Organizing
Our Democratic Party’s Grassroots Efforts
The
Urgency
Our electronic networks of liberal bloggers
and organizations like MoveOn have aroused 5 to 10 million impassioned
liberals, raised money and created publicity for liberal causes. But these do not reach the other 90% of
liberal voters, especially those who are least politically passionate. To stimulate these to vote, canvassing is necessary. Canvassing requires grassroots organizing.
Only a small proportion of our precincts have
PCOs and only a small proportion of these PCOs actually canvass their precincts
to identify likely Democratic voters and stimulate them to vote. Most canvassing efforts are last minute
forays by a few volunteers for various candidates visiting previously
identified likely Democratic voters to encourage their support for single
candidates. There are virtually no
attempts to look beyond the immediate elections to make precincts ones where
Democrats thrive and multiply. With any effective opposition, we could
never elect anyone.
Karl Rove has organized neighborhood
conservative Christian churches in targeted neighborhoods to identify and
stimulate likely Republican voters to vote, and to make the neighborhoods ones
in which conservatives thrive and multiply.
Democrats have had no similar network of neighborhood
organizations. To counter Rove’s very
effective activity, Democrats must develop effective neighborhood
organizations. The role of our PCOs and other liberal activists is crucial to enabling
Democrats to win elections.
As they stand now, the only reason we have had
recent successes is that Washington State Republicans are also disorganized and
their conduct has been so terrible that most voters oppose them. If Republicans get their act together and
Karl Rove targets
Forty
Percent of Democratic voters aren’t Democrats
Note that American voters identify themselves as
approximately one third each: Democrats, Independents and Republicans. Democrats and two thirds of Independents hold
liberal values, with the Liberal Independents being about as consistently
liberal as the Liberal Democrats.
Republicans and one third of Independents hold conservative values. Conservatives include Traditional
Conservatives, Libertarians and Religious Conservatives. Virtually all Liberals vote for Democrats while
virtually all Conservatives vote for Republicans, with a small proportion of
Liberals and Conservatives voting for other smaller political parties.
Thus forty percent of likely Democratic voters
consider themselves to be Independents instead of Democrats. Likely Democratic voters include about 60%
Liberal Democrats and about 40% Liberal Independents. To maximize votes for Democratic candidates,
we must stimulate all liberals (both Democrats and Independents) to vote. We may assume that these national statistics
apply to
Organizing Neighborhood Precinct Clusters
We must first recognize that while a
legislative district is too large for effective grass roots organizing, a
precinct is too small. A small precinct with a lonely PCO doesn’t
have enough human resources and motivation to canvass and do other neighborhood
development activities. We need to
identify neighborhoods with teams of PCOs to organize them, especially since we
don’t have PCOs for many of the precincts.
We must augment our PCO teams with other passionate liberals. As much as possible, the neighborhood should
be defined to be large enough and small enough (perhaps between 10 and 20
precincts) that its residents can identify and bond with each other. We have successfully done this in the Lake
Hills Neighborhood in
Our vision for our neighborhood precinct
clusters has two parts.
1.
To identify likely Democratic voters and stimulate them to vote
2.
To create a political environment within which likely Democratic
voters thrive and multiply.
As likely Democratic voters are identified,
the ones who are most passionate about politics should be organized to become
well informed through a newsletter and to participate with each other in
various neighborhood enhancement and political activities.
Creating
a Whirlpool
Imagine a series of concentric circles, with
passionately involved Democrats in the center, the next ring containing less
involved but passionate liberals, the next ring containing less passionate
identified likely Democratic voters and the outside containing unidentified
likely Democratic voters. Our hope is to create a whirlpool in
which likely Democratic voters in each ring are enticed into a ring closer to
the center. They are enticed by becoming
aware of opportunities for becoming effective participants who perform
challenging and enjoyable tasks relevant to realizing their liberal values.
Our Lake Hills Neighborhood consists of 12
precincts. As the result of our
canvassing during the summer of 2006, we
have 1700 identified likely Democratic voters, with 30% (500) of them members
of our Lake Hills Liberals who receive our weekly newsletter. Thirty of these have been active in canvassing
or other activities.
Obstacles
Many obstacles to our vision exist. We typically have little detailed information
about our legislative district, its neighborhoods, precincts, voters,
organizations, leaders. We haven’t
defined neighborhoods. We don’t have a
database of registered voters, with voters identified as to voting orientation
and involvement in our politics activities.
Many of our precincts have no PCOs.
Our PCOs are often untrained and unmotivated, lack specific assignments
and are not held accountable. We haven’t
identified many of our likely Democratic voters, organized the more passionate
ones, identified their skills and matched them with needed tasks (which also
have not been identified). We haven’t
identified, recruited and trained our supporters, candidates, fund raisers,
etc. We haven’t established mentoring
relationships with other similar more successful districts or individuals.
Strategies
To overcome these obstacles, we must:
· Obtain and use
knowledge of our district to define neighborhoods
· Create a database of
registered voters to record our likely Democratic voters, the more active ones,
their skills, their assignments, etc.
· Create a communication
system for informing and involving our supporters
· Organize, train and
supervise neighborhood development teams (including PCOs and other active supporters)
· Identify, organize and
train potential candidates, fund raisers, mentors, etc.
· Create a support
network
· These can all be
implemented and become self sustaining.
Legislative
District Planning
· A planning session is needed which
includes as many active supporters as possible, in which our vision, obstacles,
and strategies are reviewed and elaborated.
· The supporters would then be
organized into task groups to specify tactics to achieve district strategies
(what activities, when done, by whom (assignments), with what resources
(people, money, in-kind, etc.).
· The supporters would then be
reorganized into neighborhood teams to specify neighborhood tactics and receive
training about canvassing and other neighborhood development activities.
· Create a timeline (schedule) with vertical rows for who, horizontal columns for when and cells containing tactical activity and resources. Indicate campaigns consisting of related tactics with time for successful completion. Note dependencies and adjust times.
· For each time period, total resource (people, money, etc.) needs and compare with available resources. Make necessary time adjustments.
· Create a performance organization, make assignments, and create regular follow-up meetings for checking performance and adjusting tactics and timeline.
Define
Neighborhoods
Using a precinct map of the Legislative
District, people who know the district should define and name neighborhoods of
10 to 20 precincts. Together the
neighborhoods must be mutually exclusive and exhaustive of the Legislative
District. It is helpful if the defined
neighborhoods are natural in that their residents already identify with the
neighborhood. Ask for each neighborhood,
will it have enough talented liberals to successfully work together to achieve
our vision? Is it small enough that
people can bond with each other through shared activities? Identify some of the useful resources, such
as meeting places (libraries, schools, churches, and coffee bars).
Inventory liberal individuals, including active
Democrats and others and liberal groups.
An example would be a Unitarian church and other churches with liberal
outreach committees. Note activities
that might be conducted to bring liberals together. List the initial members of the neighborhood
teams (PCOs and others)
Create a
Registered Voter Database
There are national and state voter databases,
but these are inadequate and inconvenient.
They only contain a small proportion of likely Democratic voters. The quality of the data is poor. Much of it is obsolete. Accessibility and manipulability are
difficult. It is not difficult to create
a separate database for each legislative data.
They data should be shared with both state officials and legislative
candidates.
A database of registered voters for each
neighborhood should include fields for noting each voter’s name, address, phone
number, email address, voting orientation, and participation in Democratic
activities. Our county voter
registration department supplies names and addresses. Some phone numbers appear on lists from
Labels and Lists. Others must be looked
up.
Three possible sources exist for identifying
voting orientation:
· those who have
displayed partisan yard signs
· those who are on lists
from Labels and Lists
· those who are on Democratic
Party walking lists
· canvassing the
majority of candidates who haven’t been identified in the first three ways
After the initial canvassing, newcomers must
be continuously canvassed. All residents
should be canvassed at least once every two years.
Neighborhood Precinct Cluster Team (PCO)
Training
Any training of individuals or groups to
perform activities must begin with defining the context in which these
activities occur. The training may occur
as part of the legislative district planning.
Having defined neighborhoods consisting of 10-20 precincts, having
defined our vision and created a plan for our neighborhoods, and having
assigned PCOs and other supporters to neighborhood teams for each neighborhood,
we are now ready to train these neighborhood teams.
The
Neighborhood Team’s
The mission is to counter Karl Rove’s network
of conservative Christian churches by creating our own network of neighborhood
organizations. This mission is crucial
to continuing our electoral successes. Each
team should work together to realize our immediate vision for our neighborhood
of identifying likely Democratic voters and stimulating them to vote. Their long term mission is also to ensure
that these voters are well informed and participate in creating an atmosphere
in which likely Democratic voters thrive and multiply. They will work within their neighborhood as
a team to realize the plan. Each member
is responsible for doing what is needed to realize the whole neighborhood
development vision. Crucial to this vision is first identifying all the likely
Democratic voters.
Canvassing
Procedures
Having identified some voters as likely
Republican or likely Democratic voters from the sources above, we must canvass
the others to identify their voting orientation. In Lake Hills, we have found that the
following script and procedure works.
Knock. Knock.
Hello, I’m
I am visiting because I am disgusted with
President Bush and Republican congress members.
I am looking for people who think pretty much
the same.
If the house is vacant (V), the resident
indicates he or she supports Republicans (R), is politically cynical (C), isn’t
a citizen (X), leave quickly, hoping that the Republicans will forget you came
and that there are ever any elections.
Cynics are those who say they don’t want anything to do with politics,
all politicians are crooks, there is no difference between the parties, my vote
won’t matter, etc.
If they indicate they vote for the best
candidate or otherwise don’t identify as Democratic or Republican voters, ask
which party’s candidates they most often vote for. If that doesn’t get an answer, ask how they
feel about several partisan issues. Then
decide if you want them to receive our literature (D) or don’t (R). Only 5% or fewer should be recorded as
undecided (U).
If the resident notes that he or she usually
votes for Democrats (D), give them a generic Democratic brochure. (See at the
end of this newsletter.) They usually express their thanks. Get the names of all voters in the
household. Provide mail-in registration
forms for any who aren’t registered. Ask
for their phone number.
If they appear politically passionate, inform
them that we have a liberals organization and ask for their email address, so
we can send them our newsletter. If they
respond favorably, record them on a separate column as S for supporter. Contact supporters later to find out how they
might become involved.
The best time to catch people at home is 4 to
9 in the evening or on weekends. But
enough people are at home during the day that canvassing then is still
worthwhile. In residential
neighborhoods, it should be possible to typically identify several households
containing four likely Democrats per hour, a dozen in a typical 2 hour
canvassing session.
In Lake Hills last summer, we spent about 250
hours canvassing about 1200 homes to identify 600 homes containing 1000 likely
Democratic voters, which added to our 700 previously identified ones totaled
1700 whose names and addresses we shared with all 5 of our Democratic
candidates for them to follow up. Of the
1000, 300 joined the 200 previous members of our Lake Hills Liberals for a
total of 500 who receive our newsletter.
We later visited the 400 homes containing previously identified likely
Democratic voters to give them our brochures.
Imagine that each
The canvasser needs a clipboard, a walking
list of unidentified voters for identifying houses and recording information,
generic brochures, and registration forms.
We also had descriptions of our Lake Hills Liberals group to give to
those we signed up for our newsletter and a guide to social services (published
by the city of
Role
Playing
Training should include role playing. Have each of the trainees be a Republican,
Cynic, Democrat or uncertain voter. Then
have each trainee interview each of these types.
Other
Neighborhood Development Tasks
While the emphasis should be upon canvassing
and the follow-up to communicate with the identified liberals and attempt to
involve them in our activities, other neighborhood and legislative district
development activities might be mentioned.
For examples, see our Lake Hills Liberals newsletter below. One of the reasons, I am hopeful that many
neighborhood liberals organizations will be formed, is that each may find new
effective neighborhood development tactics.
For more.