nursing a 3 billion dollar hang over

 Here's some thoughts I am taking away from the past two years and the 2010 election:


Kudos to the organizations doing the street level electoral work.  The League of Young Voters who have been holding down great national work for several cycles.  Rock the Vote, always making sure young people are represented in the national debate and State Voices, an amazing model of coordinated voter work. And the sample ballot headquarters Vote Sanity!

never a good look 

DANCE WITH THE ONE WHO BROUGHT YOU.

When voters of color and young people vote, Democrats win. To not ensure these specific demographics are continually engaged is a massive oversight of Democrats.  Looking at ways to adapt successful voter models in diverse communities is key(see kudos section).  To paraphrase King “Sad is a people who are ignored by one party and taken advantage of by the other.”  Here are a couple of excerpts from a piece by Jonathan Chait in The New Republic” that sum up two different cultures struggling for America and why base engagement is critical.

“The non-white share of the electorate fell from 24% in 2008 to 19% in 2010. But the age gap is the real tidal shift. In 2008, Republicans won voters over 65 years old by 8 points, but were crushed among voters under 30 by more than 30 points. The under 30 vote outnumbered the over 65 vote.

In 2010, Democrats still crushed Republicans among the under 30 vote, albeit by just 20 points. But the over 65 vote went Republican by a massive 20 point margin. What’s more, in today’s election, senior citizens constituted more than twice as high a share of the electorate compared to voters under 30. In 2008, the young were 18% of the electorate, and the old were 16% of the electorate. In 2010, the young were 10% of the electorate, and the old were 24% of the electorate.”

"Because President Obama rode a wave in 2008 that was unusually dependent on sporadic voters like the young and minorities, who tend not to turn out during midterm elections. He swept in a lot of House candidates who are going to have trouble winning a midterm election with a disproportionately old and white electorate."

The voters that brought Obama to "The Dance" are not sporadic voters, they are a different type of voter and they have their own culture of voting. People in poverty and those who tend to be the base of Democratic platform have Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to get through before they can be politically active.  There are many successful models that have created active communities and critical citizens, these models meet the voter where they are and engages them on their terms all year round.  The bottom line is yesterday it was realized... the Democrats have spent the last two years buying drinks for the wrong girl…she was never going to go home with them. 

lists stay alive when the relationship stays alive

  Keep The List Alive; Keep The Voters Involved!

 In 2008, a failed administration and economy, people of color and young voters helped usher in a tsunami of hopeful change this country desperately needed.  Two things happened with the victories of 2008 that we should learn from and reflect on.

First, the conservative Americans who had an enthusiasm gap in 2008 realized how different “their” America could become and began circling the wagons.  Secondly, the enthusiasm of 2008 could not be captured by the infrastructure on the left and there was little relationship with new voters who have no personal tradition of civic engagement.

The administration made a mistake by not actively pursuing a ground strategy while fighting in Congress.  The Administration had the best list of who their supporters were and if they had kept that list alive, maybe even asking local organizations to help keep the list alive, they would have kept the voters who put them in office engaged in the bloody struggle policy and the economy have been.

organizing is not campaigning, and high numbers does not mean effective organizing

Last night I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine who is  creating a tech start up catalyzing local civic engagement.  My friend is engaging in conversations with many companies much larger than themselves to find resources to expand their model nationally.  The offers this start up is getting are exciting and come with the expectation of being in hundreds of cities quickly.  Scaling this local organizing effort fast is the way they will be able to continue to fund doing this work.

In talking with my friend about organizing models to use to scale its organizing I realized we were looking for an answer that doesn’t exists.  There is no quick way to organize a community and you don’t need millions of people to have a successful organizing effort.  Organizations should take this decision to scale quickly very seriously; the how they do it will determine their true impact in society.  But it also begs the question, why must one thing be in hundreds of cities quickly and has that led to us being more effective in pushing our policies?

Is our culture so mass marketed that we must recreate the momentum and look of Obama 08 regardless of what the momentum gets us? Of the millions of people who participated in Organizing For America, very few of them are active in supporting the work it takes to get to hopeful change.   They we’re easily discouraged because the relationship was not deep enough to withstand the disappointment of the expectations they had of Obama.  

Scale and impact are not interchangeable when your goal is organizing.  It’s a choice.  So often organizations sacrifice organizing to be able to hit numbers.  The problem is in doing so; you also sacrifice your relevance to people.   This kills any deeper growth because your communities may not be as with you as you think… Easy come easy go…

If civic organizations can hold the space for organizing when campaigns do come into town they can be absorbed by the on going community efforts and feed into the on going business of hope and change.  Campaigning is not organizing...McDonalds does provide food products to millions of Americans but nobody pretends it’s the same as a home cooked meal.