Only the Grassroots can save the Democratic Party

[NoPasaran]

By Joe Trippi

The staggering defeat of the Democratic Party, and its ever-accelerating death spiral weren't obvious from the election results. Two factors masked the extent of the party's trouble. Without the innovation of Internet-driven small-donor fund-raising and a corresponding surge in support from the nation's youngest voters, John Kerry would have suffered a dramatically larger electoral defeat. And the true magnitude of the Democrats abject failure at the polls in 2004 would have been more clearly revealed.

Mr. Kerry raised nearly half of his campaign war chest over the Internet. He was so successful at online fund-raising that he actually outspent the Bush campaign in this election. But it was the outsider campaign of Howard Dean, reviled by most of the Democratic establishment, which pioneered the use of the Internet to raise millions in small contributions; Mr. Kerry was just the beneficiary as the party nominee.

And it was the risk-taking and aggressive Dean Campaign that forced the risk-averse Kerry campaign to opt out of the public financing system. Had that decision not been forced on Mr. Kerry, he would have been badly outspent by George Bush; he would not have been competitive at all throughout the long summer of 2004.

Mr. Kerry's lead among young voters hid just how bad Election Day really was for Democrats. In the 2000 election, voters between the ages of 18 and 29 split their votes evenly; nine million each for Mr. Bush and Al Gore. But in 2004, two million more voters in this age group turned out to vote. And while Mr. Bush won the same nine million votes, 11 million voted for Mr.
Kerry. But when we set aside his two million new younger voters, the true disaster of 2004 is revealed. In 2000, Mr. Gore and Ralph Nader won a combined total of 54 million votes. This year Mr. Kerry and Mr. Nader got 53 million (ignoring the two million new young voters).

-more-

http://www.changeforamerica.com/community/

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. It is time to post our manefesto...

On the doors of the DNC.

[cyberpj]

4. We ned to get together in one group. Perhaps this one?

Take a good look at the

Progressive Democrats of America... http://pdamerica.org /

This new caucus movement intends to take back the Dem Party from inside and we need your help. Join... with Dean and Kucinich supporters, Indies, Greens and ABB Dems who fell behind Kerry as a last ditch solution - like we need another billionaire President. Instead we’ll rekindle the voice of dissent from WITHIN the Democratic Party.

ACTION SUGGESTED TO REACH DEMOCRAT LEADERSHIP
Filed under: Vision Dem. Party Platform— kspidel @ 11:20 am
Some creative and hardworking Kerry volunteers are dismayed that Kerry has just about vanished, and the Democratic National Committee (the DNC) has been really quiet about all the voting and counting problems with this election… Incredible machine problems have emerged (one in Ohio recorded negative 21,000,000 votes!) Lots of voting place hassles, misinformation, appalling waits, etc, have also been documented.

So, because they can’t get the Democrats to respond to them (one has gotten 2 funding appeals since Nov. 2, though…) these Minnesotans are suggesting that people who want the Democrats to come out aggressively as the Party for Clean Elections and Voter Enfranchisement send back their Kerry t-shirts, buttons, etc to the DNC.

They aren’t conspiracy theorists; they’ve just all been using computers (and cars, washing machines, etc) too long to believe that ANY machine is 100 per cent INFALLIBLE. And they want to assure CLEAN ELECTIONS and ACCURATE COUNTS in the future.

They’ve put up their suggestions and a creative form to send to the DNC at http://loyalopp.tripod.com/fairvote.html

PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG QUICKLY. LET’S SWAMP THE DNC!

FIRST THINGS FIRST. Without Election Integrity guaranteed, our democracy is DEAD

[illflem]

2. BS, beside guaranteeing fair elections the demos don't need

to change anything except their campaigning style to match the reps. No more of the PC nice guy crap, mudsling and lie just like the reps. That's what Americans seem to relate to.

[opihimoimoi]

3. The Grass Roots seem to be the only course left...and a good one it is.

We are waiting for a coalition of sorts to build a Force more powerful than the Pubs..... can the DNC bring themselves to do this?

[cybildisobedience]

5. key point in the article

"Instead of a DLC in Washington, Democrats should be holding Democratic Grassroots Councils in every county. Democratic National Committee members in each state, along with the state party, should host and moderate these meetings to help develop ideas that come from the people, instead of the experts in Washington."

If the DNC or DLC followed this advice, we'd have a different party right now. There is NO WAY representatives of the party could sit and listen to grassroots activists and go back to Washington, D.C. and enact the same old, same old.

I'm not a blind supporter of Trippi (and I fear he's going all MSNBC on us), but I do think we have to recognize his insight and contributions to this campaign, and he makes some excellent points in this article. Of course, many of those points were also made on these boards MONTHS ago, but hey, at least it's working its way into the MSM.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

6. This is silly...

Mr. Trippi seems to think that the problem the country has is that Democrats are "ignoring their base". In fact, 2004 will be long remembered as the year of the poor rural cultural conservative who put his hatred of gays and "Arabs" over his own pocketbook. Or, in the South, replaced his hatred of blacks (and Lincoln) with hatred of gays and Arabs.

Some other things he says make me understand why Gov. Dean fired him. To wit:

Instead of a DLC in Washington, Democrats should be holding Democratic Grassroots Councils in every county.

There are already such "councils". They're called County Parties, where grassroots Democratic precinct leaders go all year, every year. Mr. Trippi's ignoring of these organizations is exactly what led to Dean being trounced in Iowa.

A party that ignores the needs of state and local parties is doomed. ... It's already occurring in many southern states.

I'm in those "ignored" parties, and I can tell you that we had plenty of support in terms of visits from the candidates. What else do we need? The #1 thing state and local parties need is local volunteers, and it's absurd to expect that from Washington.

Insofar as the continuing alteration into GOP "Red", he's got to be kidding himself if he thinks supporting local parties are going to change that. In Alabama, they couldn't even pass a repeal of racist language in their constitution! DO we really want to add a bunch of Dixiecrat Zell Millers to our farm team?

In a world in which companies like Wal-Mart pay substandard wages with no real benefits, our party has got to find innovative ways to support organized labor's growth.

What we need is for poor rural voters to finally decide that the GOP is so awful that they'll vote for us despite the fact that we don't hate gays. I wish I could put it differently, but that's basically it.

Democrats should lead the way by placing stricter money restrictions on candidates than the toothless Federal Election Commission does.

This doesn't jibe with raising cash over the Internet to be competitive, obviously. Frankly, I like the OLD-Trippi, who came up with the idea of eschewing matching funds to stay even with the GOP.

Finally, What is the purpose the Democratic Party strives for today? What are our goals for the nation? You couldn't tell from the 2004 election.

"Stronger at home. Respected in the world." Seems like a pretty clear summation to me - in six words no less. It's the Economy AND the Foreign Policy, Stupid. If Trippi can't tell what our goals are, he wasn't paying attention, or isn't being honest.


- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Coalition

[Cheswick2.0]

10. I don't know how you can be any more wrong than you are

But I am not going point for point with you DLC guys anymore. We are starting a grassroots web to take the party back. To make it responsive to democrats, not those who want cushy jobs leaching off corporations to the distruction of the whole country. We are tired of loosing to republican and we don't want to be republicans. So get used to the idea.

[Eloriel]

12. Thank you Cheswick

Couldn't have said it better myself. Sometimes things are broken enough they can't be fixed -- that, IMO, applies equally to the post you're responding to as well as the DNC with its DLC apologists who remind me of an old Will Rogers quote:

It's not so much what you don't know, it's what you know that just ain't true.

[Radical Activist]

15. What world are you living in?

The party was hurt a great deal by the Kerry campaign and DNC ignoring the blue states and local parties. I live in Illinois right now. Do you know how many times Kerry visited Illinois after their primary? None, and he's the first Democrat to not visit Chicago in the weeks before the election since before FDR.

The DNC and Kerry campaign also chose to ignore the South, all of it. If you want to know why we lost the Senate, here is your answer. There were a lot of competitive Senate and Congressional races in those Southern states we ignored this year. There are consequences to only playing in the swing states.

My favorite part of your post is your response to the Wal-Mart workers comment. No, we can't win over rural voters by proving that Republicans are really, really bad. We have to stand for something besides not being as bad as the Republicans. That attitude and approach is exactly why we lose, and we will never regain the majority as long as the party has that attitude.

We have to win over low income and rural voters by making elections about the economic issues those voters care about. That kind of economic populist campaign is exactly what the corporate DLC Democrats have been telling us not to do. When we refuse to talk about the economic issues this party is supposed to stand for then we allow the Republicans to make the election about gay marriage and abortion. The DLC is the reason people are voting based on social issues because they are the ones that convinced so many in the beltway that the core Democratic message can't win elections, which left an issues void that Pat Roberson filled.

[Aunt Anti-bush]

7. Here's my idea for our grassroots campaign:

I've been racking my brains about what little old me can do about the whole darn mess our country is in.

I've decided that I'm done complaining and I'm going to do something about it. I made up a website to start the ball rolling and I'd love any feedback any of you can give me. I can take criticism, too. Just be kind and don't be too rough on me because it's my first attempt and it has to be a free site, for now. I've already got an offer to host it but it's just in the works right now. Let me know what you all think and give me any suggestions you can. I appreciate it.

http://www.dosomethingaboutit.150m.com

[lupita]

8. The people we're trying to reach don't look on websites...

That's my only concern. We already have local Democratic party chapters all over this country that are dying for volunteers to man phones, go to state and county fairs and "table" (as in sit behind), canvass, and front for our candidates in parades, etc, etc. You should encourage people to join those, not make yet another group that's only on the web.

There's an added bonus too. If you don't like the direction the party is going, that's where you start influencing it. Believe me, candidates do listen to their volunteers.

Here's an example of one: http://www.washcodems.org
It happens to be one I'm involved in, so I know they're all good people.

[sadness in phinstown]

11. Sounds Interesting

So far, all it seems to do is ask for money.

I'd like to see some actual ideas.

Why not start by focusing on the things that all Americans want? There's quite a list and it's sure bound to garner better results than focusing on issues that so divide this country.

[Aunt Anti-bush]

13. I'm just getting started.

I haven't been able to add much to the site as it just went up a couple nights ago. I do appreciate your feedback though and I added a few things just until we get it online without the free hosting. The donation part isn't important to me (I actually changed it a bit after seeing your post so that it doesn't stand out so much and seem so blatant.) other than when I put it up I was concerned about how to get a domain and get it off of the free host which barricades the content with disturbing pop ups and all. Plus, I'd like to be able to put the newsletter into print, too so that we can reach those who don't have access to the internet and to pass out.

[sd_UDO]

9. Paint South Dakota and USA Blue--every 2 months!

My message is--elect Democrats every 2 months---

Here's how we can paint South Dakota and all of the USA Ultra-Blue! This will work for your state--start an UDO group in your state!
(I live in South Dakota)

After the election, I decided to change things. I decided we needed to have our own elections-- 6 times a year!

Check out UDO!

Wanna OutBLUE people in a Red County? Check out my Yahoo Group--

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sd_democrats_UDO /

Let's start a state wide UDO (Ultra Democratic organization)--

first elections December 2004!

(Anyone can join the Yahoo group)

Thanks!

[Radical Activist]

14. Great Article. I just hope

he picks a different candidate if he gets involved next time. A progressive would be nice. I get the impression that Dean's grassroots appeal had more to do with Trippi and his campaign staff and less to do with Dean himself. The party should be using Trippi to its advantage, despite the unpopularity of who he worked for.