Don't be a Democratic "Groundhog" ..get involved locally today!

[ddeclue]

Many people seem to have the mistaken notion that the only political exercise that matters is electing the President.

These people, in a "Groundhog Day" -like ritual only come out to vote once every four years and then return home and to hibernate and forget about politics until the next Presidential election.

This is a serious mistake because the powers of our government have been divided between the three branches of government - executive, legislative, and judicial.

The judicial branch is unelected but who gets appointed to it depends on who gets elected to the other two branches.

Furthermore our government is a "Federal" government meaning that not all powers are possessed by the national level of government. Much of the power of government resides at the state and local levels.

This problem of only caring about the Presidential race affects not only the voters, but also "activists" many of whom appear on cue to help out generously during the Presidential campaign but then mysteriously go back into hibernation for the next four years.

The reality of politics is, as Tip O'Neill famously once said:

"All politics is local"

We must elect county commissioners, school boards, water boards, sheriffs, mayors and city council members and state legislators and state senators first before we can be effective in electing Congressmen and U.S. Senators and Presidents.

Local elected office provides the training ground, the "farm team", if you will, for Democratic candidates for higher offices. These races also provide a campaign training ground for local activists to learn the art of the campaign in-between Presidential races.

In turn, having this local base of power means that we as Democrats can have a great impact on many social domestic policy issues at the local level like protecting the environment, and improving public education and providing a living wage to workers.

Imagine next, if we had been able to elect a Democratic governor in Florida in 1998? What would have happened then to the 2000 Presidential election in Al Gore's case?

Finally having a base of local and state elected officials is important in helping us to win the race for President BEFORE recounts become necessary.

These local officials will have gotten into office by knowing how to win in their local area; by having accumulated powerful lists of local activists, supporters, and donors; by having built a team of working campaign volunteers; and by knowing what the local voters want. They will be in a good position to help the national candidates succeed when they come into a local area to campaign.

What this means to you and me is that we can't simply wait any more until September of 2008 to become involved in the real world side of politics. Blogging has its place but we must ALSO become involved in the real deal if we want to win.

Believe it or not, races occur practically every year in most places as city, county, state, and Federal races are often times staggered and there are often special elections to replace politicians who die or resign outside of the normal cycle.

Currently I am working on such a race here in Central Florida for state legislature to replace a Republican who resigned from the state house with a Democrat in April of 2007. Last year, in 2006, I worked on a variety of off-year campaigns, but particularly hard on a successful grassroots campaign to unseat a turncoat Democrat turned Republican in the Florida state house with an underdog Democratic candidate.

Our grassroots door to door effort soundly beat (61%+ to 38% both times) both our primary and general opponents when our general opponent outspent us 4 to 1 or better, even having TV ads and a constant stream of mailers.

These attack ads and attack mailers largely backfired however on the Republican opponent, because the voters chose to believe us having met us and talked with us personally at their door over some anonymous advertisement in their mailbox which they probably threw away.

Join your local Democratic Party.

Seek training on how to canvass and run campaigns from them. If no training is available from your local party, seek out campaigns to work on or find a national organization like Wellstone, Emily's List, or DFA and seek out training there. If you can't do that, then you can learn by hands on experience and seek help through people here on democraticunderground.com who have already been there before.

Become a precinct committeeman or committeewoman for your party.

Reach out to the Democratic voters in your precinct and let them know that they are not alone, that there are other Democrats in the area and that the Democratic Party is serious about winning races in THEIR neighborhood.

Howard Dean's "50 states" campaign should also be Florida's "67 counties" campaign and Georgia's "159 counties" campaign and locally for my own friends it means Orange County Florida's "258 Precincts" campaign.

Howard Dean's campaign is NOT just something the national party can do without you while you watch and cheer from the sidelines - It BEGINS with you getting hands-on involved in the real world at the local level today.

It is important to understand that the most effective thing we can do as activists - the very thing I was doing yesterday in fact - is going door to door and talking with voters, reminding them of elections, persuading them that the Democrats are their best bet, and creating a personal relationship of trust between the party and the voter.

It becomes almost impossible for Republicans to demonize the Democratic party as a bunch of "Hollywood liberals" to a voter when you've bothered to go to that voter's door and talked with them for a few minutes. You are a regular person and their neighbor or friend. That neighbor puts much more trust in you than in some right-wing talking head on TV because THEY ACTUALLY KNOW YOU or at least know you live near-by and WILL know you after they've talked to you for a few minutes a few times.

In the campaigns last year in which I was involved in which the candidate had an effective "ground game" going door to door talking with voters one on one - the candidate was largely successful. The larger campaigns that tried to rely solely on TV ads or mailer campaigns and/or didn't have effective ground games largely lost.

Often times these campaigns wanted to have a "ground game" but could not attract a sufficient number of hibernating local activists to campaign for them door to door.

This is where we, as activists, must step up better for Governor's races, state legislator's races, Mayors, County Commissioners, School Board members and the like instead of waiting for the next Presidential candidate to save us before we jump on board.

This personal relationship between us and the voter is far more valuable in winning elections than impersonal mailers mass candidate rallies, or 30 second TV ads. I had two voters tell me yesterday that one on one voter contact by campaign volunteers or candidates directly and positively influenced their decision to vote for a candidate.

In the first case, the voter indicated that I was only the second campaigner to ever knock on her door in the 43 years she lived there and that she was very impressed by campaigns that took the effort to do so and that she would be voting for my candidate.

The second case was very similar but he additionally told me that in the distant past a Republican candidate had knocked on his door and that although he had always voted Democrat, that he had voted for this one Republican because he had bothered to knock at his door.

The lesson to be learned for us is that if we DON'T go out and talk to voters one on one and the Republicans DO, then we will lose. If we DO talk to the voters and the Republicans think they can win with money and TV ads and the like, then we will win.

This on-the-ground strategy is again being validated in the race in which I am currently working where we beat our primary candidates in a 6 way primary with 45% of the vote, 20% more than our nearest competitor and in which I also believe we are poised to win against the Republican opponent in a few short weeks.

Working on party building, training and campaigns year round, every year, rather than in the three months before the Presidential general election will help us build our party into a well trained, highly experienced, highly effective team that can win election after election.

Don't forget to sign up and participate in the 50 States canvass event April 28th!

Thanks,

Democratically Yours,
Doug De Clue
Orlando, FL