Florida Progressive Radio Tommorrow

Please tune in for another great Florida Progressive Radio show tomorrow afternoon from 2-3pm. Ken will be interviewing special guest Clint Curtis, Democratic candidate for Congress running against the diabolical Tom Feeney.

Learn more about Clint here.

FPC Radio Episode 2: Progressives Strike Back

Obviously that's not the real title (just a shout out to all the Star Wars fans out there), but I know its going to be a great show.

I unfortunately won't be able to participate as I'm helping paint and reorganize Dem HQ (its looking so much better than before.) Nonetheless, I really encourage all of you to listen in. From my sources, a pretty high profile guest will be calling in - so tune in!

You can listen here. If you want to call in during the show (strongly encouraged), call (646) 716-7543 (its obviously not toll free.)

Enjoy!

Speakers Bureaus

One of the many problems I've noticed in clubs is the poor meeting structure. Club meetings have a social time at the beginning with refreshments, then everyone sits down to hear a speaker, which if you're in a Marion club revolves around Social Security or Medicare with the occasional candidate thrown in. Any actual action or organizing is left to "The Board", some distant body of hand chosen people. This reflects the ancient mentality that all the hard work and big decisions are made at the top, and then given down to the peons for implementation. It doesn't reflect that grassroots "from the bottom up" theme that Howard Dean and many progressive activists have been articulating for some time now.

Clubs, particularly those that have been around forever and consider themselves for the most part autonomous from their sponsoring DEC, can be a tough crowd to change. Change in well-established clubs, will inevitably come in increments. For new clubs and caucuses, getting them into a grassroots, bottom-up mindset is a lot easier.

Speakers Bureaus are a way to begin to democratize older clubs and put new clubs and caucuses on the right track. Typically, every club's leadership (or leader in most cases) hand picks the speaker for the meeting and designs the entire meeting. And typically, without any DEC leadership from above, each club kind of meanders off on its own path, cut off from any larger vision or purpose.

With a club coordinator, each DEC can start finding good speakers who are passionate about certain issues, particularly local and state issues. However, here's the catch, each speaker should be trained beforehand in the need to articulate to older clubs the need to organize and do things from the bottom up. For instance, an education speaker can say "We won't be able to get the kind of funding we need for our schools unless we have a well-organized dialog with our neighbors. We won't be able to do that either if were waiting for someone else to do this for us. We as individuals need to get together, organize whether through this club or not, and take action."

Every speaker should have the importance of grassroots organizing built in.

Of course, speakers bureaus are important for several other reasons:

Get Everyone On the Same Page: If July is going to be healthcare month (perfectly timed with the release of "Sicko"), the club coordinator should work with their clubs to make sure that pre-designated healthcare speakers are lined up to speak. For baby boomers, make sure that there's going to be some kind of action item associated with the arrival of the speaker, such as the formation of a healthcare action group (more on this idea in another post.)

Get the Base More Excited: Which would you rather hear, a speaker on Medicare discussing the difference between Part A, B, C, and D? Or would you rather listen to someone excoriating the problems of our current system (linking them to the Republicans), and discussing the new ideas being proposed by the individual Democratic candidates? I would say most would go for the latter, but the former is what I've currently seen in many Democratic clubs.

Deliver a Clear and Consistent Message: I hear a lot of misinformation out there about issues, even among hard working Democrats. Some think the property tax amendment on January 29th is a good thing. Of course, it would probably be one of the most destructive things ever enacted in Florida history. The point is, having a month dedicated to educating Democrats and the public alike (through "open meetings") on an issue like property taxes is important and can get everyone on the same plane. Democrats aren't robots and don't just accept everything that their told (which is good), but they can be consistent and well-armed in their conversations with their neighbors.

The Vision Thing

If there's one thing I see DECs doing more than anything else its short-term thinking. We're getting better at it for sure, but its still a never ending obstacle I see DECs and progressive organizations alike trying to overcome.

How do you know whether or not your DEC is suffering from short-term thinking? Here are a few signs:

Gatherings Don't Seem to Have Any Purpose: Ever go to a meeting, not just a DEC meeting but any meeting and all people do is really just announce things to everyone else? Are people really just talking to hear themselves talk? Do your meetings accomplish anything? If not, your DEC or organization is suffering from a lack of long-term focus or vision.

Everyone Is Doing Their Own Thing: If your DEC's activists are all out doing what they want to do, disconnected from any larger plan or purpose, that's a problem. Every DEC suffers this in some form or another. The term "herding cats" applies well to DECs. So the question is to what degree? If its a few folks - don't beat yourself up. However, if entire committees seem to be disconnected, it maybe time for some strategic planning to get everyone on the same page.

There's Been No Strategic Planning: If you haven't gotten all of your committee chairpersons and officers to discuss where the party should be going, its something you really should try and do.

The bottom line here is that DECs have to have a long-term focus and can't become too distracted by short-term events (special elections, personal feuds, the loss of a club, or the resignation of a precinct captain, etc...), otherwise the organization could lose its rudder and some of the symptoms I described above could occur.

So how do DECs attempt to keep their long-term focus?

Strategic Planning: There should be a strategic planning meeting of the DEC's officers and committee chairpersons every 6 months. The first meeting of a new DEC administration is probably the most important strategic planning meeting, as it will set the course of the organization for the next 2+ years. The strategic planning meetings in between that first meeting and Election Day are there to measure progress and tweak things along the way. Or, if things aren't working well at all, to start from scratch.

Bold, Persistent Experimentation: To many of our readers from the '60s and 70s, I'm not referring to giving DEC members different types of drugs :) I'm referring here to what FDR said in the early 1930s:

"The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."

In other words, keep your DEC and its clubs on their toes by consistently trying new ideas in a push towards the vision laid out at your initial strategic planning meeting.

Keep Reminding Them: It's oh so easy for any member of a DEC (yours truly included) to get wrapped up or swept up by a short-term distraction and quickly forget long-term goals. At every possible instance, remind everyone of the long-term goal: victory in 2008. Anything that really doesn't get us there probably isn't worth the time.

Introducing "Weekend Links"

Traffic tends to take a dive over the weekends - which makes sense being we're all out doing things over the weekend. But - I don't want to deprive our "hard core" fans (I'll give you a few minutes to stop laughing)...

...so I've decided to start a somewhat regular tradition: Weekend Links. This is a compilation of all the interesting stories, reports, and posts made around the web in regards to the main topics we deal with here: organizing, training, and building the Democratic Party and therefore the Progressive Movement.

This weekend features three great links:

Mobilizing Young Voters: Ideas to Win Elections from Eddie at Grassroots Brevard

The Progressive Politics of the Millennial Generation from the New Politics Institute (NPI)

Organizing Online Workers from Shai Sachs at MyDD

Of course for finding great links to things happening in the Florida Progressive Blogosphere throughout the regular week, there's the tremendously awesome "5 to Read" at the Florida Progressive Coalition, not to mention the great daily news roundup over at FLA Politics.

Pushing Absentee Voting

One of the big lessons I've learned for the Senate District 3 special election (which occurs on Tuesday), is the need for the Democratic Party, particularly local DECs to push absentee voting as early as humanly possible.

Republicans typically "out request" Democrats by around a 2 to 1 margin (sometimes even 3 to 1 or higher) in the absentee ballot column. At least this is the story in Marion County and most of North and Central Florida. This means that our Democratic candidates go into Election day with a vote deficit, which has to be overcome by both Early Voting (another area where Republicans tend to beat Democrats) and regular Election Day voting at the polls. And we wonder why we lose.

However, this was common knowledge in the Democratic activist community long before this special election - so why hasn't anything really changed? For starters, things have changed a bit in targeted races.

In the Special Election for House District 49 earlier this year, which was a race targeted by the Florida Democratic Party, heavy resources (phones, canvassers, knock and draggers, etc...) were spent on absentee and early voting. The Democratic candidate in the race, Darren Soto, won that election handily with 52.1% of the vote. Democrats bested Republicans in all three categories: Early Voting, Absentee Voting, and Election Day Voting. This was a district that was previously held by a Republican.

So its possible for Democrats to overcome Republicans in the critical absentee ballot column, but its not easy. Republicans have been training their voters for years to vote absentee, so this has become second nature to them. Democrats on the other hand haven't, and we're thus behind the curve. But, as HD49 demonstrated, Dems can do this.

How do we do this?

In Marion, for the SD-3 special election, we believed that converting our supervoters in absentee supervoters could be done. This was true to a degree. Some supervoters did make the switch, but most are very set in their ways. The Marion supervoter is a much older voter who has a long history of voting at the polls. So why all of the sudden should I vote by mail, regardless of whether it helps the party or the candidate? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to them - a vote is a vote.

So a big lesson was learned: our recurring absentee voters probably won't be supervoters. Chances are, they're going to be younger and less frequent voters. These voters have jobs, families, lawns to mow, etc... Absentee voting (and early voting) is probably a lot more appealing to them.

I'll tell you by 2008 whether this strategy works...

In the meantime, DEC leadership should be stressing to party regulars, club leadership, and club members the importance of absentee voting. Here are the highlights I used to convert several dozen Democrats at the club level:

"Absentee voting is the most secure and safest method of voting." With the new law mandating paper trails, this statement is becoming less usable, but for the meantime it is. We're not sure how long its going to take the state to implement this new law. Until then, voting absentee guarantees a paper trail.

"Absentee voting = Votes in the bank." If more Democrats vote absentee, that means on Election Day, the DEC, the FDP, the DNC, and the campaigns can spend their precious resources on voters who actually need a push (irregular voters, younger voters, disabled or elderly voters, etc...) Democratic voter turnout will be much better, and more Democrats can get elected.

"Absentee voting helps our hard working candidates." Based on the reasons I cited above, absentee voting will help our candidates by putting votes for them "in the bank." They can concentrate the resources of their campaigns to getting more Democrats who typically wouldn't have voted out to vote.

"Absentee voting helps you." Absentee voting, in addition to being the safest and securest method of voting, is also the easiest and most efficient. By calling the local Supervisor of Election's office and giving them your name, date of birth, and verifying your mailing address, a request is made. Voters are done is less than a minute. The ballot is mailed to you, and all you have to do is fill it out and send it in with standard postage. This is the way its done in Marion, anyway.

One final suggestion for DECs in encouraging absentee voting is to use their websites by creating a webform for absentee voting. Completed forms are emailed to the local Supervisor's Office, and requests can be made that way as well. Blast emails sent out from the DEC can push supporters to vote absentee by giving them an easy link to the webform.

Absentee voting is critical to future Democratic victories, and DECs must play their part by strongly encouraging it among their membership and support base as well as building absentee voting into their field and campaign plans.

Organizing Young Voters: A Must Read

College Progressive of Grassroots Brevard has written a fantastic post on the importance of organizing younger voters, and some pointers on how to actually do it. Read the post here.

Supporting Our Young Activists

I'm helping put together a "Come Back Soon" Party for James Walker, an Iraq War vet recalled to duty in the middle of his campaign for state representative against Dennis Baxley in 2006. Therefore, the second part of Party Building Basics will have to wait until tommorrow. Until then, here's a nice caveat to tide you over.

As a 20 year old, I constantly get asked the question: "How come young people aren't involved" and "How come young people don't vote?" The answer to the first question is the start of the explanation for the second question: the progressive movement today doesn't feed its young people - it starves them. Read the article below and you'll see what I mean. Its a constant struggle people like me and many others have to deal with on a very regular basis:

When College Ends, So Does Activism

Unfortunately, local parties can only do so much here. They can put young people in leadership roles, and help get young people elected to local office (building a "farm team"), but in terms of helping them survive financially - DECs are very limited. This is something our progressive movement as a whole needs to address.

GOP Losing Rural Support

For all of our brothers and sisters working hard in the vast rural areas of our state, there is some comforting news from a new poll released by the wonderful Center for Rural Strategies. Here are some highlights:

* A slight majority of rural voters prefers a generic Democratic presidential candidate to a generic Republican candidate.
* War support is declining. Forty-five percent of rural respondents said the country should "stay the course" in Iraq, down from 51 percent in 2004.
* Rural people have a personal connection to the wars. Sixty percent know someone serving in the wars. One quarter say they have a family member serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.
* President Bush's job performance ratings have dropped 10 points (to 44 percent approve) since the 2004 election.

You can read the details here. Rural Florida, and indeed rural America will be a hard nut to crack for us, but it certainly can be done. Don't forget that farmers and rural folks were what started the Populist Party in the late 1800s. The Populists were the forerunners of the Progressive movement of the early 20th century which brought us child labor laws, women's suffrage, trust busting and business regulation, the initiative and referendum process, direct election of Senators, and environmental conservation. This laid the foundation for the modern Democratic Party under Woodrow Wilson, which reached its full fruition under FDR and subsequent Democratic presidents.

It all started with the farmers in rural America as a response to growing corporate domination. Sound familiar?

Building Local Progressive Blogospheres

I've heard many times on Kos and MyDD, that the trend in blogging is towards the local level. This is absolutely correct. While there is still some frontier left at the state level (not in Florida though) in some portions of the country, the real possibilities lay in counties, towns, and neighborhoods. Local issues, local politicians, and local institutions need to be given the same critical analysis and research that the blogosphere has brought to the state, national, and international levels.

DECs can play a small role here. These local institutions are already home to community activists, who in turn have connections to other activists. Just 3-6 people can form the core of a wonderful local progressive blog. Of course, don't underestimate the power of one person to start a powerful local blog as well.

Individuals inside DECs should take it upon themselves to try and form a local progressive blog, which may or may not be affiliated with the local DEC. Each model has its benefits and drawbacks.

Here are some things that a good local progressive blog can do:

Raise Awareness: For candidates, community leaders, and voices of dissent, having a place to get their message out (other than the MSM) is an incredibly valuable tool. There aren't really any big media gatekeepers standing between you and the public.

Activist Recruitment: The blog world is a much different place that the DEC world. One of the funny (and awesome) things we found in the Marion DEC was that there were nearly a dozen people who were signed up on Party Builder, MyBarackObama, and OneCorps who were from Ocala/Marion County, who we had never met before! There are people in the blogosphere (and non-blog people, too) who don't even know that there is a local Democratic Party or Democratic club in their area. As a local progressive blog grows, it will naturally attract these people and funnel them into the local scene.

Hold Politicians Accountable: Accountability isn't just a scarce commodity in Washington! If you've ever spent time at the local level (particularly in Republican-held areas) - things can be just as bad - if not worse. Developers are buying off politicians, people are getting screwed, and special interests only seem to be benefiting. Sounds like a great set of posts! Rather than a DEC trying to set up something like a Government Oversight Committee to send activists to County Commission, School Board, Water Board, and City Council meetings, they can essentially outsource this critical task to the bloggers.

Push Progressive Issues: Did you know there are ways to enact public financing of elections at the municipal level? Did you know you can make your city compliant with the Kyoto protocol (here and here)? Sure you can! But why wait for the national groups to get their bloated butts down to your neck of the woods to make it happen? Local progressive blogs can bring these issues to light, and push them hard. DECs really don't have the time or the resources to spend on issues (they're organizing, recruiting candidates, and raising money to get the right people elected), so its up to local blogs to get the necessary policies in place.

Build Community: Having a place for local progressives to congregate besides the stuffy and sometimes frustrating DEC meetings and DEC committee meetings is a great thing. Local progressives need some place to go to vent, share ideas, and rally. A good local progressive blog can build that critical esprit de corps needed to move mountains.

This is all part of a larger idea I have, which I'll try and expand on in the future, which I like to call the idea of having DECs as progressive lend-leasers. Lend-Lease was of course, the WWII program that we used to help fund and supply our allies. Once again, more on that in the future.
CrispAds Blog Ads

Applebee's America: A MUST Read

I bought Applebee's America: How Successful Political, Business, and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community last summer, after hearing about it from a few liberal blogs as a great new resource for organizers. It exceeded even my expectations. The book attacks many conventional wisdoms that are out there: that policy talks are more critical than community connections, that media buys win elections rather than grassroots organizing. Applebee's was written by infamous Bush strategies Matthew Dowd, Clinton strategist Douglas Sosnik, and journalist Ron Fournier.

Americans are becoming increasingly isolated, and are looking for community. Businesses, political organizations, community groups, and mega churches have figured this out. They do their homework - through demographic data, microtargeting, and long term planning. It is only after these things are accomplished do these institutions build themselves. The name of the game of staying afloat is appealing to niche markets and groups of people. Businesses like Delta have spun off branches such as Song, which appeals to a younger audience. Megachurches have small groups. Because these small groups and niche markets attract people of similar tastes - community is formed.

DECs are institutions which have to pay attention to these lessons. We're on the front lines of the Democratic Party, and its mostly up to us to form these critical community connections. For specifics, buy the book. Its required reading for the Marion DEC Steering Committee. All have found the book to be incredibly informative, eye-opening, and thought-provkoing.

Buy the book by clicking on the picture-link above. Some of the earnings will go to help Reforming Florida's DECs stay in business. Thanks to all our supporters!

What A Good Website Can Do

Expanding on yesterday's post on the need for DECs to have a website, today's post will discuss a few things that a good website can do.

Let People Know You Exist: If you include your website on your press releases, logos, and on most of your materials - this will drive traffic. As word spreads, your website will become the first impression many people have of your DEC.

Voting Absentee: GOTV strategies are slowly losing relevance to GITV (Getting IN the Vote) strategies to get votes in the bank before election day in the form of absentee and early votes. A webform can do the trick of increasing absentee turnout nicely. Just have the results of the website emailed to your Supervisor of Elections. You'll obviously need to coordinate with your county SoE to see whether they allow requests to be emailed, and if they do, what is the correct email address to send the information. We did this in Marion County in 2006, and we had several dozen folks request their absentee ballots this way (including yours truly.)

Recruiting Volunteers: Having a webform for volunteers is another great resource to have. Make sure you get all the relevant contact information (particularly their email address), their interests, times they can work, and any special skills they have. Have the webform email results to your volunteer coordinator or the appropriate party official for quick personal follow up.

Contributions: The ability to contribute online is a quick and easy way for the party to get the resources it needs. However, a slight warning: I've generally found that older folks, including those who surf the web often, don't trust giving online (fearing ID theft and the like.) Giving online is also very impersonal and distant - there isn't the instant "Thank You!" from a fellow warm body. So don't be surprised if your contributions page doesn't make you rich overnight. There are several ways to accept contributions online. The two most used I've seen is PayPal and Click and Pledge. If you're using the Drupal package, the somewhat complicated CiviCRM package is the best way to start accepting contributions.

Build A Strong Mailing List: A good mailing list will allow you to regularly communicate with your support base and keep them informed, drive traffic to your website, and organize more efficiently. With the Drupal package, in order to have an account to do much of anything, you have to give your email address. If you're not using the Drupal package, you can use what we use here at Reform Florida's DECs: Bravenet. I've also seen feedblitz used. I'm sure there are plenty others.

This is a good list of things a great website can help DECs do. There are others, but these are the core benefits.

Update: I should add I will be more than willing to help build or reconstruct your DEC's website. I'll work out a workable price.

Young Voter Mobilization Tactics

Interesting new report out by the Young Voter Strategies site. I'm going to try and read it this week.

Young Voter Mobilization Tactics: Lessons from 2006 House and Statewide Campaigns(.pdf)

If you want a nice quickie, here's the Top Ten Tips to Mobilize Young Voters.

Young Voter Strategies is an excellent resource which I invite all of you to visit every now and then.