started issuing orders. There was an expert statistician/software designer who was willing to build a comprehensive database of Dean supporters... his ideas were dismissed with a shrug. (of course months later this was done by headquarters, but it was a little late to be as effective) There were DOZENS and DOZENS of highly motivated people, who believed in Dean the candidate who were basically told to take a bumpersticker, donate money and tell their friends, while the big boys did the real work.

There was a sense of entitlement and a sense of exclusion. Even though I was "IN", it didn't feel right and I ultimately stopped going to the meetups and working with the "organization" and instead just tried to do what I could on my own and with the few people who I remained in touch with.

I figured this experience was unique to the area I was in, but I soon learned that was not true. My parents went to the meetups in their areas and soon found the same thing happening, the political higherups were jumping in and saying, "what you've done is really cute, but this is how we are going to do it now that I am here".

The problem breaks down to this. The higher ups in the GOP, the ones who organize the campaigns, get volunteers and what not, REALLY BELIEVE IN WHAT THEIR CANDIDATE IS DOING! They aren't in it for the ego boost, they aren't turning people away who want to help, because they REALLY, TRULY, HONESTLY believe in the cause.

Dems? Not so much, unfortunately. So many of the people who ended up getting involved with Howard Dean, did it because he was the next big thing. I could tell you some frightening stories about some of the people involved who didn't even know his stances on some really basic issues. They just knew he was the hot thing of the moment and they wanted a piece of it. They carried some political weight, so they came in and took over, surrounded themselves with like-minded people who weren't as comitted to the cause, as they were for being a part of it and BLAM, you have recipie for disaster.

I have little doubt from the stories I have heard that a similar thing happened in the Kerry camp. I suspect it even more because I know some of the people who ended up working for him, didn't like him at all. How can you effectively run a campaign when you don't really, truly and honestly believe in the product?

Okay, that is enough of a rant on this subject. The only thing I hope is that in 06 and 08 when we are getting involved in our various campaigns that we will be able to keep the political hacks OUT of the picture, so that those with the REAL PASSION can do the work that needs to be done.

[imenja]

8. Volunteers believed

I know the volunteers truly believed in the cause, though I must it admit it was primarily anti-Bush sentiment. And it is certainly true that most of the paid-organizers were 20 somethings. I was told it was because the jobs paid so poorly.
Interesting observations. I'd thought that I'd like to infiltrate the Republicans to see how they do things, cause I know they are better organized. I don't think it would work though, given that they could easily find out I've always been a registered Democrat.