The midterm elections are pretty much over. Now it's time to consolidate our gains.
Dean's 50-state strategy was clearly the smart thing to do--not just for its impact on the elections (which was almost certainly positive) but because it laid the groundwork for expanding our areas of influence in the future. Places where the party simply did not exist now have the beginnings of a party structure; people who had never heard from the party before have been visited and gotten involved.
What we need to do now is take the next step. We don't just need a 50-state party; we need a 365-day party.
A year ago, I wrote about the Republicans' use of the evangelical churches as a de facto permanent party structure...and the absence of any such structure on the Democratic side:
The Democrats, on the other hand, exist (as far as most people are concerned) only at election time....Come an election they'll ask you for money, they'll ask you to volunteer, they'll ask for your vote, but the rest of the time they might as well not exist. And that's the problem.I argued that what we need most of all on the Democratic side is to develop a Democratic community--a party that is a permanent and positive presence in people's lives.
Since then, a number of articles have appeared that make me more convinced than ever that this is the way to go. In September, an article by Dana Fisher in The American Prospect highlighted the Democrats' use of paid canvassers to run GOTV operations...and how this defeats continuity and community on the progressive side. The piece explicitly contrasted the permanent, ideologically-driven party structure on the Republican side with the canvassing-for-hire approach of the Democrats.
On Friday, Neil the Ethical Werewolf discussed a 2000 study of the effects of various forms of voter contact; the study found that "personal canvassing increased voter turnout substantially; direct mail, slightly; and phone calls, not at all." The most effective medium is human contact--which the Republican party uses in abundance (through the evangelical churches), and the Democrats have barely begun to tap.
And Steve Teles wrote a great post on Monday about organizational mobilization, in which he made essentially the same argument I did:
I think the Democrats need to find ways, as part of Dean's state party building project, of rebuilding the Democratic party as a genuine source of solidaristic benefits at the local level--to make the Democratic party a more profond part of people's daily lives--more Democratic softball teams, drinking clubs, speed-dating scenes, church social issues discussion groups, hunting and fishing groups, etc.This is exactly along the lines of what I'd like to see...as I'll discuss in some detail below the fold.
Ideally, I think the 365-day party would have semi-autonomous regional organizations that can tailor their operations to local preferences and issues--consistent, of course, with the broader values of the national organization. Each regional organization would sponsor a range of activities designed to build and sustain a community of Democrats. The specifics of these activities would vary from place to place, but everywhere would have three basic components.
The first component is political action. This, I think, is fairly self-explanatory. Outside of election season, it could take the form of regularly-scheduled letter-writing or phone-banking sessions on issues of importance to the (local, state, or national) Democratic Party. There's always something worthy of action--some initiative that needs support or opposition, at some level. This could also take the form of outreach--going door to door and introducing ourselves to registered Democrats in the neighborhood. Making political action a regularly scheduled activity a) normalizes the idea of active involvement in politics, b) gathers a cadre of people to call on at election time, and c) trains them for service in the election. A lot of this can be done in conjunction with existing campaigns by advocacy organizations like the Sierra Club or NARAL, supplementing rather than duplicating their efforts; but whether co-branded or stand-alone, it's essential to have some kind of advocacy that is ongoing and Democratic-identified.
The second component is social events. Pub nights, softball games, hikes, dances, picnics, singles events, book clubs...whatever brings people together. The point here is that one of the greatest services you can provide to people is a social life. This is exactly what churches do. If you're an LDS member, for example, you can move to any city in America (and a lot of cities in other countries) and immediately plug into a full social schedule, with genuinely friendly people helping you find your way. (Conservative religious social networks, not incidentally, are essential to enforcing political conformity.) There is very little like this on the secular side; I would love to see a Democratic-identified effort to fill the void. Again, some of this could be in conjunction with existing social efforts like Drinking Liberally or Sierra Club events (where these are active), but the important thing is that it would bring Democrats together.
The third component is community service. The party would have regularly-scheduled community service days that dovetail with and reinforce the broader values we share: serving food at homeless shelters (compassion, economic justice), beach cleanups (environmental concern), volunteering at women's shelters (pro-gender equality, anti-domestic violence).
The idea here is that the party should be a force for good at the individual level as well as in government. For those who get involved, community service promotes solidarity and a sense of being useful to the community. For those who aren't involved, it creates a positive image of Democrats as people who walk their own walk...which potentially makes people more open to Democratic ideas. Imagine if, when someone asked you what Democrats believe in, you could answer: "Last month we helped plant trees, this month we gathered toys for homeless kids, and next month we're doing a food drive for military families...that's what we believe in." Churches do this kind of work all the time, and while we may not agree with a lot of what they consider 'service' it is one reason they are viewed positively by most Americans.
I am convinced that if the Democratic Party committed itself to building a community of members, and devoted the resources necessary to achieve this, we could become permanently--I won't say 'dominant', because permanent realignments tend to go the way of thousand-year Reichs, but we could be permanently competitive. At the same time, we would have a party that would be--would have to be--more responsive to its grassroots. We would have the best of both worlds, and a party we could be proud of.
[That's all, folks]
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