From a pretty interesting article about 2010 House fundraising:
Harrison acknowledges that nearly every one of the party’s challengers will be outspent next year, and he has been training recruits to run lean and effective underdog campaigns. But he also noted that Republicans were greatly outspent in nearly every race in the wave year of 1994 but still managed to pick up 52 seats.
“We’ve got to get back down to the simple blocking-and-tackling of campaigns. There is no one silver bullet. [Republicans] got to a point in the majority where they believed in the silver bullet — you outspend the other side. That’s not a typical Republican race,” said Harrison.
He makes a reasonable point about 1994 and I would like to see more data about fundraising and winning elections, but it’s pretty clear that everyone in Congress thinks fundraising is the key to getting re-elected — it’s why Congressmen so often do the bidding of bankers, insurance companies, etc.
My sense from following a lot of contested local Congressional elections in 2006 and 2008 is that, yes, candidates can live off the fat of the land and hope to get lucky in a wave year, but, in the end, challengers aren’t going to win a lot of races where they get badly outspent.
Bill H
And a very bad commentary on the state of our democracy; the guy with the most money wins. I would say it reflects more poorly on the voting public that it does on the elected politicians.
DougJ
And a very bad commentary on the state of our democracy; the guy with the most money wins.
Sure, but it’s true.
Bill H
@DougJ:
I probably should have said “sad” commentary, as I did not mean it as refutation. I agree it is all too true.
Mike Kay
StonyPillow
In your guts, they’ve proved they’re nuts.
Path to win. Learn this.
aimai
Well, money is only useful as long as it can buy you votes, when you need them. Over and over again–except in the case of, say, that guy who runs new york, we’ve seen races in which the clear money favorite–some wealthy guy–outspends everyone else and still gets trounced.
I don’t think the Democrats’ problem is that they are going to get outspent, its that they have spent their time in office pleasing wealthy donors and ticking off their activist base. Worse, they haven’t been working to increase their activist base. The Obama machine, such as it was, was a rolling grassroots movement that brought new, tender, fragile voters into the political system. Those people drove all around the country, couch surfed, made phone calls, threw potlucks and teaparties, put up signs, talked up their candidates. Right after the election they were all put out to pasture. The smart thing to do was to issue everyone some kind of “secret decoder ring” type membership card and teeny gold star sticker set to share with their friends with a motto like “2008 was just the beginning…working towards a sweep in 2010!”
If the Democrats as a party talked to those people, and kept talking to those people, and kept them on a file, and kept appealing to them *while also getting things done for everybody/the imaginary center/the non voting red state poor etc….* we’d be in a better position now to activate a still active network. Instead the Democrats are planning to have each candidate run a “lean mean” campaign without a ready, premade, volunteer army. Its absurd. Money means a lot, but enthusiasm is the thing its buying and they squandered that.
aimai
SiubhanDuinne
I’d like to see a further breakdown on campaign spending as to the advantages of incumbency. Does a sitting Congresscritter (of either party) generally prevail over a much-better-funded challenger, or is it vital to raise and spend even more money to ensure re-election? Of course there are innumerable factors at play in any contested election, but money raised/money spent/success at the polls are all quantifiable, and I suspect there might be some interesting metrics in such a study.
Mike Kay
@aimai:
I think the activist base/volunteer thingy is vastly overrated.
Dean had battalions of volunteers and he came in a distant 3rd in 2004.
Edwards, had the vast majority of the netroots behind him and he came in a distant 3rd in 2008.
I mean think about Connecticut 2006, everyone hated lieberman and lamont was the dream date of the DFHs and yet, traitor joe still won by 10 points, even in the face of a wave election.
Sly
Fundraising matters more in places where a candidate is polling poorly but has an opponent who is an unknown or lacks party infrastructure. Think McConnel in 2008. Somewhere around 40% approval, yet he eked out a victory because the GOP is a lot stronger in Kentucky. I imagine the same will happen with respect to DeMint in SC (who’s also in the low 40s) as well as Dodd and Reid.
In the grand scheme of things, its not as important in terms of congressional elections. Politics are a lot more regional now then they were in 1994. You have antipathy against Republicans in the NE, and antipathy against Democrats in the South in numbers far larger than there were in 1994. Check Kos’ polling for the past few weeks, and go down all the categories by region. The difference is rather staggering. The GOP has 10% favorability in the NE, and the Democrats have 25% approval in the South. The Midwest and West don’t care for either party, but they started to hate Republicans much more than they do Democrats in recent years, and that’s whats been driving elections for the past half decade.
Republican favorability in 1994 was somewhere above 50% because a larger constituency was in play and they had forty years of Democratic rule in the House to rail against. Now aggregate favorability, driven regionally, is hovering around 30%. And the regions where Republicans are doing well are already in their control.
aimai
Mike Kay,
I think the dean thing is very complicated–he had battalions of outside volunteers in a state where local connections are paramount. As someone who ran one of those weird caucus thingies (for then gubernatorial hopeful Robert Reich) I can personally attest that caucuses are the most bizarre and difficult kind of thing to organize by outsiders and by volunteers.
As for Lieberman, again, “everyone hated lieberman” is a total misstatement of that race. Lieberman ran as a stealth democrat, with the tacit and direct support of all his previous democratic supporters in the senate and even in the house. He was already an incumbent and he had his own organization and his own voters. It would have been very hard to unseat him. In that case even more money and a more agressive campaign to *discredit him* with the swing democratic voters might have worked–but since he benefitted from the republicans deciding to support him there’s probably no way. In other words–the race there wasn’t between lamont and lieberman only, since Lieberman had the benefit of both the republican voters, his former voters habit of voting for him, and democratic voters who thought they’d lose something if a newbie like lamont won (a position that the democratic hierarchy fostered by only ambiguously supporting Lamont.)**
And I’m not really talking about the netroots either–I’m talking about ordinary voters volunteering in their locale to raise money, doorknock, etc… We know that midterm elections are base elections, and we know that Obama got in by activating a new base of minorities and young voters who are traditionally not active in between the presidential elections (if then). What is the plan for getting those people into line on election day? Its not going to happen absent extremely agressive campaigning–either tons of money that bombards people with agressive messages pleading for help and promising goodies or tons of doorknockers and campaign workers doing the same thing on the ground. If you can’t pay for one, you’ve got to find a way to activate the other for free.
aimai
**By the way I’m not hopeful that the democrats will unleash their inner populist and really go to the people and promise that a) good things will come about if democrats get elected and b) hellfire and brimstone will rain down if republicans get elected. As stevem likes to say “democrats won’t even take their own side in a fight.”
Jackmormon
The Obama campaign gave my email address to a local branch of Young Democrats. They send me messages and invitations every week, just about. There’s nothing in there that moves me to action, frankly—but I don’t know what they should be doing differently to keep lazy people like me energized. The 2008 campaign was a clear, definable goal that even cynics could work towards. The hard, slow work of legislation and reconstruction might just be too demoralizing for people.
All this to say, basically, that at least some Democratic organizations have *tried* to pick up Obama’s email lists and momentum, but that the work of motivating people is rather different and more difficult now.
bayville
Typically money wins but 2010 is shaping up eerily similar to 1994.
Here is the latest Kos poll on registered voters.
Notable (at bottom of poll) is that only 1 out of 4 Dems say they will definitely vote in midterms compared to 36 percent GOP.
Meanwhile 45% of Dems say they won’t vote compared to only 21% of registered Repubs.
It should also be noted Independents favor generic Repub Congressional candidates right now (26-21 percent). But on the bright side over 50 percent still undecided.
A pretty big enthusiasm gap currently, and unless something major happens over the next 10 months, I don’t see it narrowing.
joe from Lowell
The Republicans need to give the teabaggers orange hats and send ’em out to knock on doors.
After all, teabaggers are regular Americans who share mainstream values and channel the opinions of ordinary Americans, right?
Mr. and Mrs. America should love them. Go GOP!
PeakVT
I think the basic mistake (or choice) of the post-election Obama team is that they viewed the volunteers and activists as a means to getting elected, but not a means to governing. The occasional half-hearted “Write you Congresscritter!” or “Send Cash Today” email isn’t going to get people who operate on energy, or passion, very motivated. It’s too diffuse and abstract.
joe from Lowell
Obama is more popular among Democrats today than he was just before his inauguration.
The minority faction of the online left that feels betrayed by Obama is not the Democratic base.
Mike Kay
@aimai:
you said Dems are “ticking off their activist base.”
let’s face it, the entire base of activists/volunteers in CT opposed trader joe, and he still won.
so, I’ll ask, when have the traditional “activist base” (DFHs) ever succeeded?
As for populism — pfffffffft — alotta good it did edwards. His paltry 15% of the vote in a retail state like New Hampshire shows it’s strategic failure.
David Kaib
Money matters, but not how people usually think.
1) For incumbents, additional money does little to help them – they usually are fairly well known by their constituents, and that is what money buys.
2) For challengers, money goes a long way – they need to get their name out and positive information about them. If they get enough money to do that, the incumbency advantage disappears.
3) When an incumbent has a ton of money, it tends to scare off good candidates, funders, consultants and establishment support – because these people overestimate the importance of money.
4) The things that money buys (PR, ads, etc.) can be replaced – a real grassroots, person-to-person campaign can also make a person known and communicate positive information about them. This sort of things is very hard to build in the course of a cycle – but if institutions not tied to particular candidates (most obviously, labor unions, although not just them – local parties used to do this too) can lay the ground work, they can be extremely effective, and reduce the importance of big money. Personal contact is very effective at increasing turnout.
In 1994, the Republican Party ran like it had all the advantages because the national climate appeared to be in their favor. That attitude played a big part in that election.
aimai
PeakVT has it exactly right. There’s an art to creating, maintaining, and using grassroots enthusiasm and it was well understood during the campaign, and completely jettisoned after. The difference isn’t merely that we had a clearly defined goal during the election–if you look at many of the things that were done they had two or three combined goals: create enthusiasm, build community, harness energy, get people out to walk and talk the precincts, tag potential voters, etc… IT was a massive branching tree of activities many of which, like the early brainstorming sessions and house parties, were largely undirected or amorphous.
This is a far cry from the emails that we still get with plaintive and vauge pleas to “call your congressman” etc… as PeakVT says. The first rule of getting people on board with you–whether in a campaign or a school event–is make them know they are needed: ask their opinion, give them something congenial to do, inform them of the results. People are tremendously busy, and they are under tremendous financial and social pressure at this point. But this means that giving them *less* to do and consulting them less and returning to them less makes them less likely to make time for serious organizing and voting work. It seems counterintuitive but the less you appeal to people as central and important to your strategies and goals, the more they will lay back and say “why should I bother.” John likes to run that cute picture of Obama saying “chill the fuck out…I got this.” I love that picture but I think its a very dangerous message to send your voters. They need to think you need them or they will just stay home–either to spite you or to please you. Both have an equally deliterious effect on voter turnout.
aimai
Ed in NJ
The people who frequent and post to this an other political sites sometimes think they represent the electorate as a whole. The vast majority don’t follow politics that closely in the years between midterm and presidential elections.
When the real campaigns ramp up, after the primaries over the next month, and especially after the summer, the political climate will be alot different. A couple of months of national exposure to a bunch of teabagger candidates will surely motivate Democrats to get out and prevent these nuts from taking over Congress.
joe from Lowell
bayville,
You mean like, a campaign?
The Republicans have been campaigning for the 2010 elections since February 2009. The Democrats haven’t started yet. There has been no effort by the Democrats to draw distinctions with the Republicans, to highlight their unpopular positions and officials, or to attack their policy positions. Quite the opposite, the White House and Senate leadership have been trying to make nice with Republicans in order to govern.
All of which means that Republicans have been able to be just the generic opposition, without having to take responsibility for their own positions and characters – which is fine eleven months before the election.
Between now and then, we’re going to get to listen to Republicans saying horrifying things about Mexicans and war with Iran, and Democratic candidates and incumbents will move into campaign mode.
Mike Kay
@joe from Lowell:
Hear, Hear!
If it was up to the netroots, Edwards would have been the nominee in a walk. Yet he didn’t win a single primary.
The screaming-crazy jane hamshers of the blogoshere does not represent the base. Hell, Hamsher couldn’t even beat whinny loser lieberman when he was ripe for the taking.
bayville
One other thing on money.
Jon Corzine (D-Goldman Sachs) in NJ spent more of his own money this year than any other gubernatorial candidate in history.
The main issue was the economy and property taxes.
Corzine, a former Corporate CEO lost to a guy – a Bush Republican – who was also primaried by an outspoken, fairly recognizable New Jersey TeaBagger (Lonegan, Americans for Prosperity).
Corzine outspent Chris Christie 4-to-1 and in the final 2 weeks of the campaign had a Clinton, Biden and an Obama in the state state seemingly daily.
Christie has zero financial/business experience and never offered even a generic understanding of the financial problems in the state (Ahhnold EastCoast).
Corzine still lost and it wasn’t nearly as close as most expected.
The key: Repubs along with Teabaggers showed up at the polls and the union workers, state employees and teachers orgs offered lukewarm assistance to Corzine (i.e. lots of good seats available at the phone bank offices).
joe from Lowell
They succeeded in a big way in 2006 and 2008 – when they joined forces with traditional Democratic base elements like the unions, the black churches, etc.
We win together. Dick Cheney wins when we aren’t – see 2000.
bayville
@joe from Lowell:
Do you have confidence that will happen? Do you see the under-30 crowd running to the polls again in 2010? African-Americans? Independent Dems?
Do you see evidence this will happen?
Just curious.
joe from Lowell
Mike Kay,
I don’t think she even represents a majority of the netroots, or anything close to it.
Even on Kos, the anti-Obama diarists were never more popular than the pro-Democratic ones.
valdivia
I think there is a basic misunderstanding going on about the *kind* of organization of volunteers that the Obama campaign used and how they view them now. I see very general statements here that none of these volunteers are being used for policy/elections in any way. Huh? The Obama organization was always about empowering at the *local* level, get communities to organize and do the work on the ground. There was very little coverage during the election of this and none now. All the focus on OFA has been about the ‘lack’ of delivering that huge organization into some state of exalted political activism. That is totally the opposite of what OFA taught its volunteers btw. Instead of focusing on the national narrative look at the local events, local offices and then we can figure out how much OFA has failed. The one little noticed and thinly reported fact of the last election is that it was OFA who flooded the Scofavazza district weeks before the election to do the on the ground work for the dem candidate and get out the vote. Just like in the election in 2008 people are looking at the wrong things to assess success.
Mike Kay
@valdivia:
Hear, hear!
Bravo!
joe from Lowell
bayville,
Time will tell. If the election was held today, no, but that’s just my point: the Democrats haven’t been trying to get them to turn out yet, while the Republicans have devoted themselves full time to getting their voters riled up.
I think the Democrats have quite a bit of time, and quite a bit of material, that they can use over the next year. I think they’ve got everything they need to do the job.
valdivia
@Mike Kay:
glad to see I am not the only one who thinks this! I spent most f the 2008 election reading Giordano and a lot of OFA people commented there, also we had a lot of people who went to the OFA organizer training. The narrative that is told today about how the election was won and how that army or volunteers came to be seems to me totally unrelated to what i came to know from the OFA model. Also–there is a conflation going on between what people call ‘the base’, the netroots and the people that worked with OFA, these groups are *not* one and the same and while there may be some overlap my experience is that it’s not of the size some people think it is, but much much smaller.
Brien Jackson
@aimai:
So, in other words, it’s a pretty typical midterm and the naive set tht got excited by a Presidential election is upset after facing the reality of American government, and instead of looking for ways to change the system they’re giving up. No one could have predicted…
joe from Lowell
I also think that the play-nice-with-Republicans strategy of 2009 was specifically designed to get the ARRA and HCR bills passed, and that we’ll see a more robustly-Democratic legislative agenda in Congress in 2010. Fights like that rile up bases.
Already, the White House and Senate leadership are saying that they don’t think the Republicans are serious about bipartisanship. We’re going to see the Republicans take to the barricades to stop DADT repeal, financial regulation, immigration reform, Democratic-style health care bills in the manner of SCHIP expansion, and another budget – while the Democrats start tying them to Bush again.
Brien Jackson
@Mike Kay:
I think it’s a rather odd dichotomy. If you’re not going to vote for Democrats because you’re disillusioned with the system of government, you’re not really an activist, and you certainly can’t be considered the electoral base of the Democratic Party.
Brien Jackson
@joe from Lowell:
My guess is that 2010 is going to involve some sort of second stimulus/jobs bill that Democrats will be happy to pass on a party line vote, and some financial regulation bill that Congressional liberals/the White House may draw hard lines on relative to the GOP and conservadems. But yeah, 2009 wasn’t really a good year for hardass legislative posture relative to what was on the agenda.
Capri
Since the election, the Tippecanoe Co. Yes We Can group has been meeting regularly. There have been a bunch of picnics and a letter writing group. The day before the Senate HC vote somebody from Iowa called me to ask me to call Senator Bayh to ask him to vote for the bill.
What makes everyone think this has gone away? It hasn’t where I live.
DougJ
If you’re not going to vote for Democrats because you’re disillusioned with the system of government, you’re not really an activist, and you certainly can’t be considered the electoral base of the Democratic Party.
I agree.
mistermix
All this Republican wishful thinking about 2010=1994 misses two important points.
First, in ’94, Congress had been in the Democrats’ hands for a couple of decades, so “throw the bastards out” made a lot more sense back then.
Second, Republicans had a positive agenda, called the “Contract with America”, which gave voters a reason to support a (possibly) mediocre Republican as another vote for overall change.
Neither of these factors is relevant to 2010. Congress just recently went Democratic, and the Republican agenda is to simply negate everything Democrats support, to an almost comical extreme.
I’m not saying that Republicans won’t gain seats, but they won’t do it without big money and good candidates. I haven’t seen much of either so far.
Brien Jackson
@valdivia:
I never really understood what people imagined OFA was supposed to do outside of election campaigns. I mean, it’s not like you can organize get out the vote drives for cloture votes or something, nor are you going to move mass amounts of public opinion going door to door in neighborhoods where people vote infrequently. There just isn’t really any such thing as “organizing” on legislation.
JGabriel
DougJ:
Since corporations tend to give money to incumbents, one would expect wave years to feature a greater number of winners who have “come from behind” financially.
That said, I really don’t think the House elections are going to change much this year. People may not be happy with Democrats, but they remember who caused this mess, and they’re not likely to vote in many more Republicans. In any event, give a few or lose a few, Dems will stay in charge of the House and the overall dynamic is not going to much change.
The Senate is a little more worrying. It’s not that there’s going to be a huge change in numbers there, either, but that even a small change may have huge effects. One to three more Senators on the Dem side could really pave the way for more progressive reform; but one to three less could give the Republicans just enough leeway to permanently block the Senate from accomplishing anything, which seems to be GOP’s goal.
And right now, the “one to three less” is looking to be the more likely outcome.
.
WereBear
Part of the money thing is that if an opponent can be painted as “buying” the seat, it works against them. It helps if the candidate is one of those wacky millionaires, as they often are.
I think trying to get people charged up about the midterms now would be wasted effort. You need to get them peaking at the right time.
Of course, I say this as a mostly contented Obot. I don’t have any “buyer’s remorse” because I am basically getting what I expected to get. And as far as buying goes, I know I didn’t want McCain.
I shudder and get sick to my stomach at the thought of where we would be now; in another Great Depression, with a few more wars cranked up, and slow doom simmering on the back of the stove.
valdivia
@Capri:
this, exactly what I mean.
@Brien Jackson:
yes and also that the things that do get done are not the things people how are yelling about the loss of the base pay attention to. They seem to want a Republican style offensive. OFA was/is about something else. Community organizing? Yeah, that thing.
Brien Jackson
I think it’s interesting that we’re having all of these “Democrats are doomed” conversations roughly two months after they won NY-23 for the first time in more than a century. Just saying.
aimai
I think Valdivia’s point is rather off the mark–or exactly the opposite of what I, and I think other people, are arguing. OFA relied heavily on the grassroots/ordinary people to get excited and figure out what worked at the local level. That’s the whole point. I see none of that now. But I dont’ think that’s because Obama and the top level can’t start that excitement, or use it *at this point in the campaign cycle* but because they are *refusing to do so* and when local people come forward/have ideas/want to do something they are being shown the door or told to sit down and wait for the grown ups to get ready and tell them what to do.
That, to me, was the extremely explicit message sent out by Obama and the top dems when they got into power and told MoveOn etc… and all the outside groups to sit down and shut up. That was necessary during the campaign because of the necessity of staying on message. And clearly the top level feared a teabagger like uncontrollable movement of local people that they wouldn’t be able to control on issues like–say, the public option or medicare expansion or the hot button of the cadillac health care tax. Because if you are going to empower the local level to pursue grassroots organizing and solutions you run the risk that the most vocal and effective elements in one area are going to undercut your outreach to/compromises with another area.
I hate happy happy complaisant talk. What we are seeing is, of course, the mid term result of the Republicans running a permanent campaign and the democrats running a sporadic one. No one is surprised by this, we are just disappointed. Elections aren’t won only in the year up to them or when the Democrats get their shit together–they are frequently lost two years in advance. Especially when they are won or lost on a money *and* enthusiasm gap.
aimai
kay
@aimai:
That’s the job of local and state leaders, not the national apparatus.
That’s always been true, too. Always. Local and state leaders will use the OFA database, just like they used the Kerry database, which was huge. Kerry got no credit, but he brought lots and lots of younger voters in. Obama didn’t invent that, he built on it. I know because we used the Kerry database in Ohio. We used it in ’06 and again in ’08.
I’m sorry aimai, but I simply do not understand activists who don’t see this as a process, but instead see it as a series of isolated elections. That’s a recipe for short-term thinking. It’s a recipe for despair and losing. Why are we even looking at ’94? The whole field is different, the opposition is different, the demographics are different, and the challenges are different.
Obama did not build the Democratic Party, back from the nadir. He just didn’t. Not only that, he doesn’t claim to have built it. That’s the media analysis but it’s facile and just wrong. It took years. It will take constant adjustment and constant local Party building. It’s always grunt work.
I don’t expect media to know this, but I expect activists to have some actual experience to call on to inject some reality into whatever theme the GOP and media are selling.
JGabriel
Jackmormon:
This bears a little more analysis. We should keep in mind that the Obama campaign didn’t focus on the promise of quick fixes — it focused on the power of organization to achieve major changes over time and with hard work.
I suspect that focus may help Obama/the Democrats keep more young voters coming to the polls, at least for the next two elections, than we did in previous waves of young voter participation. Obviously, it would be folly to rely on expectations that differ drastically from historical norms. But this new generation voted for somebody, and their guy won. Winning tends to reinforce the idea that your vote matters.
So I won’t be at all surprised if the latest generation of new voters proves to be less fragile than earlier generations, and continues to turn out in greater numbers than expected.
.
Brien Jackson
@aimai:
And with all due respect, that’s why a lot of us think the internet DFH’s talking about being disappointed or whatever are rather childish. It’s not that you’re wrong, per se, it’s that that’s the trade off you make for being responsible adults interested in governing. You can go for perpetual campaigning when you’re the minority, or when you’re a party that just doesn’t care about serious governing like the GOP, but when you have the majority and you are interested in effective governance, you’re not going to be able to run a permanent campaign. You’re going to get a sporadic one.
Of course they do, because perpetual emotional outrage only works when you’re the opposition, or to rile up the wingnuts on each side. It just doesn’t work for the majority party in the broad sense.
I don’t know what this means.
Brien Jackson
To point out the obvious, Obama and national Democrats want MoveOn to be marginalized because they don’t want another Betrayus moment. Or Lieberman blackface for that matter.
valdivia
sorry aimai I think you and I see elections, politics in completely opposite ways. You see OFA getting in the way of the people that got them elected. Instead I see a select group of very active progressives who think they got the president elected and think they *alone* are speaking for the millions of people who were brought in to knock on doors make calls etc. I don’t see that at all. If you go into the OFA site there are events–small things people who are focused on the grand fight against the betrayal by Obama ignore and don’ see as important–pretty much all over the country. The OFA model, which as kay points out is building up on something else, builds on the idea that people who are *not* political and who are connected in other ways can come together for political reasons when the time is right. I guess we will see how this works in 2010.
Your contention that election are lost 2 years in advance is ludicrous. Really, all congressional elections are lost the minute the guy/woman goes to congress? Let’s not conflate presidential with mid term elections. The truth is that none of us know for a fact what OFA has been doing planning for 2010 right? They pretty much operate off radar until the machine starts working. Plouffe is not a leave it to chance guy.
valdivia
@kay:
just wanted to acknowledge what you said and second it.
@Brien Jackson:
and what you said. this exactly.
Mike Kay
@WereBear:
BUT I WANT MY PONY!!1!11!!!
kay
@aimai:
One of the most productive local meetings I have ever attended was the meeting a week after Kerry lost. The place was packed. Some of them were younger, it was their first loss, and they were completely devastated by it, but they showed up. Not all of them, but more than when we started in ’04. I saw those people again at the meeting to organize for the 2008 primary, plus the Obama recruits. It doesn’t begin anew with each win or loss. There were a hard-core group that showed up for the ’06 elections, too. We don’t have to approach each election as if we’re starting from scratch. They’re not even the same voters as were around in 1994, if we’re talking about very young people. Here locally, they have the Kerry loss, the Ohio wins in ’06, and the Obama win in ’08. They’re not carrying around the whole sorry history of the Democratic Party, nor do they care about that.
sloan
An odd quote from NRCC executive director Guy Harrison:
Does Harrison really believe the teabaggers are a bunch of independent non-partisans who just want to make a positive contribution to our political discourse? Ha. Ha. Ha.
They are self-hating Republicans who are so ashamed of their party affiliation they’ve created the Tea Party Patriot identity for the time being, and will drop it as soon as Republicans are back in power.
This began in 2006, when the post-midterm talking point was “Democrats didn’t win, conservatives didn’t lose”. Republicans defended their ideology, denied their party affiliation and began to describe themselves as “independent conservatives”. It happened again in 2008, when conservatives blamed something they called “Republicanism” for the failures of the conservative policies implemented by the GOP.
It has now grown to the point where we have former GOP House leader Dick Armey holding rallies on the National Mall with current Republican House members and thousands of Republican activists wearing their Reagan/Palin t-shirts, all pretending to not be Republicans. Who do they think they’re fooling?
On the other hand, if he’s right about them being “not that much different” from Perot voters then he’s in for a world of hurt. I’d like nothing better than to see a Nov. 2 kamikaze teabagger attack on the GOP.
aimai
I think we are all talking past each other–Brien Jackson and I have a long history of doing so. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the term OFA–I’m talking about *exactly* what Kay and valdivia are talking about: local events, locally organized. I’m not talking about the DFH’s or about the people you think I’m talking about at all. I’m not talking about Jane Hamsher or the people who want to take their votes and go home. I’m talking about the ordinary schmoes who are, as yet, unengaged. They got out and voted, their friends were voting, they got out and danced, sang, donated etc.. *and then they were left unorganized and uncontacted.* Blame the local people if you want. I blame the people at the top. Once you had a machine, which they did, you have a duty to use it or lose it. That was Dean’s fifty state strategy–go out, get people excited, run people at the local level, run for dog catcher. ETc..etc..etc…
I think we had a golden opportunity to keep people invested and interested. I’m sorry that Brien Jackson hates all that tedious theater and emotionality and thinks that the only thing that comes out of that is evil teabaggers and demagoguery. That’s just silly and historically wrong, and, of course, anti democratic–people need to be asked to participate, they need to be helped and encouraged to participate and sometimes you run the risk that they will do something untidy, or ugly, or impolitic or–god forbid–risky and progressive too. I’m not talking about Jane Hamsher, I’m talking about voters and unregistered voters. Just people. I went doorknocking for dean and for kerry. I like voters. And I feel for people who feel so discouraged and ignored that they don’t even register to vote.
The democratic party *as a party* has a terrible history of failing to organize people, or to let them organize themselves, long in advance of elections. I should know–I’m a member of my ward. So please, stop lecturing me and the imaginary hasty, hysterical, DFH’s/Jane Hamsher/straw interloctuors on how we “want what we want now!” or whatever the fuck way you have of dismissing perfectly obvious points–which you yourselves are making–about how difficult and long term the organizing has to be to win elections. I specifically said elections are won or lost years in advance. Did you not read that? are you incapable of imagining that other people commenting on this thread have the slightest history in politics or understanding of things besides yourselves?
aimai
kay
@sloan:
All true, and I hate to say it, but Democrats fell for it too, with the reliance on Party identification numbers post-Bush.
All of those Republicans did not become political independents. They became Republicans reluctant to self-identify as Republicans, and they (predictably, I think) went back to admitting it once a little of the stink was off.
There’s no practical difference between a tea partier and a Republican. None. They’re not voting for Democrats. They may also primary Republicans, but they’re never, ever voting for a Democrat. They despise conservative Democrats slightly more than they despise moderate Republicans. Considering these people “persuadable” is a waste of time, especially as there are real independents, who are persuadable.
kay
@aimai:
They were exhausted, aimai. Understandably. We asked a lot of them.
I am just now getting emails on what we’re doing (nothing, yet, and we won’t, unless I start something) for the next Senate race.
I’ll find the local or regional contact for OFA, and use whatever they got. I don’t even want them managing my county. That was one of the problems with Kerry, and the Obama campaign learned from that. They let us run it. We like that. I resented the Kerry organizers. They were rigid as hell.
I’m a volunteer, by the way. I don’t want to give the impression I’m some plugged-in big shot, or on anyone’s payroll. I’m just local.
valdivia
but aimai on *what* basis are you saying all these people were abandoned after they voted? some of those people will never be permanent politically active people, the ones that are and want to be are plugged in. You seem to want a *permanently* mobilized society, that is not how things work though (unless you live in a place like Venezuela).
aimai
Kay,
I’m local too. And I’m not a professional organizer–just one of those footsoldier types. I’ve been dissapointed with the Obama people because it seemed to me that they had, very briefly, had a potentially significant *social network* and let it drop by the wayside. I’m an anthropologist and I have a professional interest in, and love for, social networks and their ability to bring out the best in people. Its one of the places that, to my mind, the democrats have been most useless because of their inability to make inroads into the few places where people can easily be organized. Schools, churches, local organizations, family connections, etc… I think the Obama voters were brilliant at creating moments–parties, celebrations, actions, events that enabled people to come together as novel friends and aquaintances and feel like they were getting something done. Those relationships need to be nurtured so that they can be called upon next time, for the next election.
As someone said when they were doorknocked close to the election “my vote is spoken for already…” by the time the dems usually get around to doing the work of persuading people its often too late. I do think the Dems are finally learning. There was tons of information and organizational stuff that, on a state by state level, was done and lost before Kerry transferred stuff to Obama. Now the question is what is happening with/to the Obama stuff.
I don’t know, but I’m not happy with the way communication has come down to me, a low level organizer and fundraiser, and I’m not happy with the way the enthusiasm and the unique excitement of the election has been allowed to bleed away. I’m a huge supporter of Obama and the Dems–I’m not the problem and I’m not arguing that we should make any absurd linkages with disaffected republican teabaggers. I’m just arguing that I wish we would realize that there is disaffection, disinterest, and let down–that’s what the polls are arguing–and if we don’t want to have a heavy hill to climb in the next few months we have to get our act in gear in the next few months to rev up people’s feelings of commitment to, and happiness with, their democratic majority or we risk losing it.
aimai
kay
@aimai:
It’s just frustrating. One of the main complaints with the Kerry campaign was it wasn’t local enough. The Obama campaign learned from that, and listened to local people. There was a lot of crankiness from older Democrats because they were used to directives from Command Central, and they were freaking out a little with all that responsibility, but they got over it. The grumbling about the change in yard sign policy was just ridiculous, as an example. People were stomping off over the fact that we were supposed to find our own yard signs, and estimate how many we needed. I always thought the whole yard sign obsession was wildly over-rated, so I was completely baffled by the anger. I had plenty of yard signs with Kerry. What I didn’t have was a list of new people to distribute them to.
Now we’re back to wanting a top-down organization, because we’ve hit a rough patch? What do we want? Do we want the freedom to run this ourselves? I think I do.
aimai
Valdivia,
We cross posted so I didn’t see that comment. No, I don’t want a “permanently mobilized society” like Venezuela, nor am I some kind of closet socialist. I’m just a person who thinks that people like to be engaged by the things that engage them. There’s a reason that the Democrats send out things–like pictures of the president and cards and stuff to anyone they think ever voted democratic. Its not because I’m a special kind of political person (delusional) that I think people are political like me. I don’t believe that. I’m totally off the charts with my political interests. But people are people–they get called on for lots of stuff in their lives, they do lots of stuff in their lives. If you want to turn people out to vote every two years you’d better figure out what motivates them. On the right: spite, anger, racism, fear, religious bigotry. OK, sure. They’ve got that down cold. On the left we had: hope, change, honesty, science, out of Iraq, stop screwing up. All very good things. Now the dems have to figure out how to motivate the same voters and some new ones all over again. This isn’t some weird math problem I’m setting–its just the reality of the situation. Don’t shoot th messenger: the big D democrats are as aware of it as I am. As for me, all I’m suggesting is that when you have a very successful grassroots movement, whether its weight watchers or Obama for America you need a constant stream of back and forth gestures: prizes, contacts, information, conversation to keep people motivated and hooked in.
I don’t think of politics as a special realm unlike any other endeavour people engage in. Its just like lots of other social activities and we have a wealth of data from corporations and social movements on how to keep people engaged. I’m sorry if this spoils everyone’s notions that there’s the activists (boo, hiss, unrealistic dreamers that they are) and the “grassroots” (variously understood as unrealistic dreamers and nutcases and the salt of the earth) and then “the voters” who “are tired” and can wait until mid 2010 to have their interests addressed or their needs bought off or their pockets picked. I think if Obama and the national dems want to hold on to their majority they had better figure out how to fight for that majority county by county at the local level, in individual households, among different demographics. There’s lots of ways to do it but there’s no way to do it if we keep pretending that its just going to magically happen.
aimai
aimai
Valdivia,
We cross posted so I didn’t see that comment. No, I don’t want a “permanently mobilized society” like Venezuela, nor am I some kind of closet fascist/commie or whatever is the implication of that accusation.
I’m just a person who thinks that people like to be engaged by the things that engage them. There’s a reason that the Democrats send out things—like pictures of the president and cards and stuff to anyone they think ever voted democratic. Its not because I’m a special kind of political person (delusional) that I think people are political like me. I don’t believe that. I’m totally off the charts with my political interests. But people are people—they get called on for lots of stuff in their lives, they do lots of stuff in their lives. If you want to turn people out to vote every two years you’d better figure out what motivates them. On the right: spite, anger, racism, fear, religious bigotry. OK, sure. They’ve got that down cold. On the left we had: hope, change, honesty, science, out of Iraq, stop screwing up. All very good things. Now the dems have to figure out how to motivate the same voters and some new ones all over again. This isn’t some weird math problem I’m setting—its just the reality of the situation. Don’t shoot th messenger: the big D democrats are as aware of it as I am. As for me, all I’m suggesting is that when you have a very successful grassroots movement, whether its weight watchers or Obama for America you need a constant stream of back and forth gestures: prizes, contacts, information, conversation to keep people motivated and hooked in.
I don’t think of politics as a special realm unlike any other endeavour people engage in. Its just like lots of other social activities and we have a wealth of data from corporations and social movements on how to keep people engaged. I’m sorry if this spoils everyone’s notions that there’s the activists (boo, hiss, unrealistic dreamers that they are) and the “grassroots” (variously understood as unrealistic dreamers and nutcases and the salt of the earth) and then “the voters” who “are tired” and can wait until mid 2010 to have their interests addressed or their needs bought off or their pockets picked. I think if Obama and the national dems want to hold on to their majority they had better figure out how to fight for that majority county by county at the local level, in individual households, among different demographics. There’s lots of ways to do it but there’s no way to do it if we keep pretending that its just going to magically happen.
aimai
Brien Jackson
@aimai:
Apparently we’re not talking past each other at all, because this is exactly what I’m saying you can’t really do. There’s just nothing to “use them” for at the moment. I suppose you could look for stuff just for the sake of doing things, but then you run the risk of burnout. And you’re still ignoring the inflating effect of Presidential elections on volunteering.
Well, ok, I like voters too. And I feel bad for people who get frustrated by the systems of American governance, I get frustrated by them too. But feeling bad for those people because they get worked up with idealism before the reality of governing isn’t an answer to anything, unless you’re looking for an outrage fix.
And how exactly do you organize people for an election before there’s any campaigning going on? How do you keep the average volunteer interested when there’s nothing to do but set up a Jefferson-Jackson dinner?
Not at all. Rather, I’m explicitly saying that you, and Dean too, for that matter, are just wrong about the way federal elections are won and lost.
aimai
Kay,
I remember the yard sign thing too. But, funnilly enough, that yard sign thing was, in its own way, a top down directive. Because it was true everywhere, it wasn’t generated locally and spontaneously. I see that you think we are having some kind of argument about “old dems” vs. “new dems” and maybe “old people” vs “bright young things?” And I take it that I am cast in the role of the old style pol, who wants top down directives because I’m more comfortable with that while you represent the new way of doing things thats kind of more amorphous and organic?
Because I think thats absurd. Not just because it doesn’t at all reflect what I think and what I have explicitly argued: which is that I see the local excitement and empowerment model being knocked on the head in favor of message discipline by the national dems. But second of all I have sad news for you: Obama and the national dems used the local empowerment model to get national power, and now that they have national power they have to–yes, they really have to –market themselves nationally and protect their market/brand identity. And they are going to do that by ignoring or squelching political initiatives that are local while offering limited partnerships and scope to electoral organizing that gets dems into power without challenging anything. That’s ok. It is what it is. I just wish they would be more aggressive about doing it: that is, try to rally their former troops more, farther in advance of the moment when the old guard gets out and starts picking its new political offerings.
I’m in a blue state. It doesn’t get any bluer than this. I’d like to see more satisfaction with Obama and the national dems, and more excitement with and commitment to the national democratic program. I’m just not seeing it. And worse–I’m not generating it locally either. I do think that’s a problem for the dems. If people like me: long time fundraisers, organizers, ward heelers are not already champing at the bit we can’t expect that in a few months ordinary voters are going to be all revved up either.
aimai
kay
@aimai:
I think the let-down was inevitable. I think that primary and the election that followed was a unique event for a lot of people, and I can’t replicate unique events, and either can Obama. My father is ancient, and he thinks it was the most riveting election he’s ever experienced. By the end of the primary he was peering over my shoulder looking at county by county results in Indiana. He was a wreck, and his whole persona is “nothing surprises me”. He had me looking up the TOTAL population of Gary, Indiana at one point, so he could guestimate the votes still out. This is not his regular behavior.
I’m also not lumping you in with teabaggers. I always read and thoroughly enjoy your posts.
I have to get off my ass and contact the people from ’08, and see if they’re interested in a Senate race, because they seem to be. I’m not worrying about the national plan.
aimai
Oh, brien, I get it. When I say “voters who are discouraged or people who are too discouraged to vote” you still think we are talking about some kind of Jane Hamsherite politically angry person who is taking their vote and going home because they are too impatient?
Can you get over yourself? I’m talking about new citizens, women at home with sick husbands, people who are unemployed, elderly voters who are scared to death of what they are seeing on Fox. When you go door to door to talk to people you find people who are *wild to get involved* to be called upon to do things locally. Who don’t understand local government, and don’t have the faintest idea how to get their needs met. I’m talking about long term organizing at the local and at the federal level. And, oddly enough, I’m talking about the politics of the Dean movement and the fifty state strategy which he forced through on an unwilling democratic leadership.
aimai
kay
@aimai:
I was afraid you would take it that way, but it wasn’t intended that way. I’m middle aged and I love the older Democrats. I get along really well with them. I love how reliable they are, and how (here locally) most of them supported Clinton, but they completely came together after the primary, and worked really hard. I love them. I don’t know that I would have been that generous and gracious. Considering my personality, I bet I would not have been. They lost. They really, really wanted HRC to win, and I completely understand losing. It sucks.
That they rallied so fast and put all that behind them was a beautiful thing. The next day they were calling in.
Brien Jackson
Ah, you’re one of those.
kay
@aimai:
The yard sign thing was local. We were supposed to come up with a local number, and get the signs locally. We did that. I met a union official in the course of that who sends me a Christmas card. I used to call him up and yell at him to get me signs. Now we’re like best buds, apparently.
I used to get UPS packages of Kerry campaign lit with the wrong House candidate on it. Thousands of pieces. Wrong place. We spent whole days worrying about things like that.
Brien Jackson
And that wasted a whole bunch of money. But this is basically what it comes down tol you can’t really discuss organizing and ground-level campaigning with anyone who thinks the 50 state strategy was a success, because ultimately everything’s a matter of tautology.
Brien Jackson
Obama’s approval rating among Democrats is sitting at approximately 80%.
Rhoda
I think that the big surprise of 2010 is going to be how well the Democratic majority held; despite the inevitable losses that will occur when a majority expands as it has for the democratic party.
(1) Teabaggers
I don’t think you can over emphasize how screwed the Republican party is if the Republican/Teabagger vote becomes divided. This is what happened in NY20 and why the NRSCC and NRCC have both said they’re not taking sides in a primary.
(2) Independents
They don’t want teabaggers. They do want to punish someone. And those likely to come out are Republican leaning folks who don’t want to be identified with the party right now but will vote for an R ticket.
(3) Democrats
The base is asleep and the teabagging of August illustrated this. After delivering the House, the senate, and the presidency 2009 was never realistically going to be a big year for the party and 2010 is going to be hard to hype because of the large majorities democrats enjoy. However, if immigration and financial reform don’t spark the base I don’t know what will. I think these two issues will be a great way for the party to revivie the Bush message and hit Republicans – they’ll be limited by the corporatists in the party who won’t vote for basic things like cramdown IMO. But the Democrats on whole are still better than the Republicans on these issues and do better w/the populists messages.
The money thing matters. The Democrats have the policies people want and they can run a messaging campaign against the Republicans if they can get enough money. But money isn’t the complete answer.
valdivia
aimai–just to make clear, I was at no point implying you are some kind of closet socilist. I give the Venezuela example of living in a permanently mobilized society because it is, as this moment, the most mobilized society I know of and the consequences of that are not pretty at all and that mobilization has very little to do with socilism it owes more to Schmit (Carl) than people realize.
I do no disagree with you that there has to be a more aggressive effort to get the message across and do some of the things the Republicans do regarding campaigning but it cannot come at the expense of governance. I rather have a party that is governing, even is this is unsexy and does not drive all those new shiny volunteers wild, than focus solely on the politics of what policy and governance do. I would actually like to see a different kind of local effort from the people that complain OFA is not doing what they want–why not educate those voters about the boring stuff that is so crucial but that does not get anyone excited? It is destructive and unrealistic to want the excitement for a one time in a century election to be sustained for sausage making in Congress, But if those people you say feel abandoned could be made to see that the boring stuff matters more than the exciting thrilling stuff we would have a chance.
valdivia
One point I think that seems to be getting lost here: the rare ecstasy of political passion is not coterminous or equal to political support for the President. Its absence is also not equal to disappointment and staying home. Because that kind of exultation is not sustainable indefinitely and it is also NOT what makes governance possible. Making this equivalence is demoralizing to those who still support the president and is also destructive to how politics should be properly understood. But that is just me, who thinks governance is what it is all about, not the grand narratives people like to build.
Brien Jackson
@aimai:
Couple of things:
1. I’m not really sure how they would have been beaten into the field, given that the GOP doesn’t start door-to-door until the last month of the campaign, at the earliest.
2. Going door-to-door isn’t about persuading people of anything. It’s basically, to be blunt, about pressuring them into voting.
the gaucho politico
money plays into elections in a number of ways. campaigns are all about voter activation. getting the type of people who vote for you to go to the polls. money helps you fund operations to contact these people repeatedly and remind them to go vote democratic. study’s have shown that the most effective means of this are public shaming pressure, but if you cant manage that then the more contacts the better. there is a diminishing returns point but its pretty high up there. the type of contact is important. the more personal the contact the better chance you will get that person to vote.
the democrats problem is that the type of people who perform the activating for the rest of the electorate who dont follow politics closely at all are somewhat discouraged. i cant say all or most but an important chunk at least. these are the people who love to talk politics with their friends etc who generate excitement in the communities and among their friend groups. they feel like the rodney dangerfield of the democratic party. no respect and always getting punched in the face.
what are the democrats going to run on that creates any excitement? the health care bill certainly is not doing that. nobody i talk to feels like that bill is going to make their lives any better or that it is a great and grand reform. they flubbed any gitmo issue. there isnt any grand new financial reform. the democrats plan at this point seems to be, “well at least we are sane and only some of us have sold out.” very inspiring.
Tyro
I’m explicitly saying that you, and Dean too, for that matter, are just wrong about the way federal elections are won and lost.
He sure proved you wrong about that, didn’t he?
You can’t have a permanently mobilized populace, but you can have people feeling like they’re regularly engaged– maybe a call to go to a town hall meeting, maybe an update about what’s going on, a note in the mail, or a list of the monthly talking points. In a country where Congress has election cycles every two years and where bills sometimes succeed or fail based on the level of collective outrage that can be ginned up on a moment’s notice, you do have to keep a fairly large base of people engaged.
The Republicans actually pull this off via talk radio very well, reaching 10-20 million people regularly telling them what to think this week, what to get outraged about, and whose switchboards to flood. That’s politics, and if you don’t understand that, you’re in trouble.
A party is a machine: it answers your phone calls, responds to your questions, takes your money, and keeps you in touch with like-minded people. You can’t have a functioning machine if, like a unreliable boyfriend, you only show up once every two years in the July before an election asking for a booty call.
Brien Jackson
@Tyro:
Who? Dean? Of course not. Howard Dean was 110% wrong about the political landscape in 2005, as evidenced by the fact that it didn’t take multiple cycles for Democrats to retain the majority, and that a mere 2 cycles later they have the largest majority in more than a generation. Dean’s been pretty good at making people forget what he thought in 2005 though.
If you’re regularly listening to somebody rant about politics for 3+ hours a day, you’re probably pretty self-motivated politically.